Yesterday's Excitement

There are lots of things you hear while pregnant. There is advice about your health; don’t drink or smoke, don’t eat sushi, eat your fruits and veggies, drink lots of water. There is advice about how to raise the baby; don’t hold it too much or you will spoil it, breastfeeding is best, use glass bottles. There is advice about advice; remember, free advice is worth what you pay for it.



Your girlfriends who have been there before you will also offer up advice; get an epidural, the last three weeks are the worst, you need a (insert whatever is the newest and greatest thing here), you don’t need a (insert whatever is the newest and greatest thing here). They will tell you about weight gain, butt spread, gas and vaginal discharge.


And then there are mountains of books, about pregnancy, birth, nutrition, funny ones, serious ones, ones for new mothers and ones for new fathers. With all this information floating around I didn’t really think anything about pregnancy would surprise me…until yesterday.


Yesterday morning I woke up, went to the bathroom and saw blood. Bright-ish red blood. Covering the toilet paper! I wiped again, and more blood. At this point I was trying not to freak out. I went back into the bedroom, woke up Brian and told him we needed to go the hospital. So, at this point, we are both now wide awake at 6 am.


I called the doctor’s office and talked to the doctor on call who asked some questions and then assured me that nothing was wrong and to just come in for my appointment today as scheduled. She said that I passed the mucus plug and it probably just broke a capillary when it came off. I was still worried.


When I went to the bathroom later, there was still blood and some was dripping in to the toilet. That was not making me feel better and my appointment was not until 10:30!! I didn’t know if I should be excited because this baby might actually come out or if I should be worried that something is wrong.


I called a friend to get her advice and she also said that it was normal.


We decided to go ahead and pack the last minute things into the suitcase and put it in the car, just in case. We did that. We took the trash out and took the cans to the curb (Friday is trash day) and put the car seat in the car. We cuddled/ watched TV for about an hour, then took showers and got ready for the appointment.


As it turns out, nothing was “wrong”. I guess it is what is called the Bloody Show. It is mostly defined as: a stringy mucous discharge tinged with pink or brown blood. Tinged…HA. It would have been nice to know it could be that bloody and still be “normal”.


It was a freaky morning but a few good things came from it; we got a practice run at getting ready, we had the chores for the day done by 8 am and we know that the process has started (I was one centimeter dilated)…there will be labor starting at some point. :o)