It started when I noticed some blood in the toilet when I was at work on Tuesday last week.

Naturally, I panicked and tried to keep very still while all sorts of worries floated into my mind.

I messaged the hubby, then my girlfriends, called the clinic and was told that the doctor was out for lunch and would be back only at 2pm.

(Great, now I just need to get lunch and stay calm.)

I packed my things and crept downstairs, thinking I’d grab a sandwich from the cafe.

The queue was snaking long due to the rain. So I decided to call a cab, and see which came first. The cab did. I climbed cautiously in.

In the cab, I took deep breaths and tried to push those nasty, anxious thoughts to the back of my mind.

Tears started to roll down by their own accord.

I think the cabbie noticed. He purposely went the extra mile by turning into the driveway of TMC when we arrived just so I could be sheltered from the rain. He just dismissed the disgruntled stares from the staff managing the valet parking, signalling to them that it’s raining.

I would have expressed more gratitude to him if not for the fact that I was so distracted by the pain in my belly.

I made my way slowly up the steps to Delifrance, thinking I could grab a croissant while waiting for the doc.

I did order my meal but as I sat there staring at the croissant, the crampy feeling in my abdomen got worse and I just couldn’t bring myself to eat.

First, blood. Now, pain. I was bracing myself for the worst.

I called the hubby and couldn’t control my tears. Between sobs, I asked him to rush down. Then I called my girlfriend, asking for help to locate the hospital emergency number. (I felt so near to help, yet so far.)

She managed to get a nurse to come and look for me at the clinic so I made my way to the third floor.

When she saw me, she immediately brought me to the delivery room to rest as the clinic was still closed (and the staff inside were also having a meeting).

At the delivery room, a nurse checked for baby’s heartbeat. At 15 weeks, it can be hard to detect but soon we were listening to the familiar ba-thump-ba-thump. An inexpressible sense of relief washed over me. (By this time the hubs had also arrived.)

After that she made me wear a device to monitor the strength of the contractions.

Not sure if it was due to knowing that baby was alive, but I felt more relaxed after some minutes on the bed.

Aware that it would take some time before Dr Tseng arrived (as he was actually off-clinic that afternoon and only making a special trip back to check on me), I sent hubby off to buy some food.

Listening to the tunes of my favourite Christian album, I closed my eyes and prayed for baby, myself, and whatever that was causing this loss of fresh blood. I talked to baby too, in a quiet and calm voice.

It’s funny but when suddenly faced with the possibility of losing my child, I never felt like I wanted it as much as I did lying there. I guess it’s when you’re on the verge of losing something, that you realise how precious it is and how much it means to you.

Before Dr Tseng came, he sent his staff to bring me up to his clinic, on a wheelchair.

When Dr arrived, he did an ultrasound, and we all watched the screen in anticipation. He measured baby’s heartbeat and in a matter of minutes pronounced that baby and womb are fine, and the bleeding is most definitely from a different source.

So he did a swab test to check for vaginal infection and drew some blood to test if there was infection in the bloodstream. He said the bleeding doesn’t seem too active, and prescribed some meds for relaxing the womb, and rest for the remainder of the week.

We could not be more relieved to hear those words…

Baby. Is. Doing. Fine.

We went home after doing the tests. My bleeding continued and still experienced slight contraction pains that day, as well as Wednesday.

While resting at home, I noticed that I saw blood mostly only while peeing or slightly after. And also I was visiting the toilet more frequently, peeing very little each time.

When a friend happened to mention that she had blood in her urine when she had UTI before, I went to read up more on the symptoms.

I also consulted a doctor friend, describing my symptoms closely to her, and she also said it sounded like UTI. She advised lots of cranberry juice, and more liquid intake.

(I recalled that I’d been struggling to upkeep my water intake in recent weeks as I find the taste of water extra bland these days.)

So in between resting, I drank like a hippo, mixing water with some cranberry, just to force more water into my body.

By Thursday, the bleeding was noticeably less, and there was no more abdominal pain…

We are just so thankful that we passed through this deep end unscathed.

It’s only when you are losing something that you see how much it means to you.

Maybe that was a lesson I was meant to learn.