A picture of my sweet Liberty Grace at one year of age.
I'm going to go with she was worth it!
Excited as I was to be pregnant for a second time, there was
much difficulty in the beginning containing my fear. Being only four months removed from my
miscarriage, I wondered at what point I would be begin to feel safe. Each time I would hit a milestone, I would
breathe a short sigh of relief, but then I would look toward the next milestone
and wait for the shoe to drop. I think
things finally started feeling okay when I finished the first trimester and
things felt much better when I went for the ultrasound at the 20 week
mark. I was excited for the ultrasound
because I wanted to know the sex. I was
absolutely certain I was having a girl, and not being the most patient person
in the world; I needed to know for sure.
The tech couldn’t say with all certainty I was having a girl, but she
was pretty sure there was no male equipment present. I happily began snapping up all kinds of pink.
The first 20 weeks of the pregnancy weren’t that bad. I had horrific nausea, but rarely
vomited. However, because of the
severity of the nausea, I had a very difficult time eating. (I never had any strange cravings but I
developed an aversion to bacon almost immediately. The mere sight of it would make my stomach
lurch.) As a result of the nausea, I actually
had a net weight loss during the first two trimesters of my pregnancy. I certainly wasn’t trying to lose weight and
my abdominal measurements and ultrasounds indicated the baby was growing, so, I
was content to let my pregnancy serve as an awesome weight loss plan. I know that’s not generally how it works for folks,
but that’s what happened with me. There
is, of course, the fact I was not a small gal to begin with. My body had plenty of stores to draw from and
I was taking my pre-natal vitamins and necessary supplements as I went anemic
early in the pregnancy. Of course there
is a draw-back to only gaining between five and ten pounds throughout your
pregnancy: when you come out of the hospital weighing less than you did the day
you got pregnant, it’s really difficult to blame the weight you later gain on
your poor kid. I never had the luxury of
saying, “Oh, I’ve really got to drop this baby weight.” Um, yeah, no.
She was never going to get saddled with that guilt!
The real fun began after the first trimester. During the second trimester of my pregnancy,
I developed a severe UTI. I had made it
almost 30 years of my life without a UTI.
I had no pain from it, but had other symptoms that were, for a woman who
was pregnant and unaware, extremely frightening. I’ll spare the gory details, but just know a
call to the on-call doctor led to a trip to the emergency room. Although it completely shot my nerves,
everything turned out okay with that issue and remained calm for a bit. Once the third trimester hit, things were
going to go less smoothly. Despite the almost
complete lack of weight gain, the pregnancy was really stressing my body. I wound up developing preeclampsia which led
to a great many more doctor visits, ultrasounds, tests, and bed rest. Between the anemia, high blood pressure,
sporadic back issues, and my seemingly weakened immune system, I was more tired
and exhausted than anything else and almost looked forward to bed rest just so
I could sleep more. I recognize most
pregnant women are tired and face increased health risks, I just didn’t realize
then the inner health demons I was fighting to get through each day. And there were just so many appointments
between the OB/GYN, ultrasounds, blood specialist, emergency room trips, and the
chiropractor, I’m not completely sure how I was managing to even go to work. But I did.
Word came ten days before my due date I would have to be
induced. At that point, I had started
spilling protein and it was no longer a better option for my baby girl to
remain in utero. Between the blood
pressure, swelling, and protein, it was time to get her out of there and into the
world. It was off to the hospital with
me to have an induction. I had no idea
the wild ride I was in for that night.
The induction began easily enough, but got pretty hard in a few hours. My contractions went full throttle after my
water broke, and my blood pressure was spinning wildly out of control and
dangerously into stroke territory. An
epidural at least got the blood pressure down, but did nothing in assisting
with getting my baby girl out. She was
perfectly content where she was and had no plans whatsoever to leave her comfy
little nest.
After 17 and a-half-hours of labor, two and a half which
were active pushing and delivery, I finally laid eyes on my baby girl. Liberty Grace had arrived; my sweet baby
aptly named as she was born on a Tuesday and “Tuesday’s child is full of
grace”. I scanned her over and over,
looking at her face and limbs, counting her fingers and toes (yes, I seriously
did), and just marveling at this little miracle in my hands. A few tears slid down my cheeks as I took in her
absolute perfection. I would have gone
through a pregnancy ten times worse to have her. She was beautiful and she was mine. As I looked at her, I recapped the stats in my
head on her weight, height, time of birth, and date, a thought entered my
mind. I remember distinctly as I said
the date of her birth in my head. The
realization hit me I had given birth to her on October 21st exactly
one year to the day I had miscarried was almost too much irony for me. I thought of the child I had grieved, and
looked at the child I was already in love with after only a few moments. It was such a bitter-sweet irony to be had on
that joyous occasion.
It’s true what they say about forgetting the pain
though. Obviously I remember the
discomfort and pain of miscarriage, pregnancy and childbirth, but time allows
you to forget enough to do it again. No
different than falling in love a second, third or fourth time when you remember
being burned before. Living and loving
requires risk-taking. It would be five
years before I took those risks again to have my second child. It was no cake walk between the two pregnancies
as pregnancy seemed to unleash the full wrath of my unknown condition. Dang it all though. Regardless of the cost, I was going to do it
again someday though I wasn’t really sure how.
After giving birth the first time, I knew it would take a
while for my body to “get back to normal” whatever that means. I just didn’t realize so many things were
going to linger or that new issues would crop up afterward. I had to continue with supplements long after
her birth as the pregnancy had literally wiped me clean. I was still anemic, I still had high blood
pressure, and the pregnancy seemed to spur on new conditions and make old ones
worse. One of the absolute worst days of
my life came when I was home alone with my infant baby girl. Mr. Right had already gone back to work and
Libby was about 12 weeks old. She was
still oh, so tiny. My back had been
giving me fits and I was still seeing my chiropractor just as I had done
throughout my pregnancy. There just was
no relief, and it continued to get worse.
Home alone one day, I was carrying her and I collapsed. The pain was so excruciating I wanted to
scream. I have no idea to this day how I
managed to fall forward to the ground with her cradled in my arms without even
waking her. I sucked my breath in as
hard as I could when I hit the floor, and turned my head sideways to exhale
heavily. I was breathing the pain in and
out and trying desperately not to cry. I
laid her down on the floor so I could try to get myself in such a position that
I could get up. I crawled around my bedroom
floor to the side of my bed. I thought
if I could at least make it to the side of the bed, I could possibly pull up on
it and use the bedpost as a support. As
I raised the upper half of my body, that familiar jolt surged through my
body. I cupped my hand over my mouth to
keep myself from screaming and waking my baby.
I literally closed my eyes, looked Heavenward and pleaded for
relief. I didn’t know what else to do.
It was not the first time, nor would it be the last, I had
been stricken with such excruciating back pain that I literally went down. It wasn’t even a matter of something in me
hurting and me putting myself down to relieve it. It was a matter of my legs literally giving
way when that pain seared through me. I
just couldn’t for the life of me understand why. Even at that point, a decade ago, I had been
given multiple explanations for the cause of my pain: ruptured disc, pinched
nerve, degenerative disc disease, and so on. While everyone seemed to have a differing
opinion on what the cause was, everyone seemed to agree on the treatment. It was the same story no matter where I went:
I would just have to learn to deal with it through pain management. That’s the best advice a 28 year old mother
with a newborn infant could get? Take
pain pills? Seriously. Perhaps you can see where the hopelessness of
my situation began. It began right with
the people charged to care for me.
That’s when my love affair with Ibuprofen began. I couldn’t constantly remain doped up on
opiates. I would occasionally take one
or two just to get me through the most acute points, and then I would load up
on Ibuprofen. I know it wasn’t
necessarily a healthier choice for me. I
can’t imagine the damage I must have done to my stomach and liver all of those
years, but I couldn’t walk around in a haze either. How could I take care of my child if I wound
up addicted to drugs? That just wasn’t
going to happen. So, I invested in
Ibuprofen and I sucked it up.
I’ve had to do a lot of sucking it up over the years. That’s fine.
Each time I have had to go through a round, it just made me that much
tougher for the next round. I won’t lie
and say I took each punch with aplomb, but each time I got through it. I would have my moments. There have been plenty of pity parties over
the years. There were so many nights I
cried and wanted to give up. I didn’t
though. And as the hits kept on coming,
I kept right on sticking it out. I had
no plans to go down without a fight.
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