Moms In The Village...: Olivia's Story

Growing up, I never really wanted to have children because I thought I would be incapable of being a mother. I really didn’t think I had it in me to properly love a child, especially at 21. When I found out I was pregnant, I was mortified. I certainly did not feel qualified in life to have this little person who depended on me, I killed fish and plants. I can truly say that there was probably not one thing that went as planned for me starting with the doctor appointments prior to finding out. The biggest thing I have learned is that although doctors may have years of school they tend to not understand the woman’s ability to know their own body. I tell almost anyone who will listen that if you feel like something is wrong, then there is a good chance there is!

First, I had a doctor tell me that I would NEVER be able to get pregnant! Then when I was 3 months pregnant I went to this very same doctor and had a full exam. Leaving the office understanding that I needed to switch some things around and that everything was good to go. She gave me some medication that would have completely killed my growing baby. As I was about the take this medication something told me to take a pregnancy test. Why I still to this day have no idea. POSITIVE as clear as day. I completely lost it. How could a doctor miss this? Not until I switch to a new doctor did I find out that I was not only pregnant but was almost 3 months along! Shocker to say the least. Of course this news took some time to sink in. I was a college student that did not even really have a stable job yet. My boyfriend at the time (now husband) was the only one working full time.

The first thing I imagined is that my body would know what to do and I would bounce back to my 105 lb weight, no problems. I have witness several people who seemingly had no problems with this. They had cute belly pictures and looked amazing right after having children. I was sure this would be me! Well as I started going to the doctor I started gaining weight like it was nothing. Every week I was up an extra 10 lbs. In no time I literally doubled my weight. I didn’t feel or look cute like all the other belly pictures. I had stretch marks, high blood pressure, and so much swelling everywhere. I also knew there was something wrong about 4 months into this experience. I must have gone to the hospital 10 times and every time they sent me home, saying I had preeclampsia, but everything was fine.

Finally I was standing in my apartment with my mother in law when my water broke. What was going on?! I was only 31 weeks and I had 9 more weeks to go! I didn’t have everything together and certainly was not ready. I was sure this was a mistake and when I would get to the hospital, they would just send me home. I had no pain or any other symptoms. I was correct! They were sending me home AGAIN. I called my boyfriend to come and stay with me until I was ready to leave. Finally, I went to the bathroom to get changed and of course the resident came to check on me and said, “Oh you aren’t going anywhere, you are being admitted”. This is when it became real! They literally rolled me upstairs into the high risk waiting room and the pain began. It was like a switch was turned on. I asked for my epidural because this process would take forever. I was only dilated to 2 CM. 5-10 minutes later the epidural arrived and they were sticking me multiple time when they finally got it! I said, “ I need to lay down this baby is coming out now!” They looked at me like I was crazy! “Lay down. Your fine. We checked. You are 2cm. You have a lot more time left!” As I laid down the nurse screamed, “No, I can see a head.” Just as the doctor came to look, the baby literally shot out like a cannon. She had to catch him, because he literally flew out.

They whisked the baby away and I didn’t get to see him. Finally my husband brought him to me and this child had the worst cone head imaginable. I only had about a minute to hold this little alien and could tell he was having some trouble breathing. They of course took the baby to the NICU and put him on all types of machines. The doctors were saying all sorts of medical terms to me that I did not understand. All I knew was that I was not ready for a baby, certainly not 9 weeks early. I was not bonded with this child yet. I was thinking there would be some magic spark that would happen when I saw him. I attribute a lot of that to the fact that he was a little 4lb baby that was so fragile and my fears of not being capable of being a mother. We spent almost a month in the NICU, they prepared me for a stay of over 3 months. In fact I was supposed to go back to work before my son was released from the hospital. He really did well and it didn’t take long for a true bond to form. He had all of the normal complications premature babies have such as reflux, delayed growth, and asthma. However, given the circumstances he is now a perfect 8 year old boy.

4 years later our lives were completely different. I was in school for my master’s degree, we purchased our first home and both had stable jobs. This is when I found out that I was pregnant again. This time my fears were extremely different. I was horrified because my last pregnancy was only 7 ½ months and I gained 100 lbs! I was still recovering from the first one and only lost half of the weight I wanted.

First thing I did was call the doctor to get my blood work to confirm I was in fact pregnant. This is where my first problems started. My hormones were all wrong and if they were not corrected I would have a miscarriage. Thankfully they immediately gave me a high risk doctor that would help take care of me. This reassured me that everything would be much better than my first experience. My plan of treatment was to see my doctor once a week and see the high risk doctor once a week for ultrasounds. Besides the hormones, extra monitoring, and weekly injections of progesterone, nothing else really needed to be done.

My blood pressure was actually staring to increase in the first trimester, but started to get out of control in the second trimester. I was getting headaches daily and it seemed like things were going downhill. My swelling and weight gain were starting to pick up too. I was put on strict bed rest and my weekly routines were to see both doctors and get blood work. During this time they also noticed that my platelets we going down. Really, I had no idea what all of this meant, but my doctors didn’t seem to be freaking out, so I sure wasn’t. It started getting to the point where I was calling my doctor’s office every other day with issues. I started going into labor at 5 months and was admitted to the hospital. There, they had me monitored and they were able to get the labor stopped, but my baby also had 2 moments where his heart stopped. This is when the pregnancy turned very dramatic. I was laying there and all of a sudden about 5 different people came running in and threw me around in different positions gave me oxygen and never uttered much to me. I was so terrified. After staying a couple days at the hospital everything seemed fine I was able to go home and lay around. The game plan, my doctor told me, was to stay in bed, with my feet up, monitoring my blood pressure.

I will never ever forget the next 48 hours, starting Aug 5^th, where I almost died. I get chills just thinking about it. I woke up feeling very dizzy and off, and of course my blood pressure was soaring high. I went to stand up because I couldn’t see. I literally lost my vision for about 10 minutes. I was horrified and screamed to have my friend take me to the hospital. I staggered in the doors and the best way to describe it was almost like I was drunk and couldn’t walk normally. I was able to get to the desk and tell them, ”Help me. Something is really wrong with me.” They took me back to someone, who took my blood pressure. She was so calm. I just fell into the chair and she said, “Oh weird. I am getting an error. I will get another machine”, which she did and same thing happened. Finally they took my blood pressure manually and it was 200/210. I must have sat there with 3 different people taking my blood pressure. Next think I know they put me into a bed and hooked me up and calmed me down. I then had some blood work and all hell broke loose. My blood pressure spiked up again to really high levels and I all I remember was seeing my doctor in the window running over to the ER. I made the comment,”Oh look, someone must be having a baby.” Well she was running over to see me. All my alarms were going off and I was so out of it, that I have no memory of what was going on. I was 34 weeks pregnant and again this was happening. They decided to induce me because my BP was now for the 2^nd time in the death/stoke rate.

I remember once my 2^nd son was born being very, very emotional waiting to hear him cry for the first time. I waited and waited and waited. Time stood still for me and I began to get so very scared. I could read the faces of the doctors and the pages for more doctors to my room. My husband’s face as he looked on helplessly. I am grateful I was in a bed because I don’t think I could have watched this. Finally after what I believe was 10 minutes they took the baby away after a very soft cry. We waited for an update from someone for more than 30 minutes. Finally someone came to tell us that the baby was sick but was finally breathing with help. I was moved from that room to some high risk room and was allowed to see my baby for a total of 5 minutes. I was not doing well myself. My platelets were not improving and my BP despite all of the medications was not coming down. I don’t think I realized how sick I was, until the next day the nurse came in and told me she was so happy to see I was awake. She told me that I was extremely lucky that I didn’t have a stroke or die. This was the ONLY person who told me how sick I really was. She mentioned something to me about HELLP syndrome, but I was completely out of it. In fact, I think still to this day, I will not know how lucky I am to really be here.

Yes I gained 100 lbs with both of my kids and yes I had high blood pressure for 6 months after I had my babies but I am alive and I have 2 gifts that make my life complete! I didn’t have the joyous pregnancies that you see on TV, nor did I have babies that were perfect (meaning health wise). I had so many complications and issues that my doctor told me the next one, I would probably die. This was enough for me, even without hearing that. There are so many woman who die each year from this complication and I have to be happy that I made it through.