This is gross, disgusting, and contains visual aids... you have been warned!

I know what you're thinking. You are clamping your hands over your eyes and yelling TMI while running to the toilet to throw up.

So why in the world am I posting such graphic information, complete with pictures, on my blog?

The answer to that is simple. I am recording my journey not just as an emotional outlet for myself, but in hopes that those who come after me will find it and be ministered to. Hopefully someone else will read this and breath a huge sigh of relief with the realization that, "hey, I'm not alone! It happened to her too!"

I've been whining (though trust me, not nearly as much as I wanted to) all week about having started my period. My post partum bleeding was finally tapering off and coming to an end, but on Tuesday noticed it had turned red and began to gradually increase. I had thought I ovulated 5 days before and was expecting my period to start yesterday, but having a history of short luteal phases it really wasn't surprising that it would start so early.

Over the course of the week I noticed that my bleeding seemed to vascillate between almost non existant and heavier than my post partum bleeding had been. I found this odd, but didn't think too much of it. The weirdest part was that it kept increasing and gaining strength, not at all like the normal pattern my periods follow. Usually I have a light day with heavy cramping followed by 2 heavy days with very little cramping and 2-4 more days of very light bleeding with no cramping. That was not at all what my body was doing, but I chalked it up to the fact that it was my first post partum period and my hormones were still a bit wonky.

As of about an hour ago, I am no longer so sure it was ever a period to begin with.

Starting yesterday the cramps became very strong, much like the debilitating cramps of my teen year. My flow was light and I would experience a gush here and there. I noticed yesterday that I had gone through 2 pads that day, when throughout my 3 weeks of post partum bleeding I had never needed more than one. I found it a bit odd, but really didn't think to much of it. I had a couple of episodes of a sharp stabbing pain in an isolated area. It took my breath away, but subsided and did not return. I get weird pains like that from time to time so I blew it off.

And then today I had very little bleeding but really intense cramps. I had to practically sit on my fingers to keep myself from making it a facebook status and nearly emailed my mom and a good friend about it. I was that miserable. I found it really odd that the cramps were so strong when I was hardly bleeding and kept thinking about getting up and taking some ibuprophen for them but was feeling lazy and didn't feel like getting up. The pain was very similar to my miscarriage with Hope in where I was feeling them, but they were cramps rather than the true contractions and labor pattern that I had with her.

As I was putting Sarah to bed tonight my dad called me. In the first 5 minutes of the conversation I felt a small gush, which was odd because I was using my menstral cup rather than a pad (4 weeks straight of wearing a diaper gets really old!). It was VERY odd that this would happen so I ran to the bathroom to empty it and check things and discovered a TON of bright bright red very watery blood. This did NOT look like menstral blood at all. I looked in the toilet and sure enough there was a HUGE clot in there. I quickly and discreetly got my dad off the phone and fished it out of the toilet. As I looked through the clot (or rather cluster of clots) my suspicions were confirmed - a chunk of placenta the size of my thumb.

Hmmm... I had already passed a much bigger chunk of placenta the day after Caleb was born. That one was the length of my hand and the width of half of my hand. I took that one to the doctor's office with me. This one, too, is residing in a ziplock in my fridge in case the doctor requests an audience with it.

Oh, but first I had to take a couple of pictures of it as proof (and I'm posting them too!). Because, this happened to a friend of mine and I'm not sure I would believe me. Ok, that's not the only reasone. The main reason is because I know somewhere some woman will have "something" come out of her after having a baby and she's going to wonder if it's a piece of placenta. Now she'll have something to compare it too. Yeah google!

Now I'm wondering how much placenta is still inside me. And what they are going to do to make sure it's all out.