Pregnancy: It Ain't for the Faint of Heart

Libby dancing in the rain at my dearly

departed Grandmother's house.  She was three here.

The five and a half years between the birth of my first and second child were full of many wonderful and memorable times.  The year and a half I spent at home with Libby after she was born was a time I will always treasure.  We had so much fun together, and there are many days I wish I had made different choices that would have allowed me to stay home with her longer.  I felt some guilt and remorse about going back to work as I know many mothers do.  Being a full-time stay at home mom is a job to be sure, but working full-time outside of the home while being a mother is a whole different animal unto itself.  It wasn’t horribly difficult to manage when we had only one child in the home, but it certainly got more challenging as our family expanded.

Libby only nursed her first six months and when that calorie burning activity ended, I should have immediately picked up some regular exercise.  That would have been the smart thing to do.  Sadly, I did not make that choice.  Instead, I just began picking up weight at a faster pace.  I soon joined Curves and started watching what I was eating.  I slowly started whittling the weight away.  It was frustrating.  It was slow going.  The worst of it though was the fact I never could seem to feel better.  I was eating better, I was exercising, I was drinking more water, but none of it seemed to matter in regards to how I felt.  There was not a “runner’s high” after a good workout.  There was never a moment where I could feel my body thanking me for everything I was trying to do for it.  With the constant sacrificing, the frustration turned the tide into an unbearable level when medical problems cropped up and worsened.  Libby was not even six months old when I was limping my way in and out of physical therapy once again due to my continued back problems. 

I also developed a new problem that would become almost as debilitating as my chronic back pain at times.  It would take several rounds of it to finally get a diagnosis of Costochondritis which is an inflammation of the chest wall.  The first time I developed it, I literally thought I was having a heart attack.  There were times I would develop it and it was irritating, but manageable.  For the most part though, it was just downright awful.  The pain would start in my chest generally localized just left of center.  It would then spread to the other side of my chest and from there it would radiate down both of my arms.  There were times it got so bad, I couldn’t lift my baby out of her crib, I couldn’t wash my hair and I couldn’t even put a shirt on without Mr. Right assisting me. 

It continued on this way as it had for years already.  Back would go out.  Back would get better.  Costchondritis would develop and then it would go away.  I would develop sinus infections, strep throat, viruses, the flu, a cold, and on and on ad nauseum.   The rash that cropped up on my hands the first time years ago, kept returning and each time it returned it seemed to spread wider, stay longer, and got more painful and irritating with each return.  When it made the jump from hands to my feet, I couldn't believe my luck.  I felt like a boxer in a ring getting pummeled round after round, and the opponent always seemed to be stronger and bigger than me.  Then I would fumble my way to my corner and my trainer would give me the same chat every time: pain pills, steroids, wash, rinse, and repeat.  (Sorry.  I know I said I wouldn’t say that again, but it really worked right there.)  It just began wearing me down after a while.  I would reach a point of frustration with my doctors because I constantly felt as though I was being ignored or patronized.  I had a doctor actually initially attribute the Costchondritis to the fact I had a baby and was constantly having to lift her.  Seriously?  She came home from the hospital a whopping six pounds six ounces.  I’ve also known hundreds of women who have had babies and could manage to lift their children without agonizing pain.  Seriously?  Although I eventually would lose 40 pounds, it wouldn’t stay gone.  It would return and then some.  I finally gave up on giving up what I wanted when it didn’t seem to matter anyway.  Sure, I was glad to be wearing smaller jeans, but it just wasn’t enough to keep me motivated.

The stress of going back to work certainly wasn’t a factor that worked in my favor.  I’ve never regretted my decision to go into a social work career, and I never will.  However, it’s no secret social work careers can be quite stressful.  That certainly was the case for me.  Between the guilt of leaving my child in daycare, the stress of going back into social work, the constant ailments, and the physical pain each day was a struggle.  Some days were worse than others.  Some days were more bearable.  Through all of it, there were primarily three things that kept me going: Mr. Right and our two daughters.  My love for them kept me motivated enough to keep getting up every day, but I was angry with myself that I couldn’t be everything I felt I needed to be for them.  It still hadn’t dawned on me to that point there should have been at least one more motivating factor for me.  It would still be a few years before that glaringly obvious motivating factor would wedge its way into my conscience.  Before that would happen though, I would give birth for a second time.  If I thought the first trip down Pregnancy Lane was a challenge, I was in for quite a shock.  The second trip was going to be much more difficult.    Even with a “mental map” of the way, this road would be entirely different.  My map was going to be useless.

Everything started the usual way.  I knew I was pregnant by the smell of bacon.  Yes, I am serious.  I was cooking breakfast food for dinner and almost vomited on the stove.  Dead give-away.  I went straight to the bathroom after dinner and took a test.  It was positive.  I was so excited because we had been trying to get pregnant for many months.  I was beginning to wonder if we were even going to be able to get pregnant again.  I had gotten pregnant so easily the first two times.  Although Libby had an older sister already, Kim lived with her biological mother.  I had begun wondering if she would ever decide to come live with her father and me.  I knew how much it meant to me having another sibling in the house growing up and I didn’t want Libby growing up, in essence, an only child.  There was also the fact I just really wanted another baby.

Everything with this pregnancy went along the same road map for about the first half of the pregnancy.  I was nauseated, anemic, exhausted, and not gaining weight.  Things took a turn at the half way mark when I had my quad screen.  I took the same test when pregnant with Libby.  If we were going to have a child with special needs, we wanted to be able to prepare as we best we could for the challenges we would face.  Particularly for a child with Spina Bifida as there are surgeries that can actually be performed in utero on babies with this spinal defect.  I expected the results for this test would be exactly what they were with Libby – normal.

The results weren’t normal.  Even though it was just a result indicating more testing would be needed, my heart felt heavy.  Not only did I have a “positive” screen, the markers were pointing to Trisomy 18.  Spina Bifida I could have handled.  Downs Syndrome I could have handled.  Anything else I could have handled.  Trisomy 18 was the worst case scenario.  The vast majority of babies with Trisomy 18 don’t even make it through a full pregnancy.  Most die in utero.  The few that do make it through a full term pregnancy generally die within a few minutes to days of birth.  There are those rare occasions where a baby with Trisomy 18 makes it to a first birthday, but those are few and far between.  The news was upsetting.  However, I tried really hard not to panic.  I had to go to a specialist for a more in-depth ultrasound.  I was ready to go to the ultrasound and get the best news ever.  When that didn’t happen at the first ultrasound by the specialist, I was crushed.  I was still holding out hope and working as hard as I could to keep my game face on.  Inside though, well, that was a whole different story.  After an abnormal quad screen and now a concerning ultrasound that would require me to come back for another, I silently wondered how I would possibly be able to simultaneously prepare for the birth and death of my child.  How is a mother supposed to do that?

Additional ultrasounds were performed to check on my baby’s growth.  The following ultrasounds proved more positive.  After a few, the specialist was sure that my baby, although small, was then developing normally.  Those weeks were some of the toughest of my life.  To know my baby had a fighting chance was an incredible relief.  Things could have only been better if we felt like we were out of the woods for more than a few weeks.  Trouble brewed once again when my blood pressure flared and all the issues I had when pregnant with Libby ran rampant in this one; only this time it was worse. Although I had to be induced with Libby, I only had to go ten days early.  With this pregnancy, I would wind up being induced a second time, but almost three weeks early.  I wouldn’t have been so concerned about having a baby three weeks early if I didn’t know from the ultrasound how tiny my baby was.  At the time I was induced, my baby was estimated to weigh just under five pounds.  I couldn’t even imagine holding a baby that tiny.  When we welcomed Annalee Claire on a beautiful March 19^th, I couldn’t look at her enough.  I cried with happiness and relief when I finally laid eyes on her.  She was tiny, but not as little as I thought she was going to be.  She weighed a little over five and a half pounds.  Although she would require scans the next day due to concerns she had bleeding on her brain, the scans came back normal.  Finally, I felt a little at peace.

My sweet little Annalee Claire was barely 24

hours old in this picture.

It's pretty sad when your OB/GYN tells you straight up not to have any more children because of all the issues you had in your last two pregnancies.  It was okay though.  I pretty much decided the day after Annalee was born I wasn’t going to have any more children.  As difficult as my first and second pregnancies were, I couldn’t even imagine what would crop up during a third.  I also wasn’t exactly getting any younger.  The thought of having to go through all of that again was more than I could take.  And I kept to my word.  Well, mostly...

Eye of the Tiger Should Be My Theme Song

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 21^st 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.