4. Pregnancy and childbirth

I have an amazing 2 year old daughter named Charlotte. She’s beautiful, articulate, curious, loving, opinionated, and so funny. She makes us laugh every single day. I learned I was pregnant with Charlotte on April 11, 2017 when I was about 6 weeks along. I started to journal that week and kept track of most of the important things thorough out pregnancy. I wanted to remember everything and thought it might be helpful in a subsequent pregnancy to compare. Ironically, I used this same journal to record everything about my diagnosis just two years later.

My pregnancy was relatively normal. No strange test results, no crazy side effects or symptoms – some nausea, lots of hormones and acne, and the rib and back pain was really the worst of it. She was due in December but surprised us all (much to our delight as we already have several December birthdays in the family!) and came 10 days early in November instead.

My labor was a little strange, I guess, in that my water broke around 11pm on a Monday and then nothing happened. We went to the hospital because they were concerned that I wasn’t having contractions and the baby was no longer protected with amniotic fluid.  I would have a contraction here and there every 20 minutes or so, and that continued into the morning when the decided they needed to induce me (ugh – not my plan, but who’s birth actually goes according to plan, right?) I made it 4 or 5 hours after being induced before I asked for some relief. I couldn’t get in the tub because I had to be hooked up to the monitors after induction and they were a little leery since my water had already broken (because, infection). I couldn’t easily walk around. So I was left without a ton of pain management options. I ended up with an epidural, and for a while it only worked on one side of my body (one of the strangest feelings I have ever had!) Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, they turned me on my side, and I started to feel relief. I started pushing just after 5:00pm and Charlotte was born at 5:30 (so about 18 hours from the time my water broke to birth). The doctor told me to reach down and pull her out and I thought that was a confusing direction in the midst of labor, but I did it and it was amazing! She looked right at me as I pulled her out! Mason cut the cord and announced she was a girl (we didn’t find out in advance, and it was amazing – I would recommend it to anyone who is expecting!!), double-checked with the doctor to make sure he saw things correctly, and right on my chest she went. She was such a pretty baby – I know I’m biased, but I was fully expecting an alien-looking thing, and she was just so pretty. I couldn’t stop looking at her.

After labor, I remember the doctor and nurses saying they had delivered the placenta, but I really wasn’t paying attention at that point. They pushed on my stomach A LOT and for a long time afterwards, and they did tell me they were having some trouble getting my bleeding under control. But eventually things settled down, a nurse helped me to the bathroom where I think I peed for 5 minutes straight (apparently IV fluids will do that to you) and we went to the recovery room to introduce Charlotte to her whole family. It was amazing, painful, wonderful, terrifying, and beautiful all wrapped up into one.

My postpartum recovery seemed average (as average as you can feel after pushing a human being out of your body, I guess). We were discharged from the hospital in the normal 2 days, though we were back a few days later because Charlotte had jaundice. After a night under the blue lights, she was just fine! I swear I broke or badly bruised my tailbone during labor, because I felt it hurting just after the epidural wore off and it hurt for about 6 months afterwards. A few days after Charlotte was born, I had body aches and chills and felt like I had the flu. But I never tested positive for it and attributed it to the extreme drop in hormones women experience just after birth. Breastfeeding was hard for exactly 8 weeks, and all the sudden, we both got it and it got easier. I had postpartum bleeding for about 2 weeks, it stopped for about a week, and then started again for another 3 or 4 weeks. And that is the only thing, looking back now, that I wish I had pushed with my OB. Chances are it was totally normal, but that and the postpartum hemorrhaging just after birth are the only two odd things I can point to about my birth experience that could have anything to do with my diagnosis almost two years later. And that is probably me grasping at straws and trying to make a shitty situation make any kind of sense, but I think it does serve as an opportunity to remind women that they know their bodies best, and if something seems strange to you, just talk about it with your doctor. And if it still feels strange to you, talk about it with another doctor. Maybe it’s nothing, but if I have learned anything through this process, it’s that you will never regret advocating for yourself. Sometimes I focus too much on medical bills and feeling like I don’t want to pester my doctors, but it’s just not worth questioning something later. Be vigilant with your body, make notes for your doctors, and ask questions until you are satisfied.