The No Good Horrible Very Bad Day

I have a bumpdate for you I promise, but it has to wait until tomorrow because instead of a bumpdate...

I have to tell you guys a story.

It's a story that I will title, How I Freaked the Fuck Out Last Night and Convinced Myself I was Going Into Preterm Labor.

For starters, I am fine, there is nothing wrong.  Everything I experienced was normal, but because of special circumstances that I will describe momentarily it was really hard for me to convince myself of that last night.

So here's the story.

I flew into NYC last night and to refresh everyone's memories the last time I was in NYC was last September and almost immediately upon landing I started spotting and two days later we found out that a miscarriage was imminent.  We cut our trip short and hightailed it back to SF so I could miscarry in the comfort of my own home.

I was hoping that starting my miscarriage here in NYC would not taint NYC for me and I made it a point to come out here and NOT let the experience ruin NYC.

But obviously there's something of the experience still left in my brain because...

TMI warning, there is a lot of cervix and cervical mucus talk from here on out, you have been warned.

As soon as I arrived at my final destination I felt "something" in my underwear, something that felt eerily similar to passing a clot through my cervix.  Ever since my miscarriage I am UBER aware of what it feels like when something passes through my cervix.

When I went to inspect the situation I found a huge gooey gob of cervical mucus that looked suspiciously like snot.  Now ever since the beginning of the 2nd tri the CM has really kicked it up a notch from 1st tri and has been much more prevalent but up until this point CM has been very very thin and watery, nowhere near this thick.

The gooey gob was completely clear and I was in no pain.  

I immediately checked my cervix because that's what a rational person does right?  Immediately assumes her cervix is dilating because of gooey CM?  All was fine, cervix was very hard and very closed, PERFECT.  So, I didn't worry about it.

But 2 hours later after a wonderful dinner out with my girlfriends I had to use the loo again and once more I'm met with GOBS of thick mucus.  I once again go searching around for my cervix (seriously do fertiles do this?) and I CAN'T FIND IT!!!

So I proceed to FREAK THE FUCK OUT.

In that instant I absolutely 100% convinced myself that I had just passed my mucus plug and that labor was imminent and that I would have to go to the ER again and lose the baby WITHOUT my husband with me.  It was the same apartment, same bathroom, everything was the same and it was like I was repeating those horrible days where I started spotting back in September.

As I said, clearly the past experience with the miscarriage starting here is still with me.

So, because I was SO FREAKED OUT I called my midwife and luckily with the time difference it was only 8:30pm for her and she answered right away.

Here's what she told me, THICK CERVICAL MUCUS IS A TOTALLY NORMAL SYMPTOM OF PREGNANCY.

And when I told her I couldn't find my cervix?

She tells me THAT IS A TOTALLY NORMAL THING FOR YOUR CERVIX TO DO.

Completely NOT convinced I somehow manage to fall asleep anyway and I had terrible TERRIBLE dreams about miscarrying.  In my dream every time I went to the bathroom there would be more and more blood.

IT WAS AWFUL.

This morning with my more rational head on I once again checked my cervix (no wonder my cervix is hiding from me, it's protecting itself from all the poking and prodding!) and once again it was right there, hard and closed.

And then because I'm staying with a friend who had a baby a few years ago and has a doppler, we dopplered me, HEARTBEAT IS PUMPING AWAY BEAUTIFULLY.

So, in a nutshell, I am totally fine and not in preterm labor.  And because I want others to learn from me, for all the preggies, DON'T FREAK OUT ABOUT THICK GOBS OF CLEAR CERVICAL MUCUS in your 2nd tri and convince yourself you're going into preterm labor if you have no other reason to suspect such a situation is occurring.

This community has a downfall.  Usually information is power, but in this instance I wish I was blissfully unaware of people going into labor at 20 or 22 weeks.  

Unfortunately in this community we are all too aware of the tragedies that befall many of our members and we know all the details, we know all about preterm labor and losing babies at 20 weeks.  It is not a story that happened to a friend of a friend of a friend, it happened to one (or many) of us and we've read the details straight from the source.

I KNOW it can happen and it sucks that my brain took me there SO EASILY.  This was the only time since becoming a member of this community where I desperately wished I wasn't and that I was completely naive and had only heard about women losing their babies from afar, like a friend of a friend of a friend lost her baby at 20 weeks and I had no other details.  

I mourn the loss of my naiveté.

So, there you have it.  Just when I start looking at strollers and getting comfortable I am STRUCK DOWN with an episode of pure crazy panic.  

We're at 17 weeks today and I have officially entered what I consider the 2nd "scary" period.  Of course the first 10-12 weeks are the 1st scary period, but somewhere between now and 24 weeks it is no longer miscarriage that is the worry (even though up until 20 weeks it's still technically a miscarriage) but preterm labor and losing your baby in a different way.  The baby having no heartbeat is becoming less and less worrisome and having to give birth to the baby because of one reason or another before it's ready to come out is the new fear.

New week, new fear.

Just 7 more weeks, just 7 more weeks...