When Everything Changes.

It was raining. It was maybe the first rain of the season, and we were late. We're always late, especially when it's a Sunday morning, and you're trying to get two little kids and yourself ready for Quaker Meeting, and you're groggy and grouchy and pregnant with twins. Instead of putting the children in their rainboots, my husband put them in crocs, and I was furious. I'm talking the pregnant hell-hath-no-fury kind of furious. The kids were excited about the puddles, and they were barreling into every single one of them on the long walk to the car. By the time we pulled in to the Quaker Meeting parking lot, I venomously pointed out our daughter's soaking tights to my husband. Now, she's going to get sick, which means we're all going to get sick, and we just finished being sick with conjunctivitis, and wasn't that fun?

We drop the kids off at the childcare room, and we're wet and cranky and late. I pull my name tag out of the box, and I hand my husband his name tag, and I look up at his face. And then I feel it. A rush of fluid, like I've suddenly started my period. I quickly excuse myself to the bathroom, and grab a wad of toilet paper and wipe myself off and look at it. My mind flashes to a couple of hours earlier, when I flushed the toilet at home and saw what looked like a scant amount of blood swirling around on the toilet paper. I had panicked for a moment, but then shrugged it off as a trick of the eye and kept getting ready for Quaker Meeting. Now, I stand here in the Quaker House bathroom, with a wad of toilet paper in my hand, and what is clearly blood on the toilet paper. There was no shrugging this away. This was happening.

I flushed the evidence away, and I moved to the sink and started washing my hands. I looked up at my reflection in the mirror. I looked ashen, and afraid, and I felt like I was looking at somebody else. I knew, deep down, that this was the calm before the storm. This was my last few moments of having a normal pregnancy. I knew that as soon as I stepped outside the bathroom and spoke aloud what was happening, there was no going back. I took a deep breath, and met my husband outside the bathroom door. He was standing there, waiting for me.
"I'm bleeding." I said.
"What?" He asked.
"I'm bleeding." I repeated, and the tears came.

A few minutes later, we were back in the rain, in the car, driving to the hospital. We left the kids with the Quakers, without much of an explanation. We clutched each other's hand, and I stared out the window and wondered why I ever thought crocs were such a big deal, when life was so precious. Was I having a miscarriage? Was I losing my babies?

We got to the hospital, and I knew the fastest way to the Labor and Delivery ward, having been here seemingly just days ago to attend another twin mama as her doula. Some of the nurses recognized me right away. My doctor happened to be on call, and I was never so happy to see her. She ran all sorts of tests and ultrasound. The bleeding had stopped almost as quickly as it had started. Finally, the question was asked, "Have you had intercourse within the past 24 hours?"

Um, yes. But really, doc, you need to understand what a rare phenomena that is for us, being pregnant while having two small kids in the house. Don't judge!

I left the hospital relieved, but embarrassed. If only I had Googled before I'd panicked! We picked up our kids, thanked the Quakers, and went home.

The next day was ordinary. I took my kid to school. I took a nap with my two-year-old. I made dinner. That evening, I was laying in bed, about to go to sleep. My husband brought his cell phone over to show me SNL's presidential debate satire. We settled in for a well-needed laugh, and halfway through Alec Baldwin's award-winning Trump impression, I felt it again. A much heavier, stronger gushing sensation. I grabbed a kleenex and reached down, right there in the bed. Blood, bright red, covered the tissue. I could feel it sliding down my legs. Full-scale panic set in. I started hyperventilating. I was having a miscarriage, I knew it. I jumped out of bed and started throwing on clothes. I couldn't think straight, as blind panic started taking over.
"But the doctor said this is normal," my husband protested, "I'm going to call her." He got out his phone.
In my haze of trembling emotion, I snapped at him. Something about wasting time calling a doctors office that was clearly closed at 11 o'clock at night, and this blood is not normal, and I'm going to have a 20 week miscarriage while you sit on the phone.

I left the house in a frenzied race, trying not to wake the children as I scrambled about. My husband kissed me, and told me to drive carefully. The drive to the hospital, I felt cold all over. I gripped the steering wheel with white knuckles. I finally got to the hospital and described what was happening. There was blood, a lot of blood, too much blood.

"Sex doesn't cause this." The on-call doctor muttered quietly, and I felt my heart freeze. I knew something was terribly wrong. I knew nothing would ever be the same. I closed my eyes, feeling so alone and afraid. The bleeding stopped, but I was still kept overnight for observation. When I was released from the hospital the next morning, I walked to the car like a zombie. I had no answers, only more questions. Why did I bleed like that? Would it happen again? I didn't have reason to know at the time that my journey was only beginning, but somehow, deep inside, I knew.