The Longest Day

Yesterday I started bleeding again. A lot. A horrifying amount.

I know this isn't a beautiful thing to write about, and I don't want to drag you into details you don't care to hear. But it was terrifying.

For a week and a half, since they initially diagnosed a subchorionic hemorrhage (which they were pretty sure was not serious), I'd been keeping an eye on things as instructed. Knowing I was supposed to just give it time to heal, but still feeling unsettled by signs that it hadn't yet. Things seemed about 90% good from what I could tell. And then yesterday morning suddenly it wasn't. It was like a nightmare.

We called the on-call nurse immediately. She thought we should get another scan, but the office wasn't going to be open until 10am because of snow the previous day. So she sent me to bed to rest.

10am rolled around, and the opening time had moved back to 1pm.

The wait was long. Endless. Questions and heartbreaking what-ifs flooding my brain. Sometimes I slept. Mostly I didn't.

Because of a very gracious co-worker, Steve was home to wait with me and look after the kids. He worked on study questions all morning and into the afternoon, trying to keep his brain occupied. He got through hundreds of them.

The big kids played, blissfully unaware of our worry.

Finally a little before 1pm the nurse called me back. She scheduled us for a quick scan at 3pm. A few more hours of waiting and we'd know, good news or bad.

I texted Emily, who lives nearby and has children all our kids' ages, and asked if she could take over our little crew while I got checked out. I wanted Steve with me, and she leapt at the chance to help out. So at 2:30 we piled the family into the car and dropped the kiddos with the Evans.

I found I was much calmer with Steve beside me in the waiting room. The last time I went I'd gone through a dozen scenarios in my mind. Thought about having to explain to the kids if we lost our baby. About going forward with life without that sweet, growing baby in our future. Thought about so many things that hurt so very much. I'd sat and cried alone in the waiting room outside the ultrasound room. With Steve... well, it was better to be together.

And then, even with the bleeding, there was a heartbeat on the screen. Our little one, still growing strong in that tiny home inside my belly. Somehow safe from the bleeding. Somehow still ours for here, for now.