When life keeps giving you lemons, I’m here to tell you, you WILL get sick of making lemonade.
Two weeks ago I went to see my OB because I’d been spotting for about 24 hours. I was 22 weeks and 3 days pregnant. She did an exam and told me that she could feel my membranes. She said I have an incompetent cervix and I needed to immediately go to the hospital where I’d be admitted for at least a couple of days.
She told me that she was going to call a high risk surgeon to meet me and she was hoping he’d be able to place a “rescue”cerclage in my cervix. There wasn’t a whole lot of certainty in her voice though. She was really unsure whether anything could be done. She was very factual and calm, but I could tell baby boy and I were in deep shit.
So I hopped a cab (faster than uber or an ambulance) over to CPMC California. The nurses in triage were expecting me (I started having major PTSD flashbacks of the adria leak and my trip to the ER for the antidote….)
Long story short, I was having emergency surgery within an hour and a half. I was 3cm dilated and the surgeon could see baby boy’s feet coming out through the membranes (which were bulging out of my cervix). Thank heavens the doctor was able to get the bag back into my cervix without rupturing it and there was enough cervix left to work with to insert a cerclage.
I’m not going to lie to any of you. The outlook those first 72 hours was really, really grim, but my body pulled through, and, far as anyone can tell, the baby is none the wiser (though he did get a good healthy dose of narco post-op and a 4-day-round-the-clock-dose of antibiotics via IV to my body).
So now I’m on indefinite bed rest at the hospital. Since I was asymptomatic when all of this started (save a little spotting) my doctors are hesitant to breathe a sigh of relief. We’re forced to take everything day by day and pray for the best.
It’s been 14 days since I arrived here. It’s been incredibly hard not to see Nora, Maisey and Paul all the time. It’s been a major test of character to have to surrender 100% control of everything in my life. From caring for my child, to my own body. I have to be strong every day and remember that I’m a mere vessel. Here to incubate the newest member of our family. It’s not an easy job at all. I was in a lot of physical pain early on. Now I’m in a lot of emotional pain. But when I focus on one day at a time, that helps.
This past Saturday I hit 24 weeks in my pregnancy, which is a huge milestone. Should baby boy arrive at this point, there are life saving measures that can be taken. That was not the case when I first arrived at 22 weeks.
So we are grateful for every small victory and we’ll keep pushing on. There are so many more details to the story, but the above is the gist. We’d appreciate it if you could keep us all in your prayers and hold space for us. We’ve got a long, long road ahead and hope that it’s drama free.
xoxo,
Andrea
Comfortably Numb 