fear is the colour red

I am sitting on the couch at the house where I board, and trying to focus on breathing well and deep. Last night was rough.

I had a long, stressful day at work yesterday, not uncommon when working in the child mental health field. I finally left at around 6:30pm and went to get groceries. I felt a bit uncomfortable in the store and decided to wrap up my shopping quickly and head home (the place where I board during the week). On my short drive, I had menstrual-type cramps and cold sweats because I knew what that meant. Got home and there was blood, much more blood than anyone at this stage would be comfortable with. It seemed like the start of a period. I immediately lied down and called Mr. A in Pleasantville.

It took about 2 hours to get connected with the on-call physician from the fertility clinic, but I was thankful to talk to her at last. She said to take my prom.etrium by mouth, keep my feet up, think good thoughts and call my nurse case manager in the morning.

The blood did not keep pouring. The cramping stopped completely. I was shaking like a leaf in my bed, and poor Mr. A was just crying his eyes out on the phone. It felt so much like things were going south very fast, but I was trying hard to keep calm. I talked to Dragonfly who reminded me that bleeding is common in early pregnancy. My house mates reminded me of this as well. This helped me calm down a bit.

Mr. A borrowed a car from a friend and got here at midnight. Neither of us slept very well, but we were each grateful to be together. I talked to our nurse this morning, who was able to get a hold of our physician. They said that blood work at this point would not tell them much. They also thought that an ultrasound would be too early at this point. She said that an ultrasound today would likely create more, not less, apprehension, confusion and fear. They did move up my u/s from April 26 to April 19. They think that at that point, they will be able to measure the sac(s) and little guy(s) and compare this data to normative data. It is also feasible that a heartbeat(s) could be detected on that day. April 19 is the day I was born. Let us hope that my birthday is a happy one this year.

Today, there is no more bleeding, but a bit of brownish spotting. No cramping. Immense fear. I'm not sure what to think. Will we even make it to next Tuesday? Out of the first trimester? To the birth of a healthy baby? I won't find out unless I keep putting one step in front of the other.

I hope that the embie(s) can hold on.