And the Academy Award goes to....

The 9 weeks pregnant lady who's experiencing spotting while she hosts her holiday turtleneck party and pretends A) she's not pregnant, just fat and B) blood?  What blood?  In other words, me.  Last night.  Holy shit, I can't even describe what an emotional mind fuck I've just been through.  Let's back up.

Thursday I told one of the families I nanny for that I am pregnant.  I wasn't going to tell them until after I told my family at Christmas but the mom got a full time job offer and was negotiating with them and deciding if she was going to accept it.  I was feeling really guilty about not telling them I was pregnant just in the small chance it might effect her decision.  I was pretty sure it wouldn't effect it but I just didn't want them to feel frustrated in Jan after she had already made a choice.  Anyway they were super happy and excited about it.  The dad immediately told me very sincerely that I was going to be the best mom which was very sweet.  I told them it was early and we kind of talked about how long we had been TTC and how we actually finally achieved this pregnancy.  I had been keeping all of that info a secret from them because I was already TTC when I took the job with them and then felt awkward telling them I was trying to get knocked up.  So I felt relieved and it is so nice to actually talk about my pregnancy and have other people acknowledge it.  It makes it more real.

Friday was normal.  I did some grocery shopping after work to prep for our holiday turtleneck party that we hosted on Sat. night.  My sister had cleaned my house (yes, I pay my college age sis to clean my house, it's worth every penny) so I really only had little detail stuff to care of.  B and I did have sex Fri night.  

Sat morning was normal.  I woke up earlyish and taught a pilates class for an hour.  I didn't really demonstrate anything, I mostly just walked around and talked them through all the exercises.  I then drove about 30 min to pick up my dogs meds at the vet and then stopped at the grocery store (again) to grab a few missing party ingredients.  I then went home and was seriously debating taking my dogs across town to a petco that was doing Santa pics.  I really wanted to go.  My husband basically talked me out of it because he didn't want to go.  I decided I was too lazy and didn't want to deal with xmas shopping traffic around town and was lounging around on my bed when all of sudden I felt a little spurt "down there".  I immediately thought, huh, I should go check that out!  So I went to the bathroom and it was blood.  Not brown discharge but full on blood, like my period.  No clots or tissue but definitely bright red and dark red blood.  I tried to tell myself that spotting can be totally normal but I quickly unraveled and fell to pieces.  This happened at 2 pm, party start time was 7pm. Worst possible timing ever!  The spotting quickly subsided after about 10 wipes but I was scared shitless.  I called the clinic to try to get a US asap and because it is the weekend I had to deal with the answering service which is so annoying.  Finally I talked to a nurse who said they couldn't get me in until this morning at 10am.  She told me that they would be worried if I was soaking through a pad in an hour for a couple of hours and that made me feel half way better because it was no where near close to that by any stretch of my overreacting imagination.  She said it was possible that having sex had irritated my cervix.  

We decided it would be more trouble to cancel the party that late in the game and have to make up a half assed excuse as to why we were canceling so we decided to just power through it.  I told the nurse we were hosting a party and asked her if we should cancel it and asked if I just needed to be in bed.  She said that at this point they didn't recommend bed rest and as long as I took it pretty easy it would be fine to have a party.  Then at 4 pm the spotting game back.  It was kind of the same as the first time.  I had another cry and then sucked it up and put on my eye makeup so I couldn't cry anymore.  My sister and best friend (who both know we are pregnant and who I both immediately texted when I started spotting) came over early to help finish food prep.  Everyone else came over and it was somewhat of a distraction.

There is one lady who is the wife of my husband's coworker but they are also in our circle of party friends (ie. we really only hang out at parties not really ever one on one).  We have been open with them about our infertility and because she is a nurse she is really into following all of our treatment and ALWAYS asks me about it and wants to talk about it.  I was pretty sure she was giving me questioning looks at the beginning of the evening because I am seriously 15 lbs heavier than the last time I saw them and my belly is sticking out like it never has before.  My turtleneck dress did not help to tone down the pregnant look and I felt very self conscious around her specifically.  Later in the evening I had a conversation with a different friend about her baby weight loss and working out.  The nurse friend was listening to our conversation and I really talked up how I hadn't been dancing/performing and had gained weight and am now the heaviest I've ever been.  I am pretty sure it worked.  At a later point in the evening the nurse friend and I were talking again and she brought up that she's gained 15 lbs since selling their house and basically being homeless until their new house closes.  So I think I threw her off the scent.

I made it through the night and had one more good cry in bed before falling asleep.  I of course woke up in the way too early morning with insomnia.  Finally it was time to get up and take a shower.  No blood but feeling twingey feeling.  Not really cramps and if there had been no bleeding I wouldn't have thought twice about it but I am of course over analyzing every gurgle that happens.  I cried after I got dressed.  I cried in the car.  I cried in the waiting room at the clinic.  I cried when I took my pants off.  My husband was with me the whole time and held it together which is what I needed.  He sat right next the exam bed and held my hand unprompted.  Major props.  He was scared too though.  The US tech (or whatever they are, nurses? Dr.s?) came in and we briefly talked about how the spotting occurred.  She then inserted the wand and almost immediately said the baby looked great and she saw a good heart beat.  I lost my shit.  I started sobbing so hard I was making the image on the screen shake all over the place.  My husband was squeezing my hand and telling me it was okay.  The heart beat is 171 and I am measuring 8 weeks, 5 days.  So now baby is only 2 days behind (still totally in the normal window), last US he/she was 3 days behind.

The US tech (whatever) lady said I have a fibroid on my right side that could be the cause of the bleeding.  It doesn't affect the uterus or the pregnancy.  I have a small pool of blood by my cervix and the cause of bleeding could be an irritated cervix.  She showed us the baby's little arm buds that are sprouting and we watched the baby wiggle it's giant head back and forth.  It was so fucking cute!  I sobbed my way through the rest of the US and then we went to the small waiting room in the back while the official Dr. on call looked over our US results.  The Tech came back and said the Dr. thought everything looks great.  We talked about moving my Wed appointment to Friday instead.  She said the on call Dr. (not my regular) said it wasn't necessary to have another US but I definitely want one in a week with my Dr. to make sure baby is still progressing and everything is okay!  I am going to be a nut job when I move on to the midwife and don't get to have and US every week or two.

So now I have peace of mind that baby is doing well and I just hope that there is no more bleeding.  Scary, scary shit.  I am exhausted and need to sleep now.