Things start to go wrong...

I had slight bleeding the day of my appointment with my possible prospective ob-gyn. But I figured I was meeting her anyway...will get it checked too. It happened last time as well and had cleared up on its own. I had spoken to both my fertility specialist and her on phone and sorted out roles. They would do the cerclage together and then she would take over if I wanted to change my current gynae and stay on with the same hospital.

On my way to the hospital (barely a 10 min drive) I felt a gush of blood and got terrified! I told my new doc and she asked me to get an ultrasound done immediately. The ultrasound showed a large retro-placental clot and a low lying placenta. She advised me not to take chances and admitted me immediately to get the bleeding under control. With an openly bleeding unresolved clot , it was not safe to do a cerclage at this time. I had come to the hospital alone, without anything or anyone, just for a consultation and I found myself admitted! Worse, hubby was out of town, in fact had just left that morning. He had planned the business trip because after we met our specialist and she was agreeable, everything had seemed ok, and he wanted to free up the next week for my possible cerclage surgery. I called my mom, luckily she lived only an hour away or so and got my admission and home front organized. I was kept on complete bed-rest for a week or so to see if the bleeding would subside and we could do the cerclage. However, the bleeding didn't stop. The clot was still there and fairly big, but now, my placenta was coming very low, almost half placenta previa. A symptom of this condition IS bleeding and the method to control it...you guessed it cerclage! But with the clot still unresolved, the cerclage could not be done. There was nothing we could do but wait for the clot to resolve. And as long as the placenta was low, I would continue to bleed. Placenta does travel upwards in most cases and resolves itself by the end of the second trimester, but for the time being all we could do is wait and watch. Would anything ever go right!

After a week or so in the hospital, and seeing that the clot was slowly resolving itself, I spoke to my doc about going home. We would anyway have to wait for 4-5 weeks or so for the clot to completely resolve. I would have to be on strict bedrest...but then I had got used to that. The bleeding continued throughout, attributed to the low placenta now. Luckily through all this, my baby remained fine. It was already week 14. It seemed like I was destined for late emergency cerclages. I closed things with my original gynae since considering my case, I wanted to stay with the hospital close by.

At week 17, I went for another ultrasound, after spending the month on strict strict bedrest. The clot had resolved a lot, but the placenta was still low and bleeding. Plus there was a very slight but definite opening of the cervix. At this point my new doc suggested going for the cerclage which would manage both the bleeding and the opening. But my fertility specialist was out of the country! We spoke to her, decided not to wait, and went ahead with my new doc.

The cerclage went in and I was discharged in my 18th week, after my level II scan. Miraculously, the baby was still doing fine, everything with the fetus was on track. Now I only had to hold everything together.

My new doc put me on strict bed-rest, arranged for someone to come give me my progesterone shots at home and told me she was confident of me and just to stay positive, in bed, keep my digestion smooth and take things easy.