Vasa previa - I'm scared

I'm scared. I've spent most of today on the internet researching vasa previa. Last night I was hoping I might be wrong but I'm more convinced now that this is what I've got.

The International Vasa Previa Foundation has loads of information and over 100 stories. The ones where it wasn't diagnosed before birth are tragic - most of the babies died because the vein over the cervix ruptured when they went into labour.

The good news is that for the ones that were diagnosed early, the babies survived. But if I have got this, we've got a nightmare ahead.

I've got so many unanswered questions. Why do the women with undiagnosed vasa pravia have no bleeding or symptoms at all and go to term, yet the ones who do have it diagnosed seem to have bleeding early on? Maybe it doesn't form until later in some women.

I won't know until I talk to the obs, but it looks like the most likely case will be hospitalisation at 30 weeks and caesarian delivery at 35 or 36 weeks as long as the baby's lungs are mature.

I can't fully describe what this has done to me. All my confidence in this pregnancy has just gone out the window. I'm once again living in fear that I might bleed again at any moment - it just like the first trimester all over again.

I worry that something will happen in the next 5 weeks or so, when E3 won't make it if bleeding starts or something else goes wrong. I also worry that the totally weird placenta will starve E3 of oxygen and nutrients so that he either won't grow properly or will suffer brain damage. I worry that he will rupture this damn vein himself as he swims around in there. There's no sign of any trouble yet for him - he's actually measuring ahead of his age at just over 20 weeks so that is great.

LH and I are pretty certain that E3 will survive but he may be very premature and will have a hard start to life. I think its the fear of the unknown that is making me feel so devastated.

I've no idea when I will need to stop working, no idea whether we will have to cancel our holiday, no idea how I will cope with weeks in hospital.

It all seems so unreal because I feel just as I did yesterday. Completely fine and healthy. We finally watched the DVD of the ultrasound last night because I hadn't even looked at it when I got home. I was just so fixated on trying to find out what all this means.

He looks lovely - his little hands and feet are perfect, and everything else is fine as well. I just hope we can get him to a point where he can survive on his own outside of the uterus.

I guess I'm back to the living one day at a time existence. As long as we get to the end of today with no bleeding, then its one step closer to everything being ok. And maybe tomorrow will be better than today as I get used to coping with this, and maybe the next day will be easier again.