Polyhydramnios

I’ll start off by saying that the end of my pregnancy wasn’t exactly as picture perfect as I had hoped it would be. I guess most things about pregnancy are not ‘ideal,’ but I’ll get into that at another time. At my 33 week checkup, we learned that I was measuring 2 weeks ahead, in regards to my fundal height. It didn’t seem like a big deal to me, but they let me know that if I was measuring ahead at the next appointment, we would have to get a growth scan done to make sure everything was okay. 

Sure enough, we went to my 35 week appointment and I was measuring 2.5-3 weeks ahead at that time. I was only 34w3d in the picture above. I didn't know how much bigger I could get. They decided to send us for the growth scan, so we went a few days later when they were able to squeeze us in. It lasted way longer than my husband or I would’ve liked it to. A few measurements turned into a lot more measurements than we thought there would be. The ultrasound tech measured Brooks, and we learned that he was about 6 lb 10 oz according to the scan. Though we didn’t take that estimate too seriously-I about had a heart attack knowing that my baby was potentially already almost 7 lbs at 35 weeks. I was slightly scared of delivery at that point because I knew if I went a full 42 weeks that I would be delivering at least a 10 lb baby. Considering I was planning on my natural birth, this made me a little uneasy. During the scan, when Brooks would move, his heart rate jumped over 200 bpm quite a few times. That scared the crap out of us, and made us even more nervous on top of the nerves we already had from the crazy amount of measurements. From what they told us, increases like that in the baby’s HR are normal, as long as the baseline HR isn’t too high, and as long as the increases are associated with fetal movement. 

They noticed during the scan that there was a LOT of amniotic fluid around him. By a lot, I mean way more than normal. The high end of normal amniotic fluid at that point is around 25, and mine was 31.9. As you can see in the picture above, I was huge by the time I was induced. He still had a ton of room to swim around in there, and we were able to get perfectly clear 3D/4D imaging of him, which isn’t common that far along. It was a bit of an added bonus, to distract me from all of the extra chaos if anything. At that point, I was scared and confused. A doctor came in, and sent us over for an NST, but didn’t really say much to us in regards to what was going on, aside from mentioning something called Polyhydramnios, and that there was a possibility I would need to be induced early. The NST ended up looking fine, but my doctor let us know later that day that I would be going for a weekly ultrasound to check the fluid and a weekly NST to keep an eye on the heart rate accelerations. 

I didn’t have another appointment for 10 days, and the waiting was making my husband and I both insane. I called my doctors' office to ask what exactly was going on. Before I did that though, I visited Google. Bad, BAD idea. Google is basically the devil when you’re pregnant. I’m pretty sure over the 39 weeks I was pregnant, it only proved itself to be helpful 2-3 times. All of the other times it did nothing but scare the crap out of me and make me think either that I was dying or something was going wrong with the baby. Not a good thing when pregnancy hormones are already making you basically batshit crazy. Of course, this time it scared me again. I simply searched “Polyhydramnios.” I started reading, and it basically just talked about how Polyhydramnios is an excessive amount of amniotic fluid. I didn’t get too concerned, until I dug into things a little bit more. 

I saw that it occurs in only about 1% of pregnancies, and can cause pre-term labor, and that if there’s enough fluid it may require draining with a needle. WHAT?! No thanks. I wasn’t too fond of that idea. I then read, that some of the known causes can include a birth defect that affects the baby’s gastrointestinal tract or central nervous system, maternal diabetes (which I knew I didn’t have), a lack of red blood cells in the baby, or blood incompatibilities between the mother and baby (which I also knew wasn’t the case). It also mentioned how complications can include premature birth, PROM (when your water breaks early), excess fetal growth, placental abruption (placenta peels away from the uterine wall before delivery), C-Section delivery, Stillbirth, heavy bleeding after delivery, or umbilical cord prolapse (when the cord drops into the vagina ahead of the baby). 

All of that scared me so much. My doctor called me back, and let me know they wouldn’t be letting me go past 39 weeks. I would be getting induced. I then realized in that moment that I was 36 weeks along. This baby would be here in no more than 3 weeks. I thought at one point I could have as many as 42 weeks if he decided to stay cooking. Cue the panic!

At my next few appointments, I met with my midwife, and she further explained everything for us. The main concern in her eyes was the possibility of cord prolapse, but she said that his head was far enough down where she wasn’t too horribly worried about it. My belly kept growing and growing, though. At my last appointment, the day before my induction, I measured 43-44 weeks. Not fun. Not fun at all. I was huge and I felt like my skin was going to tear open at any second. My husband kept joking around that it was going to be a real life Alien v Predator situation. 

Luckily, my case of Polyhydramnios didn’t end up being anything serious, or causing anything serious. Though I did have a very large amount of fluid, it didn’t cause any more issues than a really huge mess when my midwife broke my water at the hospital. It seems to me, and from what my midwife told me that a majority of cases of Polyhydramnios, usually don’t have a cause discovered, and in a lot of cases present no complications. Thankfully, everything worked out for us in the end. They took extra caution when stripping my membranes and breaking my water during my induction, but our sons head was far enough down at that point that it wasn't too concerning or worrisome for us. I was so thankful that it ended up not causing any problems for us or for the baby. 

Moral of that story is don't hesitate to ask questions, and don't scare yourself with Dr Google when you're pregnant. If you don't ask enough questions-your mind will make sure you're going crazy by asking you 1,000 of them after your appointment.