~I always wanted to write this story down for Derrin. Even though this started with his Dad and myself, it's his story too.~
No one told me that after getting married, my life would turn completely upside down for awhile. Or, maybe they did, but I only heard what I wanted to through my 'love-plugged ears'.
~.~
We were married in December. We moved an hour and a half away, away from my family. I quit a job I loved, and found a new job at an office doing data entry in an insurance office. I put myself on birth-control pills, as having kids was something for WAY down the road.
We had a plan: Live cheaply, save money, and eventually use all that saved money to travel through Europe together. Maybe not the most grown-up plan, but we were young and that was THE dream. The minute we said "I do", we knew it was just the first step to making the dream happen together.
Only things didn't turn out quite like that dream. The pills made me crabby. REALLY crabby. I was looking at Derrick (who I had known for four years) and wondering WHO IS THIS. It seemed to me that he was spending way too much time playing video games, messing around with his friends (heaven forbid!) and being a drummer in a band (on the weekends, but still WAY too much for my frame of mind). Where were all of the deep conversations I had envisioned, and where were the late nights spent dreaming out loud about our trip to Europe and anything else we wanted the future to hold for us? The more crabby I became with him and the more crazy the pills made me, the more he wondered who HE had married. This girl was mad about everything.
My new job wasn't everything I had hoped for. My new boss gave me more work than I could ever handle, and she was always at my back wanting me to work faster. I had my first migraine a week after I started that job. I'm sure the birth control pills were partially to blame, and the stress didn't help. But the job was going to stay. We were a new, young, married couple with new bills to pay, and we needed my income. Plus my job had an awesome insurance plan. Quitting wasn't an option I gave myself, at least not at that point.
~.~
We limped along kinda miserably for the first three months we were married, and then something COMPLETELY unexpected happened: Guess what Mom and Dad, we're pregnant! Didn't see THAT one coming along, did ya? I'd even been told from three different gynos that conceiving was going to be difficult for me because of a very irregular cycle. The birth control pills must've helped me become all primed and ready for motherhood.
I brought the stick test out to Derrick. He grabbed it out of my hands, not comprehending, and then spent the next half-hour reading the directions, trying to make sense of the two lines that meant 'a baby is in your future'.
So, there we were, pregnant after being married for three months. Life just kept moving forward. I still had to get up every day and go to work, only now I got to be there with morning sickness. I'd have to call in sick sometimes. My boss would demand I make up any missed time on weekends. I lived for the two fifteen minute breaks we were given and lunch time (a whole hour!). I'd make my way out to my car, lay down and gratefully pass out.
So, that was my life. Get up, go to work, and count the minutes until I could leave again. Go to work whether I was sick or not. We REALLY needed the insurance that that point. I felt trapped by the situation.
Most people start to feel better around three months- not me. I slugged along. I just assumed this was what being pregnant was like. My gyno didn't seem too concerned. My boss didn't cut me any slack. My poor young husband didn't know any better.
At about five months I got even sicker. I was still throwing up, but now I had a horrible cough that I couldn't control, I was feverish off and on, and my energy plummeted further. I'd cough so hard I couldn't catch my breath. Since I needed the job and it's insurance so bad (I thought), I continued to drag myself to the office.
~.~
I kept waiting for someone to tell me what I already knew: I needed to be at home in bed. But no one ever told me that. I needed more alternatives, I needed someone to help me figure it out. But no one did, and I don't remember ever asking for help. In retrospect, I should have taken action myself- put myself to bed, and made the move to protect my health and my child's health. I've learned since then that taking care of myself is MY job.
I hate to think of how I took care of myself through-out that time. My diet was horrible. I had no concept of nutrition, and honestly I was too far into survivor mode to make the effort I should have to take care of myself and my unborn baby.
My boss decided that instead of data entry, she was going to have me start pulling old files for missing information. That job mostly consisted of moving heavy boxes around to get to the right files. It was a lot of lifting for someone who couldn't hardly sit for 15 minutes without a bathroom break to throw up and have a breakdown. It definitely wasn't a job for someone obviously struggling with a difficult pregnancy. I still don't know what she was thinking. I do know now, after thinking about it for 10 long years, that she was a bully. An older me wishes I would have stood up for myself. I say this to my kids all the time now (and I quote Dr. Phil here, in all his glory): "You teach people how to treat you." I believe that will all my heart.
~.~
At twenty three weeks we had the ultrasound that told us we were going to have a son. I was happy, but also a little detached- it still didn't feel like it was real. My stomach hadn't really grown that much yet, even by then. It seemed like I was growing everywhere else though. From that point on I watched the bathroom scale climb steadily day by day. I couldn't understand it, because I still wasn't even wearing maternity clothes yet; I was just going up regular sizes at an alarming rate. My hands and feet, and especially my face were getting bigger. I couldn't hardly recognize the girl looking back at me in the mirror. I was still sick, and coughing.
I don't know if this is a common experience, but the clinic I went to seemed to think that because I was pregnant, I was also over reacting. The feedback from the staff who answered the phone (because the doctor was completely inaccessible) was, "You're pregnant. Of course you feel like crap. Suck it up, Buttercup."
They eventually gave me an inhaler (to help me calm my coughing fits so I could breath again), probably just to get me off of their backs. Once again, if I was in that situation today, I would have found a clinic willing to treat me as seriously as I deserved to be treated.
~.~
One of the worst things during that time was how out of it I felt. It was like my brain was just GONE. One time I went into a bank intending on withdrawing some money, and they couldn't find my account. I was flustered and frustrated, and they looked and looked but found nothing even close to my name in their computers. I finally looked around and saw a bank sign (after about ten minutes of having them look) and realized that I was in the WRONG BANK. Upon realizing my error, I told the teller I would just come back later, and I squirmed on out. Now I know that it wasn't just being pregnant that was making my brain shut down. My body was trying to send me yet another signal that something was very wrong with it.
My mom took me to the mall at 25 weeks to buy me some maternity clothes, even though my stomach wasn't really showing. It made me feel better to at least be wearing clothes that acknowledged I was pregnant and not just getting fat.
When I finally went in for my 26 week doctor's visit, I was at the end of my rope. I was sick: Sick of being fat, sick of work, just plain sick. My list consisted of
My list looks exactly like what you'd find if you were to google 'preeclampsia'. The first thing my doctor had me do after reading my list was take a urine sample. Yep, protein in the urine. My blood pressure was through the roof. Preeclampsia it was.
Continued in next blog...
No one told me that after getting married, my life would turn completely upside down for awhile. Or, maybe they did, but I only heard what I wanted to through my 'love-plugged ears'.
 |
| Our First Dance |
We were married in December. We moved an hour and a half away, away from my family. I quit a job I loved, and found a new job at an office doing data entry in an insurance office. I put myself on birth-control pills, as having kids was something for WAY down the road.
We had a plan: Live cheaply, save money, and eventually use all that saved money to travel through Europe together. Maybe not the most grown-up plan, but we were young and that was THE dream. The minute we said "I do", we knew it was just the first step to making the dream happen together.
Only things didn't turn out quite like that dream. The pills made me crabby. REALLY crabby. I was looking at Derrick (who I had known for four years) and wondering WHO IS THIS. It seemed to me that he was spending way too much time playing video games, messing around with his friends (heaven forbid!) and being a drummer in a band (on the weekends, but still WAY too much for my frame of mind). Where were all of the deep conversations I had envisioned, and where were the late nights spent dreaming out loud about our trip to Europe and anything else we wanted the future to hold for us? The more crabby I became with him and the more crazy the pills made me, the more he wondered who HE had married. This girl was mad about everything.
My new job wasn't everything I had hoped for. My new boss gave me more work than I could ever handle, and she was always at my back wanting me to work faster. I had my first migraine a week after I started that job. I'm sure the birth control pills were partially to blame, and the stress didn't help. But the job was going to stay. We were a new, young, married couple with new bills to pay, and we needed my income. Plus my job had an awesome insurance plan. Quitting wasn't an option I gave myself, at least not at that point.
~.~
We limped along kinda miserably for the first three months we were married, and then something COMPLETELY unexpected happened: Guess what Mom and Dad, we're pregnant! Didn't see THAT one coming along, did ya? I'd even been told from three different gynos that conceiving was going to be difficult for me because of a very irregular cycle. The birth control pills must've helped me become all primed and ready for motherhood.
I brought the stick test out to Derrick. He grabbed it out of my hands, not comprehending, and then spent the next half-hour reading the directions, trying to make sense of the two lines that meant 'a baby is in your future'.
So, there we were, pregnant after being married for three months. Life just kept moving forward. I still had to get up every day and go to work, only now I got to be there with morning sickness. I'd have to call in sick sometimes. My boss would demand I make up any missed time on weekends. I lived for the two fifteen minute breaks we were given and lunch time (a whole hour!). I'd make my way out to my car, lay down and gratefully pass out.
 |
| 7 Week Embreyo |
So, that was my life. Get up, go to work, and count the minutes until I could leave again. Go to work whether I was sick or not. We REALLY needed the insurance that that point. I felt trapped by the situation.
Most people start to feel better around three months- not me. I slugged along. I just assumed this was what being pregnant was like. My gyno didn't seem too concerned. My boss didn't cut me any slack. My poor young husband didn't know any better.
At about five months I got even sicker. I was still throwing up, but now I had a horrible cough that I couldn't control, I was feverish off and on, and my energy plummeted further. I'd cough so hard I couldn't catch my breath. Since I needed the job and it's insurance so bad (I thought), I continued to drag myself to the office.
~.~
I kept waiting for someone to tell me what I already knew: I needed to be at home in bed. But no one ever told me that. I needed more alternatives, I needed someone to help me figure it out. But no one did, and I don't remember ever asking for help. In retrospect, I should have taken action myself- put myself to bed, and made the move to protect my health and my child's health. I've learned since then that taking care of myself is MY job.
I hate to think of how I took care of myself through-out that time. My diet was horrible. I had no concept of nutrition, and honestly I was too far into survivor mode to make the effort I should have to take care of myself and my unborn baby.
My boss decided that instead of data entry, she was going to have me start pulling old files for missing information. That job mostly consisted of moving heavy boxes around to get to the right files. It was a lot of lifting for someone who couldn't hardly sit for 15 minutes without a bathroom break to throw up and have a breakdown. It definitely wasn't a job for someone obviously struggling with a difficult pregnancy. I still don't know what she was thinking. I do know now, after thinking about it for 10 long years, that she was a bully. An older me wishes I would have stood up for myself. I say this to my kids all the time now (and I quote Dr. Phil here, in all his glory): "You teach people how to treat you." I believe that will all my heart.
~.~
At twenty three weeks we had the ultrasound that told us we were going to have a son. I was happy, but also a little detached- it still didn't feel like it was real. My stomach hadn't really grown that much yet, even by then. It seemed like I was growing everywhere else though. From that point on I watched the bathroom scale climb steadily day by day. I couldn't understand it, because I still wasn't even wearing maternity clothes yet; I was just going up regular sizes at an alarming rate. My hands and feet, and especially my face were getting bigger. I couldn't hardly recognize the girl looking back at me in the mirror. I was still sick, and coughing.
 |
| 23 Weeks: A BOY! |
I don't know if this is a common experience, but the clinic I went to seemed to think that because I was pregnant, I was also over reacting. The feedback from the staff who answered the phone (because the doctor was completely inaccessible) was, "You're pregnant. Of course you feel like crap. Suck it up, Buttercup."
They eventually gave me an inhaler (to help me calm my coughing fits so I could breath again), probably just to get me off of their backs. Once again, if I was in that situation today, I would have found a clinic willing to treat me as seriously as I deserved to be treated.
~.~
One of the worst things during that time was how out of it I felt. It was like my brain was just GONE. One time I went into a bank intending on withdrawing some money, and they couldn't find my account. I was flustered and frustrated, and they looked and looked but found nothing even close to my name in their computers. I finally looked around and saw a bank sign (after about ten minutes of having them look) and realized that I was in the WRONG BANK. Upon realizing my error, I told the teller I would just come back later, and I squirmed on out. Now I know that it wasn't just being pregnant that was making my brain shut down. My body was trying to send me yet another signal that something was very wrong with it.
My mom took me to the mall at 25 weeks to buy me some maternity clothes, even though my stomach wasn't really showing. It made me feel better to at least be wearing clothes that acknowledged I was pregnant and not just getting fat.
When I finally went in for my 26 week doctor's visit, I was at the end of my rope. I was sick: Sick of being fat, sick of work, just plain sick. My list consisted of
 |
| My Very Long List of Complaints |
My list looks exactly like what you'd find if you were to google 'preeclampsia'. The first thing my doctor had me do after reading my list was take a urine sample. Yep, protein in the urine. My blood pressure was through the roof. Preeclampsia it was.
Continued in next blog...
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