Bloody show.

So yeah. Don't read this if you don't like hearing too much information, you are judgemental or you're basically just an a-hole. I guess that should really be my blog line but in this post particularly, if you have some weird aversion to blood and guts or four letter words, let me just say you've been warned. It's TMI in every way possible so if that's going to offend you, come back again some other day. In the interest of full disclosure because I know I have several ladies that read this blog that are pregnant, have been pregnant or will be pregnant, you're going to hear the full story if you choose to read it (and it's not entirely pretty).
On the eve of the last night of week 36, we had had a rather un-interesting evening at home. It was fairly status quo. A Thursday night, August 2. I'd been working over in Seattle all day, Justin had just gotten home and started dinner when I arrived home. We had dinner, watched some Olympics, you know, the usual married people life. At around 9:30 or so, we headed up to bed. (What? We're old and we get up at 4:45am).

So far, pretty tame, right?

Yeah... WELL.

Here comes the TMI part:

Justin and I have a pretty good sex life. I would really consider us lucky in this regard and I have to say that as awkward as sex is at 9+ months pregnant, we are still able to enjoy it. It sort of mimics the gymnastics we were watching on the Olympics but, hey, you have to get creative at this point and just make it work. I've been lucky in this pregnancy (or maybe Justin is the lucky one) as I really haven't experienced much shift in libido one way or the other as so many people seem to do. I will say that lately the act has diminished somewhat due to the severe contortion that my body has taken on. But, regardless, it had been a few days so, Thursday night, you know, things happened, we performed some Olympic style gymnastic tricks and all was good.

Until about 3 minutes later.

I got up to pee and felt a trickle down my leg. It was dark in our room so I just felt it without seeing it and my first comment to Justin was "gosh, are you ok? Has it really been that long that I am leaking this much? Sheesh." (I KNOW, TMI, get over it).

So I go into the bathroom and turn on the light and that is when I see that it is not Justin at all. Instead, there is a trail of blood globs. DOWN. MY. LEG. And huge drops on the carpet. And coming faster and faster. SO: freak out, then freak out more when I see that my legs and whole lower body are bright. effing. red.

LET ME JUST SAY.

Of all the things you do NOT EVER want to see in pregnancy, blood GUSHING out of your vagina has GOT to be #1. Whether you are 7 weeks or 37 weeks, I don't care. I don't even know what would be a close second. Can't think of anything. But then again, I'm still traumatized.

I sit down to pee, which was sort of funny because at that point the last thing in the WORLD I had to do was pee (go figure, since I can usually pee on command right now). It was more of an effort to cease bleeding all over my bathroom floor. Of course,  I don't pee. I mean, I performed the motions but it's not pee when you're pissing a cup of blood in to the toilet. Oh yeah, toilet was filled and coated with blood. At this point after several choice words, Justin is in there and is probably freaking the fuck out as much as I am (who WANTS to see this much blood coming out of their pregnant wife?) but remains very calm in telling me all is ok. And I'm all "ARE YOU SHITTING ME? I'M GUSHING!" (Or at least those were the thoughts in my head. I actually I don't think I said anything as I was just trying to figure out what the fuck was happening... I have a tendency to clam up when I'm really freaked out or uncomfortable. It's like my brain stalls).

He then says, "We should call the midwives."

Oh. YEAH. (See, brain freeze). Good call, honey.

He runs downstairs to get the phone number (which in retrospect is retarded because I am sitting there holding my phone, waiting for him to return with the phone number while all the while it is PROGRAMMED into my phone. Again, I was a little bit shell shocked). He brings the number to me but meanwhile I have continued to gush blood. Out of my vagina. At almost 37 weeks pregnant. It feels like a bad dream. I am concerned not only for the fact that I am loosing this much blood, but secondly, am I in labor? If so, why don't I feel it? And then (or maybe this was the first thought), is the baby ok?

At one point at the end of these tense 10 minutes, I hear a huge plop. I stand up, get blood even more everywhere (bathroom, me, etc) but I look into the toilet (I mean, who knows what it could have been but it sounded HUGE?!) and find a giant mucus-y chunk of red. Probably about 2 inches in diameter. GROSS. I think at this point it could be my mucus plug at which point I think a) holy shit we COULD have a baby followed by b) BUT WHY THE HELL AM I BLEEDING SO DAMN MUCH?

Justin then runs back upstairs with the phone number and at this point I am shaking uncontrollably and holding the bloody mucus-y thing which now means there is blood all over my hands and still dripping out of me- luckily the gushing has stopped slightly. The shaking is also a weird reaction I have when I am totally freaked out so I try to dial the phone number approximately 1,250,000 times (or 5) and can't get it right the first few times. Then I finally do and of course, the already programmed contact pops up as it rings (DUH JENN...when you were sane and not completely freaked out you programmed that important number in. SMART THINKING and also: got it for future reference).

The call center answers (remember it's 10:30pm), takes my message and says that the midwife on call will call us back in 10 minutes but if we don't hear from her, call back or call 911 if the bleeding doesn't stop. NOTED.

I am still shaking uncontrollably and Justin (the voice of reason amidst a shit ton of blood), says, "Jump in the shower and get all of the blood off of you while we wait for the midwife to call back." RIGHT again.(I later find out that he said that as he thought that the water might help me...he thought the shaking could mean I was going in to shock. Nope, I just do that...he would have known if he had seen me that day when he was in a-fib at the hospital!) So I get in the shower, attempt to get cleaned up, still freak out and debate whether or not I may puke and 5 minutes later the midwife calls back.

She asks all sorts of questions, "How much blood?" "What happened?" "Are you having contractions?" "What is the mucus-y thing like?" "Are you still bleeding?" and then, "Is the baby moving?"

I HAVE NO FREAKING IDEA IF THE BABY IS MOVING AND I DIDN'T MEASURE THE BLOOD!!!

So I'm asking Justin: is the baby moving? "Hon, he's in you." How much blood was it? "Probably 1/4 cup." (And then I'm all NO WAY IT WAS SO MUCH BLOOD). Seriously, needed to CALM. DOWN.I take a few deep breaths and then I try to lay down to see if I can feel him move but I am shaking so much still I don't know if I am feeling myself or him. She then says, "How about you guys just come in here now so I can just make sure everything is ok?"

DONE. (and sidenote: I love our midwives).

Meanwhile, while I've been talking to her, Justin's been finishing packing our bag because we really have no idea if we are going to have a baby that night or not... something could be seriously wrong or it could be totally a normal labor thing for me and we COULD just end up with a little kiddo. And all while this is happening, I get a text from a good girlfriend who is actually in legitimate labor to which I respond "HOLY FUCK our kids could have the same birthday.." and then mention something about pissing blood. In retrospect, I am an idiot...I was an idiot on a lot of counts that night. The poor girl is trying to push a baby out of her vagina and I am telling her that I am bleeding my guts out and may see her in the hospital if we are in a true emergency situation. Great move, Jenn, way to be a supportive, calm voice! (There was absolutely nothing calm about me that night...I'm not even kidding you guys, I have no aversion to blood but I have not ever seen so much blood in my life).

We make it to the midwives, bags packed, slightly calmer (well, me... Justin has been holding it together the whole time. And really, as much as I say otherwise, I did ok too... just couldn't stop shaking). Luckily by now the bleeding has stopped minus some spotting (good sign). She rushes me in and basically tells me that she wants to make sure that the bleeding is due to me/my cervix and not due to the baby. So she looks at the mucus-y thing (and confirms it is a blood clot, not my mucus plug), then does a vaginal check and finds out that I am 1cm dilated. Huh. REALLY. Basically what this means is that because my cervix is changing and starting to open, there is more blood flow down there and sex exacerbated it (possibly) and just made the blood pool up a bit and clot. It's possible my cervix started to bleed a bit more prior to sex as it started to open and sex just made it all come pouring out. Apparently this somewhat common (REALLY?!?!) And related: this is exactly WHY I post this TMI crap... it would have been so nice to know that what I was experiencing was even REMOTELY common versus some freak thing where I was going to die or my baby was going to die because god knows that's what google would have told me if I could have stopped shaking enough to type in google "37 weeks pregnant, gushing blood out of vagina."

Then, just to make sure that all was really ok with the baby, she hooked me up to a monitor to check his movements/heart rate and make sure that it was not severely raised or lowered and that he was moving (and his heart rate was responding appropriately). Everything checked out great, he was moving and flipping and his heart rate was perfect. THANK GOD. She also monitored my contractions (I had 3-4 within the 20 minutes on the monitor) but luckily they slowed down and we were told to go home and get some sleep (yes, please).

We left by saying "Hope we don't see you again tonight!" and she said, "you only will if you go into true labor!" (She'd told us that at 1cm already it could be hours, days, weeks, or even a month... so basically anytime...I'm still leaning on the longer side of that though that night I was completely freaking out about not being ready yet and hoping to god that labor would wait just a few days until I could get everything in order... well, hello, nesting....again).

It was by far one of the freakiest experiences I've had while pregnant and thank god everything is ok, with me and of course with the baby.  If anything else it showed me that Justin and I will be a great pair during actual labor. We handled the stress of the situation really well (well, minus my shaking and complete idiocy for part of it). I knew that through this, everything would be ok, and that I'm a pretty lucky girl with an amazing husband. And also? Pregnancy is such a crazy ride (I've said that before, right?)