Saturday, May 23, 2009

what is a cervical cerclage?

When I was 21 weeks pregnant, I was getting ready for work. I went to the bathroom and noticed a white, foggy discharge in the toilet. I immediately called my doctor and they said to come in immediately. Upon arrival to the doctor, they first did an ultrasound to check the boys. Based on what I had told them, they initially thought my amniotic sac ruptured and I was leaking amniotic fluid. However, the results of the ultrasound showed that my cervix had shrunk drastically. At 21 weeks my cervix was measuring 1.8 cm. At my first ultrasound, my cervix was 3.9 cm. My doctor told me to get dressed and meet him in his office.
When I got to his office, he informed me that my cervix shrunk and could no longer hold the babies in on it's own. The doctor referred to my cervix as an incompetent cervix. He told me I had three options: bed rest, do nothing, or a cervical cerclage. He said doing nothing almost guarantees a miscarriage, bed rest can't make the cervix hold the babies, but he highly recommends putting in a cerclage and going on bed rest. I said, 'ok, let's do the cerclage.' He explained that I will go in the hospital for outpatient surgery, I will be awake, and they will stitch my cervix together to prevent the cervix from opening and losing the babies. He told me it was very important to not worry or panic because if I went into labor during surgery, they could not stop it and I would lose the boys because they were not viable at this time. After the surgery, the doctor explained to me that my cervix was so tiny that they were only able to get 1 stitch in it. The surgery was not painful, it was scary because of what was at risk.
The surgery was a success. I went home and was put on bed rest until delivery. My cerclage was removed at 36 weeks and I delivered the boys at 39 weeks 2 days!

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