Ali Fedotowsky-Manno Opens Up About a ‘Terrifying’ Recent Pregnancy Scare
Former Bachelorette Ali Fedotowsky-Manno was wide awake when a terrible nightmare began late Monday. The “pretty big pregnancy scare,” as she described it in a post on her All Things Ali Luvs blogtwo days later, started with sharp pains in her uterus.
“It was so extremely terrifying and I had no idea what was happening to me, my body, and my unborn baby,” wrote the TV personality, who’s due in May. “It started coming in waves just like contractions.”
Because she gave birth to her first child, 19-month-old daughter Molly, less than two years ago, she remembered *exactly* what those felt like. “The pain is intense, distinct, and unmistakable when it’s severe,” added the 33-year-old. “I was without a doubt having contractions and I was absolutely terrified.”
A soak in her bathtub offered no comfort, and when her “whimpers turned into sobs,” her husband, TV and radio host Kevin Manno, talked her into making a trip to the emergency room. “At that point I was absolutely convinced that I was going into labor and was going to have a baby at 26 weeks pregnant,” Fedotowsky-Manno blogged. “In mere seconds I went through scenarios in my brain of spending months in the NICU, or even worse, not having a baby to sit with in the hospital at all. Could this really be happening? I’m in tears thinking about it even as I type this.”
She hopped in her car at 2:30am, and as she sat there, taking a few minutes to compose herself before driving to the hospital, the pain “completely went away,” she wrote. After what she called “the longest 60 minutes of my life,” she returned to her bed to sleep, though waking constantly to check for the baby’s movements. “I wasn’t in pain and the baby was kicking so I felt the baby was okay.”
But what exactly caused the contraction-like agony? During a visit to her physician the next morning, she learned that her discomfort was a result of severe dehydration and — wait for it — gas. “It’s embarrassing for me to even say that because the pain I was experiencing was so awful that it seems insane to me that gas could cause something like that,” she admitted.
But her terror was real. That’s why she felt compelled to bear that embarrassment — in hopes that her story may help other expectant moms (and because those nine months are scary enough anyway, right?). Concluding with a reminder for pregnant women to drink “LOTS” of water, Fedotowsky-Manno added, “I feel like it’s important to write this blog post today so that any other women out there who may experience something similar maybe won’t get panicked as much as I did.”
(photos via Tara Ziemba/Getty Images + Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images for Celebrity Red CARpet Safety Awareness)
