Bed Rest

I posted about being on bed rest for the weekend and realized I hadn't really explained why. Mainly because I don't want to be that TMI person on Facebook (you know the ones I'm talking about) and also because I'm still not sure how I ended up here exactly.

On Friday night Justin and I were driving home from Target when a car cut us off. In order to avoid an accident J had to slam on the brakes. As he did (I was looking down) my head jerked a little, but more so  it felt like something in my lower belly had been ripped away. Kind of as if everything was Velcro stuck to a board with matching pieces and something had been quickly pulled from said board. the rest of the evening there was dull pain there, but I didn't think much of it so I went to bed. The next morning my neck was incredibly sore, but so was my stomach. I called my doctor and gotten the on-call doctor, but he said that unless there was a large amount of blood (I only had a little) I shouldn't worry. As the day wore on, so did the pain. Except that randomly it felt as though my muscles *down there* would cramp up and then release. As the pain continued I grew a little more worried and tried to do some research but everything I read freaked me out. By 4pm the pain was pretty strong so I went to the ER.

I've got to admit, I'm not much of a crier. I was when I was younger, but since people made fun of me for it I learned to toughen up and am known in my family for "being heartless" because I cry so little. But I'll tell you what, when you hurt like that and you're worried about your baby, you can't help but cry. I cried when I checked in to the ER, I cried when they were taking my vitals, I cried when they checked for bébé's heartbeat (but that was a relieved cry). I was just a ball of nerves.

They went through the basics checking me and the baby. He was in perfect shape. For the most part I was too. But after they did an ultrasound they found what is called a venous pool or placental lake. Basically, it's a pool of blood (mine specifically being 2cm) between the placenta and uterus. While these aren't uncommon (they happen in about 18% of pregnancies) because of my accident they wanted me to be observed. Lucky for me, they weren't going to do it at the hospital. They sent me home with the charge of staying in bed/rested as much as possible (I'm breaking the rules by going to sacrament meeting) until I can see my Dr. tomorrow morning and get a follow-up ultrasound to make sure it hasn't gotten larger. Apparently these things don't harm the baby (thank goodness) except that if they get too large they can restrict growth and cause low birth weight.

So here I am hanging out in bed shirking my responsibilities (who am I kidding, it's nice to have a mandatory break from Primary, as wrong as that sounds) and reading up on placental lakes as well as a few novels I've neglected over the past few days. If you're interested in learning about them, here is a link I've found useful: http://www.perinatology.com/Q&A/qanda37.htm