I am 30yo, 15 weeks with my first. Two weeks ago I started to bleed vaginally, where they found a subchorionic hemorrhage that has separated a part of my placenta from the uterus. That's unfortunately, not the worst part of the last two weeks.

So last week at 2am I was having my usual stomach fullness, but it started to get sharper, and harder to breathe. I wake up my husband and stand up, leaning over the bed with my elbows on the bed and feet on the floor to try to adjust the pressure for some relief. I'm still thinking at this point that it's just a bad gas bubble and am waiting for the burp. But it gets worse. And worse and WORSE. after 10 minutes, I realize this is an emergency. Something is seriously wrong. We start to get stuff together to head to the hospital 10 minutes away. The pain gets so bad I can hardly move, I'm screaming in pain while descending the stairs and make it to the car without waking up the whole neighborhood. I'm start being able to moderate myself and focus on not letting the pain get out of control but I'm just pleading for my husband to hurry and get me to the hospital. The pain has not stopped for a second and has only gotten worse. It felt like someone had ripped me open right under my right ribcage.

I get to the hospital and make it into a wheelchair and I'm doubled over, intermittently moaning and screaming, trying to contain myself but failing miserably. I'm sweating, writhing, begging for someone to please help. They have to get me into a special room because they suspect it might be miscarriage and I'm pleading with them saying "It's not the baby, it's my stomach, my stomach!" Pleading for them to give me something to lessen the pain. They get me into a bed and I cannot lay still. No matter how I lay the pain gets worse and worse and I'm screaming loudly and kicking and writhing. Both hands are clenched around parts of my husband's shirt while I deliriously scream. This goes on for another 10 minutes while we wait for a doctor to be seen before they can start an IV. Then out of nowhere I black out. Everything goes limp and my whole body flushes hot. I don't remember it at all but my husband said that as soon as I went silent and my grip went slack that he ran for the nurses. Four of them came in to start working on me, he said the minute I wasn't responding was the scariest minute of his life, even though he could hear I was still breathing. I started to come to and the pain had decreased enough to be painful but I could relax and lay still.

After an hour in the ER, an ultrasound to both check the baby and my gallbladder, blood and urine tests, they found multiple gallstones. It was sort of a no brainer, since I have 5 people in my immediate family who have had gallbladder removal, including most recently my maternal cousin, who had hers removed 5 weeks after her first son was born.

Now at 15 weeks, all signs point to getting the surgery to remove the gallbladder is the best way for me to go. It's inflamed from the stones even with a fat free diet, and I'm losing about a half a pound a day from nausea and vomitting.

I am horrible at handling pain (I also have fibromyalgia) and NEVER want to experience the pain of the attack I had that landed me in the hospital again. And with my body and symptoms, the chance of my gallbladder infecting my pancreas is high if I try to wait until after pregnancy for surgery, which is way more dangerous for the baby. My OB has approved of the time frame and my surgeon has scheduled it and the reality is setting in. The reality of how painful recovery is going to be. The reality that my hemorrhage in my placenta gives me a 50% chance of miscarriage, and the surgery adds another 4%. The fact that because of that clot, they won't give me blood thinners to prevent another clot that could kill me. The fact that painkillers can put my baby in jeopardy.

I have convinced the surgeon to allow an overnight stay after the surgery to watch me and my level of pain afterward. But dealing with the pain and recovery after that is terrifying.

The part that makes me cry the most is that because I'm under 27 weeks GA, they keep saying that monitoring the baby after surgery isn't something they do, because the baby is "not viable". It hurts to see my living, moving, heartbeating baby on ultrasound and think that at this point, they don't see the baby as a viable baby. I understand it's just a medical term but it's sad. I know they care if the baby lives, but that it's only a minimal level of care. I love my medical team, and it's hard to know that I've gotten so attached to this new life that I'm grieving preemptively.

So those are the two things I'm terrified about and my husband is trying to be comforting and tell me that everything will be okay but it's still not helping. Time will tell and I still have a week and two days until my surgery.

I need support.