I am happy to report that baby’s re-scan went well today. Spine and kidneys all present and correct. Baby was asleep when the scan started, but awake by the time it was over (well, so would you be if you were being prodded and poked and blasted with sound waves). Growth is on track, and he or she (we haven’t found out) seems perfect – and looks like a real baby (there is no reason for me to be surprised by this, but somehow I still am).
The less good news is that the placenta is really very low, and, although many low placentas do move up in later pregnancy, it seems that mine has quite a long way to go – 7 centimeters. We saw the consultant and he has officially given me the diagnosis of placenta praevia (http://www.nhs.uk/ipgmedia/National/Royal%20College%20of%20Obstetricians%20and%20Gynaecologists/assets/Alow-lyingplacentaafter20weeksknwonasplacentapraevia.pdf). He is already talking about a planned c-section at 36 weeks or so, which brings the EDD forward to the week of the 27th May. That’s almost a whole month! (!!!!!) I’m not too worried about that, per se, because it’s pretty much term, and they can give me injections to help accelerate the development of the lungs etc., so the baby will be able to manage. To be honest, I just want it to be OK, so I’ll take whatever advice I need to take to achieve that. I don’t think I’ll feel any ‘less of a woman’ if it ends up coming out through the sun roof. It’s not about me, it’s about getting this baby healthily into the world, whatever it takes. I’d rather avoid hospital scares along the way, but I’ll do what I need to do to achieve that objective.
We’ll be scanned again at 32 weeks to see what’s happening and I expect the final decision will be made then. Assuming, that is, that nothing untoward happens in the mean time; we are on alert to go straight to the Labour Ward if there is any spotting of any kind, where I’ll me monitored for 48 hours to check it isn’t a more serious bleed. But hopefully nothing like that will happen. (Please don’t let anything like that happen!).
Apparently, the risk factors (that could possibly affect me – given that I am not a smoker or a cocaine user, I can rule those out as possible causes!) are age (a factor at 38) and previous c-sections (no) and ERPCs (4 + 2 hysteroscopies, including the surgical removal of a septum). Has my surgical history caused this placenta to mis-grow? Even if it has, there’s nothing I can do about it now.
Wish us luck for an incident free path through the next 3-4 months, and getting baby safely into the world in either June or May. Whatever it takes.
The way I'm making sense of miscarriage 