Never Heard of That

What happened is called a placental abruption. I had to google it from my hospital room. Wikipedia was of course full of information, but I felt more at ease with the WedMd articles. Both had the generally same information about the condition, but you can't always trust that darned Wikipedia- according to English teachers you can't trust it at all.

A placental abruption is as follows:

Placenta abruption is a pregnancy problem in which the placenta separates too early from the wall of the uterus..

• In a normal pregnancy, the placenta stays firmly attached to the inside wall of the uterus until after the baby is born.
• In placenta abruption, the placenta breaks away (abrupts) from the wall of the uterus too early, before the baby is born.

Placenta abruption can be very harmful. In some cases, it can be deadly.

• The baby may be born too early (premature) or at a low birth weight.
• The mother may lose a lot of blood.

http://www.webmd.com/baby/tc/placenta-abruptio-topic-overview

There is no specific known cause. There is nothing I did nor could have done to stop it or cause it. It just happened most likely when I sat in the waiting room at the doctor that day.

I was 39 weeks to the day when I went in for my weekly check up.I told my mom and my husband I would go alone, I would be fine, and I fully expected to leave my appointment to come back to work. My OB joked with me about being close to having a baby within atleast a week or maybe days saying my nose was "getting ready" and apologized for them running behind that day because she had to deliver a baby- I quickly assured her it didn't bother me because what if it was me she had to leave to tend to. Needless to say, I didn't know she would have to do such that very day. At 1:45ish I was in the exam room waiting to hopefully be told I was dialating and could have a baby that day. Minutes later I was told there was no activity going on down there, maybe something will happen soon. Next she as usual listened to the baby's heartbeat. I never considered the thought of not hearing it when she put the dopplar to my ever tightening pregnant belly. 

At first she could not find a heartbeat. Never did she show any panic or let on anything was wrong. When she found it, it was obvious something was wrong. A normal heartbeat has 2 beats in a rhythm- every week when she checked it always had 2 nice strong clear beats. When we listened that day. my child had 3 beats to a rhythm, and I was told "go straight to labor and delivery to be monitored. Just go straight there."