36-Week Check and a Scare

For the most part my 36-week appt came and went with no surprises and nothing out of the ordinary. My blood pressure was good, his heartbeat was about 130 and he was kicking while the midwife was checking it. They did the group B strep swab – which was nothing. Then it was time for the internal. It wasn’t as bad as I had prepared myself for – just a lot of tenderness and pressure from the midwife pressing way up on parts that haven’t been pressed on in quite a while. I am 1 centimeter dilated but my cervix is still long and fairly hard, which is good and about what she was expecting for this stage in my pregnancy. That was it for the appt and I’m scheduled to go back a week from yesterday.

Later that night it was time for the scare. EVERYTHING IS FINE - I'll say that right now - and I'm at work. Anyway, I knew there could be some spotting after being messed around with up there but at one point when I went to the bathroom there was blood on the toilet paper – not pink or spotting, I mean blood with little clots in it. Of course I called the midwife right away and she called me back - again right away (which was great because I was freaking out). She said it sounded completely normal. She said to rest and relax (yeah right - I was about to go to the ER, literally if she had not called back when she did we would have been heading to the car with my bag) and that she had probably just bothered and upset a blood vessel since the cervix is so very tender at this time. She said to put on a pad and see if there was any saturation, to watch his movement, and that it should just taper off to brown. And it did. There was almost no more blood last night after the initial scare and this morning there was just the slightest bit of pinkish/brown when I wiped. It was not fun having to be prodded in the first place but that was a heck of a scary side effect - to say the least.

Oh and I have to say that G was AMAZINGLY CALM and most definitely the voice of reason while I was freaking out. He just kept telling me he was moving and even if I was going into labor I was far along and that everything would be okay. He is most definitely my rock and for that I am eternally grateful.