# Emergency D&E, blood transfusion, pneumonia...



## egg (Oct 6, 2006)

My story is pretty long, but I'll do my best to summarize what happened.

I found out in late September that I was pregnant, with a due date of 6/10. My partner and I were so, so excited. I'm 42 years old, and this was my first pregnancy. We couldn't believe it!

When I was just over 5 weeks pregnant, I started having some spotting and staining. I had a couple of ultrasounds, which showed a fairly small subchorionic hematoma, but also showed a normal heartbeat and normal growth.

In mid to late October, I fainted one day, and soon afterwards the heavy bleeding began. It continued over the course of the next few weeks, getting heavier and more frequent. They kept doing ultrasounds which showed normal growth, normal heartbeat, and increasing bleeding.

On November 10, I went to see my OB for a routine appointment. I had a fever of about 100 that morning, and by the time of the afternoon appointment, I felt awful. My OB became concerned, and had me admitted to the hospital that evening. They discovered that I had a dangerously low red blood cell count from all of the bleeding, and an infection, although they couldn't figure out where it was.

On Saturday morning, the doctor told us that they had to terminate the pregnancy because my red blood cell count had dropped even further, and my life was in danger. They told me I would have to receive a transfusion during the surgery, and that they were having trouble matching my blood type because of the Rhogam shot I had gotten several weeks earlier. That afternoon, they performed an emergency D&E.

After the surgery, they confirmed that a large blood clot in my uterus had become infected, as had the lining of my uterus - there were clear indications that the fetus was not going to survive. I was discharged three days after I was admitted, having developed pneumonia somewhere along the way.

We are both emotionally and physically exhausted. It has been very painful, but I know we will get through it. We are, of course, very nervous about trying again, and have an appointment with a specialist to find out what the chances are of something like this happening again.

So, that's our very sad story. Has anyone else been through something like this? I got the impression from the doctors at the hospital that this kind of thing doesn't happen very often, but we're terrified of going through something like this again.


----------



## Jenns_3_babies (May 26, 2006)

I couldn't read your story without responding someway. I'm so sorry for what you went through.


----------

