Niddah During Pregnancy from Medical Checkup

Okay, onto the exciting part of the evening.

My wife is expecting our first child next month, which means that she is in her 9th month of our pregnancy.

Tonight her doctor did a test to see whether she ever had strep throat, because if she did, she might pass that to the baby during labor and birth which could be dangerous to the baby.

However, when she was doing the procedure, my wife felt a bit of pressure because the doctor cut my wife inside her vaginal area. Later, my wife was urinating, and after checking the toilet paper, she saw blood. "Houston, we have a problem," she said.

Normally, religious women who are in a Tahara [ritual purity] state don't look at what comes out of them from that area because if it is blood, then she might be in a state of Niddah [ritual impurity]. The presumption is that if blood comes from the vagina, then regardless of whether it came from the vaginal walls or the uterus, she is Niddah. Pregnant women as a general rule do not get their period, therefore they do not enter the state of Niddah. However, after my wife bled from her cut, the situation was different.

We called the local rabbi and my mashpia, and after a few phone calls, my wife and I understood the situation: she is now 9 months pregnant and is in a state of Niddah. So now we have to wait 5 days, and then she does a Hefsek Tahara, where she begins counting 7 clean days using a bedika cloth. After counting 7 clean days, she goes to the mikveh [ritual bath]... or by then the delivery room.

The interesting thing about the timing of this is that the laws of family purity (Taharas HaMishpacha) help a couple bond and become closer through their physical distance from each other. By not being permitted to sleep in the same bed, to cuddle, or even to be intimate, the couple becomes sensitized to each other and as a result, they become closer. By not being able to touch, when they are allowed to touch again, the feelings get heightened and more exciting.

Our situation is that my wife got pregnant immediately after our wedding, so after our first time being separated after the wedding, we never had to count days of cleanliness, and we never had to separate for purposes of Taharas HaMishpacha more than once. Thus, intimacy became the norm and being able to touch each other whenever we wanted lost some of it's forbidden pleasure. Thank G-d now, right before the baby is born when my wife will have entered a Niddah state upon the baby's birth and we will have had to be separate for six weeks, after she goes through this cycle of becoming Tahara, we will IY"H have around a week and a half to be together physically before she gives birth to our first child.