After I asked to be discharge post delivery, what should have been my 34 week checkup with ultrasound and growth scan was hastily turned into a post partum discussion. Included was me and the Admiral my ob (who also was ob for Finn) and a high risk RN who had been following my pregnancy.

I remember with Finn having to be told over and over again what the doctors thought had happened. It was like I couldn’t process the information. I couldn’t believe this could happen to me, I couldn’t believe the world renowned Mayo Clinic not only didn’t have definitive answers, that they couldn’t stop my labor, couldn’t save my child.

But this time I knew that medicine is mostly just a really good educated guess. Some areas of medicine are more fact than guess, but not obstetrics and not neonatology. It’s very much an educated guess as every pregnancy is different and every baby is different.

In the end it looks like I mostly likely didn’t have another placental abruption.  The thought is that I had true preterm labor. I had regular and painful contractions of the uterus that resulted in my cervix dilating and effacing before 37. Why this happened is unknown.

We had several questions. I wondered if I gained too much weight or didn’t do enough exercise. The ob assured me no those things wouldn’t impact preterm labor. That it was most likely just my anatomy. Would a cerclage have helped keep me pregnant longer? (A cerclage is a stitch to close the cervix). No, what typically happens in this situations is that the women labors though the cerclage. Should I have waited longer between pregnancies? No said the ob, newer studies show that time between pregnancies really has little bearing on the pregnancy outcome, and more to do with the bonding that will take place with the assumed living child.

What we did walk away with was that the weekly Makena shots the Admiral had been giving me in my rear end since January likely kept me pregnant longer. That any future pregnancies would most likely end early, but how early is unknown.  That more ultrasounds and appointments might help me mentally, but truthfully they may reveal very little physiologically ( In fact 5 days before labor began I had a biophysical profile and growth scan and all looked well).

It’s taking me some time to process this information. It’s hard to cope with the betrayal of your own body (again), and the knowledge that Finn and the Captain will likely be our only children. While of course it’s too soon to say for certain, it would be difficult to get pregnant knowing your child will be born early. Knowing they could come at 34 weeks and thrive or come at 24 weeks and have complications like Finn.

Instead I choose to focus on how lucky we are to have even gotten pregnant with the Captain. We know so many that struggle with infertility. We know how lucky we are that we made it to 32.6 days gestation. We know what outcomes look like for preemies born at earlier weeks. We know how lucky we are that the Captain is home now safely in our arms.

It makes me think that maybe, just maybe, the Captain has someone watching out for him.