Pregnancy, Wobbles and Miscarriages
So, I'm pregnant. Big pregnant in the sense that I have six weeks to go, just over, and I've hit the point where I'm fed up of it and just want to have the baby. Everyone hits this point at some stage or another. It's not unheard of. I also know that a lot of women absolutely adore being pregnant. I don't. I'll do it again because I want a big family, as does my boyfriend, but that doesn't mean that I have to enjoy the process of growing the baby.
People tell you that pregnancy is a marvellous thing and I really have to disagree. What you get at the end of the whole mess is wonderful, nothing compares to the excitement that I feel when I think about the fact that at some time in the next two months I will be holding my baby in my arms. However, from my experience (singular as it is given that this is my first child) pregnancy is uncomfortable at best. But let's look at my journey for a second before I explain the full reason for my total meltdown last night. (Really I'm just purging).
So to start with, this wasn't planned. When I got pregnant my boyfriend and I hadn't even been together a year. We weren't living together, sure we'd talked about it but it wasn't something that we'd done anything about at all. We were in that comfortable first year when everything is rosy and the future isn't really something you think about because it's that first bloom of new love. We were careful, as careful as you can be, because children weren't something we'd talked about. We both wanted them, we both knew that, but we didn't want them right then. Best laid plans and good intentions and all that.
At first I didn't even know I was pregnant, it didn't even cross my mind. After three days of worsening vomiting I just assumed that I had a really bad stomach bug and made plans to go see a doctor if it hadn't improved over the weekend. I even went to my friend's hen party and had a couple of drinks that I struggled to keep down on top of the meal that I barely ate half of. I sipped water and coke all night, nearly passed out because I felt so ill and was already pretty dehydrated by this point, and joined in all the fun and shenanigans that I could so that I could take my mind off the whole upset stomach thing. The next day a mutual close friend of ours met me to discuss a present I was making for her nan. Along with the money for the piece she gave me a pregnancy test and told me to use it. I laughed but did as I was told because I was still feeling sick and it was getting worse.
Turns out she was right.
I had a complete meltdown at 9.05 on a Monday morning. I remember the time because I called my mum in a complete panic and she had not long started work. Fortunately it all worked out alright, my boyfriend was over the moon and we moved in together as soon as he could get out of his lease. We've even started saving for a house. It's been a good thing for us.
The morning sickness, on the other hand, got worse. It got to the point that no matter the pills that my doctor put me on, my best efforts at trying to stay fed and hydrated and several weeks off work while we tried to get things under control it didn't improve. I got to the point where I was throwing up every fifteen to twenty minutes, where I could take two bites of a meal and find myself with my head over the toilet in seconds. The only things that occasionally stayed down was a McDonalds or Burger King. Absolutely no way that I could live off those and it still didn't solve the problem of not being able to keep liquids down. It got to the point where I was throwing up blood every time and the doctor declared that enough was enough. I was in tears, I was struggling and all the vomiting had torn the back of my throat terribly. I was a mess and on my birthday I was carted off for a two day stay in hospital. I was connected to a drip to hydrate me and had to have four litres of fluid pumped into me over the course of those two days. Scared the hell out of all my nearest and dearest. But by getting me hydrated they got the sickness under control. It didn't stop, in fact I didn't stop being sick until Christmas Eve, but I got to the point where I could actually function productively rather than attempting to get on with my life while really not being able to.
We were in for another blow. In November, at our twenty week scan, we were told that the baby would have talipes when born. A clubfoot, possibly both but they couldn't be sure, that would require weeks of casts, an operation, and boots with a bar holding them at shoulder width apart to correct the turn. All before my baby would be six months old. And the boots and bar? Well, baby would grow up wearing those at night until the age of five. So not only had I been having a hard time of it, my poor baby would be born with this condition that would make everything that little bit more difficult for them for potentially the rest of their lives. We were devastated. It certainly isn't the worst that could happen, there are things out there much worse than talipes, but every parent secretly wants their child to be born absolutely perfect and it's a blow to know that they will have a harder start in life. No child deserves that.
While all this was going on I discovered that my cousin, who I had once been very close to, had suffered a miscarriage. I found out in December that this had happened. From my dad who warned me not to put my scan picture on facebook because it would upset both my cousin and my aunt. My aunt is scary and out of respect for my cousin's feelings I didn't post anything on fb about my pregnancy for nearly two months. I can't hide the fact that I'm pregnant, though, and I don't want to. So I started posting again, updating my scan pictures and talking openly about the talipes.
My cousin withdrew from me even more. At a family gathering a month ago she glared at me from across the room, mumbled a brief hello and then got up and moved every time that I tried to talk to her. Maybe I'm being over sensitive about the issue but I can only conclude that she is somehow offended by the fact that my pregnancy, though not completely normal, progressed more successfully than hers. Certainly I can't think of any other reason why she wouldn't be willing to talk to me. Hell, I found out the date of her wedding from my dad. Save the date cards have gone out to the rest of my family, sisters included, but nothing for me. Whatever I've done to offend or upset her escapes me, but I'm fairly sure it's to do with the small alien wriggling around inside me. And can this child wriggle.
Last night I had a complete meltdown both at home and on facebook (and I know how dangerous it is to have a meltdown on facebook). I'm in pain, not the labour kind of pain which I'm expecting because this child has to come out one way or another. The pain I'm in is caused by the simple fact that the baby is pressing against my left lower ribs all the time at the moment, pushing them out into something of an unnatural position. Consequently, over the last few weeks, they have become somewhat bruised and sore. Yesterday the pain reached a whole new level. The simple act of getting out of bed was torture, getting up off the sofa to answer a phone call, sneezing, just doing my job, if I moved the wrong way it was like having a blade slid between my ribs. I got to the point where I was crying with the amount of pain I was in, I had to leave work early. My boyfriend touched me and I leapt away from him like he had just tried to press a hot brand into my skin. I know labour will likely be worse, but I can have pain relief that works for that. I intend on having pain relief for that because I'm not stupid enough to think that it will be easy. The most pain relief I can take at the moment is paracetemol which has hardly touched the pain. Warm packs and baths ease it for a while but if I roll over at night it wakes me, after a couple of hours of lessened pain the benefit of the warm pack wears off and I'm in agony again.
After several sleepless nights, a day spent in total agony, and a long shift at work I'd reached breaking point. I came home in tears, I broke down on my boyfriend for half an hour and had a hot bath to try and make myself feel better. While in the bath I vented on facebook: "My ribs are in agony! I swear the people who say pregnancy is wonderful are liars. Can't wait for the next six weeks to be over!" It's the sort of thing that a person who is tired, in pain and fed up writes. My mummy friends, and it always surprises me how many of those I have, all agree with me. Pregnancy is painful, uncomfortable, undignified and plain hard.
My cousin disagrees with the sentiment that I expressed last night. She got on her high horse about it, made a veiled post about how people should think about how their words will affect others before they post, then sent me a long and vicious PM along the lines of: "How can you even say that? Do you have any idea how lucky you are? You're having a baby you miserable cow and all you can do is complain about how your ribs hurt and how much you hate being pregnant. Being pregnant is wonderful and it is marvellous and it's not a right it's an honour. You don't have any right to complain about being pregnant and maybe if you think it's that awful you shouldn't be, maybe you should have lost out on your child instead. You don't deserve to be pregnant if that's your attitude." There was a lot more swearing than that and a lot less in the way of punctuation, correct spelling and vowels. I'm paraphrasing for the sake of everyone's sanity and because I'm a grammar nazi in my own way.
I didn't bother replying. I didn't want to let her get to me. But she did. She doesn't know it but she did. I didn't reply to her on there, I wasn't going to dignify the rant of someone who hasn't been pregnant condemning me for hitting the point that all pregnant women do. The point where we've had enough and we just want it to be over. We want our bodies back, we want our clothes back, we don't want to be woken up at three am with a well placed punch to the bladder or kick to the ribs. Where we don't want to be in pain twenty-four-seven, suffering from recurring morning sickness (which is back much to my utter joy) and trying to adjust to new limits that we've never had in the past. This particular piece of blogging, which she will never see because no one in my personal life even knows that I have this LJ, will never make it in front of her eyes. She will never know how badly she had hurt me these last couple of months, even before it came to a head last night, she will never know that I got out of the bath, kissed my boyfriend goodnight, and cried myself to sleep over it. Mature I know but raging hormones and all that.
I will reply to her here, though, even if she never sees it, because I have some things I have to say that I would never stoop to actually throw at her. I'm better than that, or at least I like to think I am. So this is what I would say to her if I wanted to start a massive family fight:
"I'm sorry, Sue, I'm sorry that you lost your baby. I'm sorry that I got pregnant before you and that mine is going to result in the birth of a baby. I'm sorry that I had to go through horrendous morning sickness and spend my birthday in hospital. I'm sorry that my baby is going to be born with clubfeet, I'm sorry my child will have to go through so much before they're even six months old. I'm sorry that I'm in pain all the time because of how the baby is sitting. I'm sorry that I started throwing up again two days ago. I'm sorry that my lungs are so squashed that when I go upstairs it takes me twenty minutes to catch my breath. I'm sorry I have to pee every hour whether my bladder is actually full or not. I'm sorry that you find something I can't change offensive. I'm sorry you think I should just shut up and put up because it's an honour to do what I'm doing. I'm sorry you don't believe that anyone should get fed up of going through all of this and I'm sorry you didn't get that chance. I'm sorry I had to find out what had happened second hand, I'm sorry that I never approached you, I'm sorry that I gave you space and time to at least start healing. I'm sorry that I can't be ashamed of the fact that I'm still pregnant, I'm sorry that our family still wants to see me at the same time as they see you. I'm sorry that you can't accept the fact that sometimes these things just aren't meant to be. I'm not sorry, however, that I reached the end of my tether last night, I'm not sorry that I'm getting impatient to hold my baby in my arms and I'm not sorry that one day soon I will."
So she'll never read it and maybe that's selfish. If she wants to get her panties in a twist over the whole thing then let her. I'm tired and I'm sore and I just can't be bothered to give her the time of day any more. She might be my blood but nothing, not even a miscarriage, gives her the right to treat me like that. I can forgive, but I won't forget. I'll be there for her the day that it finally goes right for her. I'll offer advice and help where I can, but there will be no sympathy, there will be no messages of understanding when her feet swell up and her figure goes all to hell, when she's throwing up first thing in the morning or her ribs and back are hurting from the position of the baby. Just a reminder that what she is doing is an honour not a right and that she should savour each experience. Maybe then she'll get it. Maybe she never will. Maybe that's shallow and cruel and petty and maybe I'll never do it because I do try to be the better person and that I would never be that way. I know myself well enough, however, to know that I can be that petty.
There. I've vented, I've ranted. It changes nothing but maybe I'm a little less upset and perhaps that's for the best.
People tell you that pregnancy is a marvellous thing and I really have to disagree. What you get at the end of the whole mess is wonderful, nothing compares to the excitement that I feel when I think about the fact that at some time in the next two months I will be holding my baby in my arms. However, from my experience (singular as it is given that this is my first child) pregnancy is uncomfortable at best. But let's look at my journey for a second before I explain the full reason for my total meltdown last night. (Really I'm just purging).
So to start with, this wasn't planned. When I got pregnant my boyfriend and I hadn't even been together a year. We weren't living together, sure we'd talked about it but it wasn't something that we'd done anything about at all. We were in that comfortable first year when everything is rosy and the future isn't really something you think about because it's that first bloom of new love. We were careful, as careful as you can be, because children weren't something we'd talked about. We both wanted them, we both knew that, but we didn't want them right then. Best laid plans and good intentions and all that.
At first I didn't even know I was pregnant, it didn't even cross my mind. After three days of worsening vomiting I just assumed that I had a really bad stomach bug and made plans to go see a doctor if it hadn't improved over the weekend. I even went to my friend's hen party and had a couple of drinks that I struggled to keep down on top of the meal that I barely ate half of. I sipped water and coke all night, nearly passed out because I felt so ill and was already pretty dehydrated by this point, and joined in all the fun and shenanigans that I could so that I could take my mind off the whole upset stomach thing. The next day a mutual close friend of ours met me to discuss a present I was making for her nan. Along with the money for the piece she gave me a pregnancy test and told me to use it. I laughed but did as I was told because I was still feeling sick and it was getting worse.
Turns out she was right.
I had a complete meltdown at 9.05 on a Monday morning. I remember the time because I called my mum in a complete panic and she had not long started work. Fortunately it all worked out alright, my boyfriend was over the moon and we moved in together as soon as he could get out of his lease. We've even started saving for a house. It's been a good thing for us.
The morning sickness, on the other hand, got worse. It got to the point that no matter the pills that my doctor put me on, my best efforts at trying to stay fed and hydrated and several weeks off work while we tried to get things under control it didn't improve. I got to the point where I was throwing up every fifteen to twenty minutes, where I could take two bites of a meal and find myself with my head over the toilet in seconds. The only things that occasionally stayed down was a McDonalds or Burger King. Absolutely no way that I could live off those and it still didn't solve the problem of not being able to keep liquids down. It got to the point where I was throwing up blood every time and the doctor declared that enough was enough. I was in tears, I was struggling and all the vomiting had torn the back of my throat terribly. I was a mess and on my birthday I was carted off for a two day stay in hospital. I was connected to a drip to hydrate me and had to have four litres of fluid pumped into me over the course of those two days. Scared the hell out of all my nearest and dearest. But by getting me hydrated they got the sickness under control. It didn't stop, in fact I didn't stop being sick until Christmas Eve, but I got to the point where I could actually function productively rather than attempting to get on with my life while really not being able to.
We were in for another blow. In November, at our twenty week scan, we were told that the baby would have talipes when born. A clubfoot, possibly both but they couldn't be sure, that would require weeks of casts, an operation, and boots with a bar holding them at shoulder width apart to correct the turn. All before my baby would be six months old. And the boots and bar? Well, baby would grow up wearing those at night until the age of five. So not only had I been having a hard time of it, my poor baby would be born with this condition that would make everything that little bit more difficult for them for potentially the rest of their lives. We were devastated. It certainly isn't the worst that could happen, there are things out there much worse than talipes, but every parent secretly wants their child to be born absolutely perfect and it's a blow to know that they will have a harder start in life. No child deserves that.
While all this was going on I discovered that my cousin, who I had once been very close to, had suffered a miscarriage. I found out in December that this had happened. From my dad who warned me not to put my scan picture on facebook because it would upset both my cousin and my aunt. My aunt is scary and out of respect for my cousin's feelings I didn't post anything on fb about my pregnancy for nearly two months. I can't hide the fact that I'm pregnant, though, and I don't want to. So I started posting again, updating my scan pictures and talking openly about the talipes.
My cousin withdrew from me even more. At a family gathering a month ago she glared at me from across the room, mumbled a brief hello and then got up and moved every time that I tried to talk to her. Maybe I'm being over sensitive about the issue but I can only conclude that she is somehow offended by the fact that my pregnancy, though not completely normal, progressed more successfully than hers. Certainly I can't think of any other reason why she wouldn't be willing to talk to me. Hell, I found out the date of her wedding from my dad. Save the date cards have gone out to the rest of my family, sisters included, but nothing for me. Whatever I've done to offend or upset her escapes me, but I'm fairly sure it's to do with the small alien wriggling around inside me. And can this child wriggle.
Last night I had a complete meltdown both at home and on facebook (and I know how dangerous it is to have a meltdown on facebook). I'm in pain, not the labour kind of pain which I'm expecting because this child has to come out one way or another. The pain I'm in is caused by the simple fact that the baby is pressing against my left lower ribs all the time at the moment, pushing them out into something of an unnatural position. Consequently, over the last few weeks, they have become somewhat bruised and sore. Yesterday the pain reached a whole new level. The simple act of getting out of bed was torture, getting up off the sofa to answer a phone call, sneezing, just doing my job, if I moved the wrong way it was like having a blade slid between my ribs. I got to the point where I was crying with the amount of pain I was in, I had to leave work early. My boyfriend touched me and I leapt away from him like he had just tried to press a hot brand into my skin. I know labour will likely be worse, but I can have pain relief that works for that. I intend on having pain relief for that because I'm not stupid enough to think that it will be easy. The most pain relief I can take at the moment is paracetemol which has hardly touched the pain. Warm packs and baths ease it for a while but if I roll over at night it wakes me, after a couple of hours of lessened pain the benefit of the warm pack wears off and I'm in agony again.
After several sleepless nights, a day spent in total agony, and a long shift at work I'd reached breaking point. I came home in tears, I broke down on my boyfriend for half an hour and had a hot bath to try and make myself feel better. While in the bath I vented on facebook: "My ribs are in agony! I swear the people who say pregnancy is wonderful are liars. Can't wait for the next six weeks to be over!" It's the sort of thing that a person who is tired, in pain and fed up writes. My mummy friends, and it always surprises me how many of those I have, all agree with me. Pregnancy is painful, uncomfortable, undignified and plain hard.
My cousin disagrees with the sentiment that I expressed last night. She got on her high horse about it, made a veiled post about how people should think about how their words will affect others before they post, then sent me a long and vicious PM along the lines of: "How can you even say that? Do you have any idea how lucky you are? You're having a baby you miserable cow and all you can do is complain about how your ribs hurt and how much you hate being pregnant. Being pregnant is wonderful and it is marvellous and it's not a right it's an honour. You don't have any right to complain about being pregnant and maybe if you think it's that awful you shouldn't be, maybe you should have lost out on your child instead. You don't deserve to be pregnant if that's your attitude." There was a lot more swearing than that and a lot less in the way of punctuation, correct spelling and vowels. I'm paraphrasing for the sake of everyone's sanity and because I'm a grammar nazi in my own way.
I didn't bother replying. I didn't want to let her get to me. But she did. She doesn't know it but she did. I didn't reply to her on there, I wasn't going to dignify the rant of someone who hasn't been pregnant condemning me for hitting the point that all pregnant women do. The point where we've had enough and we just want it to be over. We want our bodies back, we want our clothes back, we don't want to be woken up at three am with a well placed punch to the bladder or kick to the ribs. Where we don't want to be in pain twenty-four-seven, suffering from recurring morning sickness (which is back much to my utter joy) and trying to adjust to new limits that we've never had in the past. This particular piece of blogging, which she will never see because no one in my personal life even knows that I have this LJ, will never make it in front of her eyes. She will never know how badly she had hurt me these last couple of months, even before it came to a head last night, she will never know that I got out of the bath, kissed my boyfriend goodnight, and cried myself to sleep over it. Mature I know but raging hormones and all that.
I will reply to her here, though, even if she never sees it, because I have some things I have to say that I would never stoop to actually throw at her. I'm better than that, or at least I like to think I am. So this is what I would say to her if I wanted to start a massive family fight:
"I'm sorry, Sue, I'm sorry that you lost your baby. I'm sorry that I got pregnant before you and that mine is going to result in the birth of a baby. I'm sorry that I had to go through horrendous morning sickness and spend my birthday in hospital. I'm sorry that my baby is going to be born with clubfeet, I'm sorry my child will have to go through so much before they're even six months old. I'm sorry that I'm in pain all the time because of how the baby is sitting. I'm sorry that I started throwing up again two days ago. I'm sorry that my lungs are so squashed that when I go upstairs it takes me twenty minutes to catch my breath. I'm sorry I have to pee every hour whether my bladder is actually full or not. I'm sorry that you find something I can't change offensive. I'm sorry you think I should just shut up and put up because it's an honour to do what I'm doing. I'm sorry you don't believe that anyone should get fed up of going through all of this and I'm sorry you didn't get that chance. I'm sorry I had to find out what had happened second hand, I'm sorry that I never approached you, I'm sorry that I gave you space and time to at least start healing. I'm sorry that I can't be ashamed of the fact that I'm still pregnant, I'm sorry that our family still wants to see me at the same time as they see you. I'm sorry that you can't accept the fact that sometimes these things just aren't meant to be. I'm not sorry, however, that I reached the end of my tether last night, I'm not sorry that I'm getting impatient to hold my baby in my arms and I'm not sorry that one day soon I will."
So she'll never read it and maybe that's selfish. If she wants to get her panties in a twist over the whole thing then let her. I'm tired and I'm sore and I just can't be bothered to give her the time of day any more. She might be my blood but nothing, not even a miscarriage, gives her the right to treat me like that. I can forgive, but I won't forget. I'll be there for her the day that it finally goes right for her. I'll offer advice and help where I can, but there will be no sympathy, there will be no messages of understanding when her feet swell up and her figure goes all to hell, when she's throwing up first thing in the morning or her ribs and back are hurting from the position of the baby. Just a reminder that what she is doing is an honour not a right and that she should savour each experience. Maybe then she'll get it. Maybe she never will. Maybe that's shallow and cruel and petty and maybe I'll never do it because I do try to be the better person and that I would never be that way. I know myself well enough, however, to know that I can be that petty.
There. I've vented, I've ranted. It changes nothing but maybe I'm a little less upset and perhaps that's for the best.