pregnancy

WARNING:  These are my personal thoughts and feelings.  And by sharing them with the world I know that I might offend another person.  I do not care.  This story is for my unborn son.  Not you.

I get asked a lot, much to my surprise, a version of the below question…

“Don’t you just love being pregnant?”

I have literally been blown away by the number of times I have been asked that question in one form or another.  It just happened again a moment ago.  The question is mostly posed by well meaning coworkers who are completely oblivious to the fact that it is inappropriate to discuss a pregnancy with an acquaintance in such a manner.  That is perhaps a harsh statement.  But it is true.  These coworkers also know that I have kids at home.  So I guess simple elementary math allows them to make the assumption that I must LOVE to be pregnant.  But guess what … My pregnancy is NONE of your business.  I also do not care that your feelings are hurt because I “hide” my pregnancy until 20 weeks.  No.  I did not hide my pregnancy from you.  I do not believe I was under any obligation to let a day to day acquaintance know that I was pregnant.  Did you want me to hire an airplane and write a message in the sky?  Did you ever take into consideration that if I announce my pregnancy it might emotionally impact one of the 40+ women in this office who have might have experience with miscarriages?  (Oops.  I got off on a tangent.)

My standard (polite) answer to this question has always been “I feel blessed that I have been given the opportunity to hopefully hold in my arms a healthy little boy in July 2016. I know others are not so lucky.”    

I believe every part of this answer.  I am so extremely blessed.  I do not take it for granted for any minute.  But let me share with you the response I want to give to so many people around me.  The story I want to share with others.  The true story behind all of my pregnancies.

“No.  I do not, under any circumstance, enjoy being pregnant.  Would you like to know why?”

• It took 6 IUIs to get pregnant with Jakob & Alex.  It was all medical.  It involved 35+ trips to a DRs office.  It involved getting naked more times than I care to count.  It involved many different pills and more u/s appointments than I can ever track in my brain.  It involved a miscarriage at 8 weeks that was triggered by an injection of methotrexate (a drug that is often used in chemotherapy).  A miscarriage that brought so much heartbreak.  It cost us upwards of $6k to get pregnant with Jakob and Alex.
• A twin pregnancy is automatically a high risk pregnancy.  Please do not tell me how lucky I was to have been pregnant with twins.  Was I blessed to be pregnant?  Yep!  I wouldn’t trade my little boys for the world.  But my little boys came at the same time.  I automatically was putting their lives at risk by carrying them together.   Do you know how stressful that is to a parent?
• I had suffered a previous miscarriage.  I worried each and every day that I would miscarry this pregnancy too.  The DRs start to think you are crazy because of how paranoid you become in a pregnancy after a miscarriage.
• I went into preterm labor at 26 weeks.  I had a conversation with a neonatologist about the chances that Jakob and Alex had to survive should they be born now.  And if they did survive how many problems they could encounter in their life.  All because my body could not handle twins.  My fault.  I got to experience the joys of IV magnesium over a 48 hour period.  That drug is horrible.  I couldn’t even get out of bed to pee.
• I was on bed rest for 8 weeks.  I did not leave my house for 8 weeks except to go to doctor appointments.  I had contractions almost the entire time I was pregnant.  I woke-up each day and worried as to whether or not my little boys would be born too early.  No one saw me when I was “big and pregnant”.  I didn’t get to experience any of the normal pregnancy excitement.
• Jakob and Alex were born at 34w0d.  I had zero control over my labor experience.  I laugh when people tell me … “but my birth didn’t go as planned” … I was in bed.  I was hooked up to monitors.  I had an epidural.  I gave birth in an operating room with bright lights and 15 of my closest friends.  I never got to hold my babies after they were born.  I did not see Jakob and Alex until they were 4 hours old.  I did not get to hold Jakob and Alex until they were 24 hours old.  I never got to breastfeed my boys.  I was attached to a pump for the entire first year of their life.  I left the hospital without my baby boys.  I walked to the car alone with an empty belly.
• Did I mention the NICU bill?
• I worried for the first year of their life that my boys would have extreme developmental delays.  All because I couldn’t handle a twin pregnancy.
• We decided to try again.  We naively thought it would all be so simple this time around.  We would not have a twin pregnancy.  We would use no fertility drugs.  My body could handle it.
• I found out I’m old.  I found out my eggs are crap.  I found out my body once again sucks as supposedly doing what it was meant to do.  I found out I might not get pregnant.
• More DR appointments.  But this time only 15+ appointments.  No miscarriage.  We got pregnant on try #1.  Lucky.  Lucky.  Lucky.  But the costs were the same … We didn’t know we would get pregnant on try #1.  Our donor had been removed from the program.  We had to purchase extra vials.  So this still cost us $6k+.
• I had multiple massive bleeding episodes starting at 12 weeks.  Not a tiny bit of spotting.  The type of bleeding where you are simply waiting for the baby to drop out of you.  They type of bleeding where blood just pours down your legs.  I heard “there is nothing we can do” over and over and over again.  I still have the hematoma.  But now I hold my breath that it doesn’t cause me to go into preterm labor.  Now I worry that my baby boy will be born before viability.  Now I worry that my baby boy will be born shortly after viability and face a lifetime of medical challenges.  All because my body sucks at being pregnant.  All I do is worry.  I pray I don’t see blood every time I go to the bathroom.
• I worry about miscarriage every single day of this pregnancy.
• I’m old.  This puts the baby at an increased risk for genetic issues.  No worries.  There is a test for that.  It will only cost you $750.
• More bleeding at 16 weeks.  The OB tells me to go to L&D.  Just to get checked out.  No worries.  That will only cost you $1,500.  An OB appointment would have been $80.  But now I am 16 weeks pregnant so I have to go to L&D.  If I don’t go to L&D and something is wrong, then how would I ever forgive myself.   Did I mention we are a one income family now?  So no stress. No worries.  It’s just money.
• I get to pay $170 a week to receive a big ass injection in my butt.  I get to do this for 20 weeks.  I get to have all my coworkers stare at me as I walk a nurse through the office.  And we don’t even know if it will actually keep baby boy cooking inside me for long enough.  I can still have a preemie.  We know nothing.  We can only guess.
• I get to visit the high risk doctor on a monthly basis.  This costs money too.  
• I worry each time I pick up one of my little boys, only looking to be comforted by Mama, that me lifting my child will cause me to lose this baby.  How do you explain that to a crying 3 year old?  How do you explain to your 3 year old, when you lose your temper, that you are simply worried about their little brother in my belly and that your anxiety level is high? How do you explain to your 3 year old that you worry every day that you will have to find a way to tell them little brother isn’t coming home to live with us.  How do you explain to your 3 year old that you are terrified you will have to go on bed rest and you will be even less of a parent than you are now?  How do you explain to your 3 year old that you  worry constantly about being able to financially provide for  our family?

So NO.  I do not like being pregnant.  I hate it.  I hate it all.  But I want what a lot of people want in this world.  I want the hope that a child brings.  I want to leave a legacy behind.  I want to create a life.  I want to watch that little life grow.  I want Jakob and Alex to have a sibling.  I want us to all be a family.  Many people would say that I am being selfish.  Well bite me.  I don’t care.  I only have so many cares in the world to give and what another person, outside of our family thinks about my pregnancy is not one of my cares to give.  But I’d rather show-up at the hospital and have a stork hand me my child.  

So that’s really how I want to respond when someone asks me “Don’t you just love being pregnant?”

Mary