Today

The post I wanted to write today is going to have to wait until tomorrow because today was scary. The short version:

dark red blood + mucous = panicked phone call to the OB practice. Waiting for the call back I watched my trembling hands and text messenged my sister to warn her that Monkey might need to spend the night. I also called JD and told him to change plans for the evening. I kept saying "I am sorry."

Nice nurse working triage + upcoming dead baby anniversary + the dark red blood = emergency ultrasound. I packed fast, and ran out of the office heading for the shuttle from The Other Big Hospital where I work to The Big Hospital where my medical care is. I called JD again on the way, and talking a mile a minute, told him that my sister is ready and that by no means should Monkey figure out what is up. We can't ruin this time of year for her entirely.

When I made it to the shuttle, I was suddenly calm. Not blissed out or anything, not everything is alright calm, but I am doing all I can calm. I ran this drill in my head a hundred times before, and now I had run it for real. It takes the shuttle almost thirty minutes to cover the two miles separating the hospitals. Blame one way streets or the route designers adding a strange illogical stop in the middle, but either way, it takes thirty minutes. For those thirty minutes I held both possibilities in my head-- the one where it was all over and I will either leave with a mason jar or a scheduled D&C, and the one where this is a minor scare, a terrible way to spend a Monday afternoon, especially one right before the anniversary, but ultimately nothing. I didn't even have it in me to hope for this one-- whichever one it was was already decided, and hoping was futile. It was either one way or the other. It was. I held both possibilities in my head, in my entire being, I existed in both of those realities.

As usual they were running late. Nothing new. Not as calm now, possibly because there was so much noise around me. Finally the tech came out to call me in, and it was the same tech who did the ultrasound ten days before. She remembered me and she was very nice. I climbed on the table and preped. Warm jelly-- they warm it in this practice. And then she found the heartbeat right away. I couldn't see it at first-- I saw a sack and a mass of cells, but she told me that the heart was beating. She measured it for me. 168. She showed me where the brain is beginning to form, but I am no longer sure which part of the image she was pointing to. No sources of bleeding that she could reliably identify. She noted something tiny at the end, near where the cyst used to be, but she was not convinced it was even real.

The nice nurse told me after that she thought it must've been a local insult to a blood vessel near the cervix. What with 30-40% increase in blood volume it happens. I know it does. But this was red and I freaked.

A minor scare. A sucky way to spend Monday afternoon (and evening-- took me forever to get all the way back to my car), but ultimately nothing. At least for today.