It’s hard to believe I started a Motherhood blog, but haven’t actually shared my pregnancy story yet. I think part of the reason is that, to be 100% honest….I hated being pregnant.
Yup, you read it here first, I hated being pregnant. BUT, my pregnancy was riddled with sickness, pain and complications. I wanted to be the cute pregnant lady who took pictures every month of their growing belly, to post them on social media and brag about how excited I was. I think there are maybe 10 pictures of me for the entire length of my pregnancy.
My pregnancy was something I wanted for a LONG time. And I’m so thankful I was able to get pregnant relatively quickly. I downloaded a period tracking app, and made sure we could have some fun on the nights that I was ovulating, to give us the best chance. (Ya’ll know how people get pregnant, so don’t come for me clutching your pearls)
I’ll never forget yelling for my husband to come into the bathroom, to hear the response of “Do I have too? I’m comfortable.” (Pretty sure he got a death glare from the bathroom door to where he was laying on the couch) Lo and behold, a positive test. But how can one trust ONE positive test? So I took another, that one showed it as well. I even went to the Dollar General where we were living at the time to get MORE tests…because I had to have the digital and the plain lines just to be sure. (4 tests later…)The next day I made a call to my OBGYN to schedule an ultrasound to confirm a baby was actually there!
The first half of my pregnancy was easier than the second half. Not that much of my pregnancy was easy. I on occasion through my adult life have had high blood pressure. Nothing to the point of needing to be medicated, and generally my labs had all looked good, so nothing of concern. Until you’re pregnant. Very early in my pregnancy, 6ish weeks? I was so unwell I went to Quick Care, just in case. For some reason we did a urine analysis and the nurse told me the results were fine, except for my protein levels being high, which is a sign of preeclamsia. I knew in a few weeks my first ultrasound was coming, so I called my OB and they said not to worry.
So, first ultrasound finally! It felt like years had passed. What a wild experience, to see a little gummy bear shaped…thing….inside my body! My husband and I were so excited! The ultrasound tech even labeled the baby as a gummy bear! I also started seeing the Midwife team this day. I opted for this option as Midwives have more time to spend with you than the OB generally does. Especially while you’re giving birth. But, my blood pressure was slightly high. So out of an abundance of caution, I was put on a plan with additional visits and a few extra ultrasounds, just in case.
Now, for the next big step, how would we tell our parents?
Just like dreaming of weekly belly pictures, we spent so much time on exactly how we would tell our parents. I wanted to wait for the 12 week mark before we said anything. And luckily, that fell inline with Mothers Day! It couldn’t have been more perfect!
Honestly, I couldn’t tell you how we came up with the ways we told our parents. I’m pretty sure I picked my Moms surprise and he picked his moms. (I did all the artwork to make our visions come to life!) (I also can’t find the pictures of what we made….hmmm) Anyways, to make a long story in an even longer story short….We got my mom Candles and made custom wrappers for them. We got my motherin law a tarot deck and make fake cards to give her a fake reading to announce the pregnancy.It was so fun to get to see their reactions and surprise them! (Especially because my Mom didn’t catch on for almost a minute! But I’ll make another post about this.)
As my pregnancy went along, I suffered SEVERE morning sickness. It was honestly debilitating at times. I absolutely pulled muscles from dry heaving, had a hard time eating and even drinking. I could hardly brush my own teeth without gagging. The OB office put me on Zofran, which really didn’t help, but I took it anyways out of sheer hope to get through my work days.
As I started to get a visable belly, I suddenly had this super painful and itchy rash across my chest. (Under where my bra sat). I went to quick care and complained about pain, fever and chills and stomach ache. All of which I was told (by the very annoyed Dr.) that I was pregnant….these things come with the territory. I didn’t think to show her my rash because I get eczema easily and assumed that’s all it was.
But the next day, things really weren’t better. I knew something wasn’t right. So back to quick care I went, husband in tow. This time he helped explain how things were different and we showed the nurse my rash. The look on their face wasn’t a happy one. When the Dr came in (YUP, same as the one before, but I was nice) she told me it was Shingled. (I could tell she was like “oh shit…” by the look on her face when she realized I was back…and it wasnt just me being pregnant.) So, off to the pharmacy with meds I went.
Having shingles…SUCKS. Having shingles at 30, while being pregnant….SUCKS WORSE.
I called my OB office to let them know as I had an appointment coming up and didn’t want to chance getting anyone else sick. The nurse I spoke too said they’d never come across a pregnant woman with shingles, because it is so rare. (Lucky me) I added a link about having shingles while pregnant below.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK582747
So I’m already uncomfortable, now I’m itchy and just….in pain. My boss clearly didn’t care nor was he sympathetic to my pain or the fact that I was still throwing up through out the day due to my “morning sickness”. I worked at the same place as my husband so we’d carpool to work. I can’t tell you how many times we’d pull over so I could throw up on the way there or home.
My shingles finally cleared up! At this point, I started thinking about how small our home was.
So, guess what we did…that’s right, we put it up for sale. We lived in a one bedroom home on a lake in Maine. I know what you’re thinking, “You GAVE UP a house on a lake?”. But honestly, we didn’t go swimming all that much, we didn’t own a boat, and the lake was kinda, icky. I refused to touch the bottom! We also hardly had a yard, and worried about having a small child that close to the water. Plus, it only had one bedroom, so we wouldn’t have been able to have a nursery.
At this point my body was just, in pain. I was exhausted. We packed what we could, had family and friends help us pack and eventually hired a company to come to toss a bunch of junk. (It’s amazing what you accumulate in a small amount of time.) We even made the decision to hire movers. More so as a need than a want. (I was in so much pain).
While all this was going on, I questioned the amount of pain I seemed to always be in. I called my OB office as the pain seemed centralized to my pelvic area. Lucky me, time to add another condition to the list. I was diagnosed with Pelvic Girdle Pain, or also called, Symphysis Pubis Dysfunction. I’ve added a link to really explain this, but the TLDR version, pain and stiffness of your pelvic joints, or pain caused by your pelvic joints not moving in unison.
This diagnosis was a hard one. I was constantly in pain, and there wasn’t much I could do to relieve the pain, until baby got here. I did end up doing physical therapy, but that doesn’t solve the problem. It can only help you stretch to try and prevent things getting worse. I got to points where I had to be helped in and out of the car. I used an electric cart at Walmart. (Side note: I was so afraid of people judging me by using a cart that I sometimes CHOSE pain. Why did I care so much? Just because I didn’t have a visible injury, doesn’t mean I didn’t need help!)
At this point, hardly able to walk, still throwing up on the daily, in the middle of a huge move, I spoke with my Dr office about how difficult it had become to do my job. I was an Inventory analyst in a warehouse. I had to walk on concrete floors around a large warehouse. Not something I could do without wanting to cry. They suggested either a new position while I was pregnant, or for my job to give me an accomodation.
I’m not going to get into the details at this time, but needless to say, my job wasn’t happy with my need for accommodations. When ever I asked for help, I was essentially ignored, then when I handed in my accommodation paperwork, I was met with a response that they could not accommodate me and that I would be out of work, without pay, for the remainder of my pregnancy.
So lets add stress, on top of stress, and pain, which causes stress. This was such a huge blow emotionally for me. But not something I am able to elaborate on further at this time. I’m sure at some point in the future I’ll address the drama here, but for now, just know, I went out of work much earlier than expected, without pay. Eek!
Honestly, the rest of my pregnancy (until birth) is a blur. Lots of lonely days, filled with loneliness and puking. Not a great time. My cousin even offered to do a maternity shoot for me, but I honestly hated being pregnant so much, that I turned it down. I just, didn’t want to memorialize something that caused me so many issues (Even knowing it was going to bring me the love of my life)
Since I had an elevated blood pressure at the beginning of my pregnancy, and was put on for additional appointments, I ended up being hospitalized and induced at 36.5 weeks. I went to an ultrasound at 34 weeks and the nurse wouldn’t even tell me what my blood pressure was. But she clearly wasn’t impressed. This was late on a Friday, and I had a follow up with the midwife team the following week. Once I went to that appointment, we confirmed the high BP, confirmed I was 3cm dialated and had an additional ultrasound (as baby girl was NOT cooperating the week before) and was told to come back Monday at 7:30pm.
So Monday night, we arrived at the hospital. My daughter was born on Wednesday, and we were in the hospital until Saturday. (I’ll make another post about birth!). I ended up on Magnesium while in the hospital, (I had blood drawn so many times, they literally couldn’t get my body to give any more.) Then I was on a blood pressure medicine until my 6 week post op visit, to make sure my blood pressure didn’t go all wonky.
Luckily, I didn’t have any post birth complications. I was able to be home with my baby girl and everything has been fine ever since. I’m thankful for the team of mid-wives and doctors I had, during my pregnancy and through my birth. I’m thankful to have a beautiful, healthy, baby girl. And I’m thankful things didn’t get worse with the pre-eclampsia.
