I fainted. In the middle of one of the busiest metro stations during rush hour, I fainted. A fleeting pain in my lower abdomen, a rush of blood, and the next thing I knew, I was lying face-first on the cold tile ground of the platform right next to the escalator.
Luckily, some nice passerby hurried to my side–offering to call an ambulance, or at least help me to a seat while I waited for my husband to come pick me up and rush me to the E.R. It was the end of my first trimester, and I feared the absolute worst. Although my head was still swimming, I had regained consciousness and had enough coordination to dig through my purse for my phone. I called my husband and my parents to tell them what had happened.
Hours later, the doctors on call in the E.R. informed me I had a pretty large subchorionic hematoma. A what?
Nausea, restlessness, exhaustion, having to pee every two seconds…these are the things I expected to experience early on in my pregnancy. Par for the course, right? Doesn’t make them any easier, but I was ready for them (or as ready as one can be). But a subchorionic hematoma? I had never even heard of that before. After chatting with the doctors–and later with a high-risk pregnancy specialist (all twin pregnancies are considered ‘high-risk’)–I found out it was essentially a clot formed within the layers of the outer fetal membrane. And while mine wasn’t the biggest clot my doctor had seen, it was certainly far from the more common small “spotting” examples I read about online.
Even though subchorionic hematomas are the most common abnormality during pregnancy, they’re still definitely an abnormalities. Plus, being completely covered in blood (think like a full 6-8 pads worth all at once), I was naturally still insanely freaked out. No matter how “common” they are, the fact that I had suffered SO much blood loss I fainted made me terrified to go anywhere alone. What if I fainted and fell again?? And it’s not exactly comforting to consistently see blood in your liner for weeks afterwards as the clot flushed itself out either. Sure, that was what needed to happen for the thing to heal, but as an anxious first time Mom…I was beyond nervous.
With my doctor’s permission, I returned to work (which at the time involved touring around DC)–only to have it happen again a few weeks later. It wasn’t as bad and I didn’t faint, but I left work and rushed to the doctor. Turns out it was the last of the blood flushing itself out. Great! I figured, Hopefully it’s smooth sailing from here.
…But it wasn’t. At the beginning of my second trimester, another really big subchorionic hematoma formed and burst. Like the first time, there was blood everywhere–but at least it happened on my day off. Once again, I was advised to go to the hospital because of a concerning amount of blood loss. I stopped going to work after that, and the clot eventually healed (it took an even longer amount of time than the first one to heal).
It was a waiting game. Every sonogram that rolled around, I willed for each subchorionic hematoma to shrink. Is it clotting properly? Will my babies be ok? Those questions ran through my head for months, and I didn’t know anyone who had been through my experience. In my digging online, I mostly found medical descriptions of smaller more common hematomas…making me feel like an even more isolated case. Sure, those Moms with small subchorionic hematomas were fine. But what about me? I had lost more blood than usual twice now.
Luckily, that second clot was the last one I got and the remainder of my pregnancy (aside from having an emergency c-section due to leaking fluid a month early) went totally fine. But for any mom out there going through something similar, just know you’re not the only one. When I decided to start a blog, I knew this was one of the first posts I wanted to write–just because out of everything I read while pregnant, it’s what I needed most. I didn’t necessarily expect a guarantee that there wouldn’t be further issues down the line–but just knowing others out there had experienced something similar to me would’ve been a massive comfort. So here’s to all you moms going through this or something similar: it’s scary, but you’re not alone!