I just wanted to mention how I have been slacking on my blog posts. Things get busy this time of year so I hope you all understand!
Well today is Friday so I would like to give a little insight on our week. Brida is now waving! 🙌🏻 She also really enjoys eating strawberries with mom and trying all kinds of new foods. She is pulling herself up with furniture to a stand, but still sometimes fall over.
As for me…I haven’t had much of a good week. I was supposed to get my staples out from surgery, but it got pushed back until next week. I am so SICK of these staples! 🤣
Also, can you believe Christmas is next week?! Gah, where did the time go?!
Well I hope you all have a wonderful weekend and I will do better at posting here in my journal blog!
One year ago today we decided to try and stay out of a camper in order to be close to her out of guilt. In the end we couldn’t do it. It was negative degrees and the power kept tripping on the camper. It was FREEZING. I had a fresh surgery wound and could barely move. It was further away from work for Gavin. The odds were stacked up against us..in the end we ended up going back home. It’s important to remember that you have to take care of yourself first in order to be able to care for them.
I know it will be difficult to try to take care of yourself while you feel like your life is falling apart, but it’s very necessary. You’re LO will thrive if he/she can feel that you are doing well.
A year ago today I got to hold my baby girl for the very first time. We didn’t get to hold her in the traditional sense. We had to do what is called kangaroo care. I remember she was so small and so fragile I didn’t move an inch. It felt like holding paper.
A year ago today we also had gotten the news that she had a grade 4 brain bleed. It almost felt like as soon as I let myself be happy and believe everything would be okay, life had to go and prove me wrong.
One year ago today, I got released from the hospital. As I was walking out of the NICU to make the long journey home since birth, I noticed this prayer on the way out..
Walking out of those hospital doors without her was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do. I was already feeling guilty and depressed. But now that I noticed this prayer, I felt so much worse. I remember holding back the tears as I walked out those doors with that last line in my mind and guilt weighing on my heart…”Lord, keep my mother near.” Talk about guilt.
Even today i can still feel that ache in my heart as I walked out those doors.
Going home wasn’t easy at all. I cried the whole way home. Crying isn’t even the right word. I was a total mess. An ugly crying mess. After getting home I was so numb I don’t remember doing much other than just sitting there. Numb. Shutting out the world. It’s like people were talking to me, but I couldn’t hear them. I couldn’t be comfortable being home, yet I needed to heal. They say “you have to take care of yourself in order to take care of them” but that felt impossible to do both. Not to mention the guilt from all of the family members. I still had people messaging me all the time that I didn’t have the energy for. I had family members guilting me for going home to rest and heal from a major surgery. I felt like I had no options. They made me feel like I was choosing to let her die because I couldn’t be there every second of the day.
Our home was 2 hours away from the NICU. Minot, ND does NOT have a Ronald Mcdonald to help us financially stay close by. And we had no where else to go but home. Trust me I felt guilty as hell for not being there all day everyday. But you’re damn right I still drove through snow and ice to be there for her as often as I could.
One year ago today I got to finally meet my baby girl. My raw emotions was that I honestly did not want to see her..I know that sounds awful and I felt super guilty about even thinking that..but I was scared. I honestly didn’t think she was going to make it. Especially after I did see her. That first look at her was not what any mother should have felt. I felt sadness, hopeless, and numb. It didn’t feel like my baby. Life felt so cruel. I put a wall up because I had no idea what kind of pain to prepare for…
She was hooked up to so many machines I couldn’t REALLY see her. What I could see was her paper thin legs. They were so transparent you could see the veins. Before even meeting Gavin I used to have these dreams where I’d have a baby girl with lots of dark hair, and she would slowly get smaller and smaller until in my hands until she disappeared. I would always be screaming “my baby.” I always thought these dreams would mean I would have a baby that didn’t survive. In those dreams I remember thinking she looked like a baby featherless bird. When I saw her and saw she looked like a featherless baby bird..I knew THIS is what my dreams meant.
I had people trying to reach out to me all day long. Even people that I never talk to who try to be apart of everyone’s life drama. I was so depressed I couldn’t take any phone calls or answer any texts. I barely even answered my mom. I had given my mom permission to post updates so everyone would leave me alone. The last thing I had wanted to do was talk
A year ago today I gave birth to my 25 weeker..She was born weighing 1lb 3oz and was 11 3/4 inches long. She was born at 5:24pm and I didn’t get to see her the first day. I honestly can’t even remember how many days it was until I did get to see her. I had to go all the way under full anesthesia because they said my heart wouldn’t have been able to handle a normal procedure. The scar I even have is bigger than the average C Section scar because it had to be done so fast..
A year ago today until Brida was born I don’t have much of a memory of. Disassociation is very common with birth trauma. I don’t have many memories of the first hospitalization..
Birth trauma can affect these parts of the brain:
The hippocampus
The amygdala
The prefrontal cortex
The hippocampus affects facts and recognition. The amygdala affects fear based memories. The prefrontal cortex affects the daily basis memories. (Cite)
Memory loss is a survival instinct that all humans can experience. Many forms of trauma can cause memory loss and we don’t even know it. I think my memory loss was caused by the trauma of being so close to death and the possibility of losing my baby as well.
I had no time for therapy during this time, but I did spend time in therapy and with antidepressants afterwards.
A year ago today, I was hospitalized due to preeclampsia. Around 2am I made the decision to finally go into the doctor for my breathing issues mentioned in my previous post. It was late, I couldn’t sleep, and I had tried everything I could think of.
So at 2 in the morning I had shook my boyfriend awake and told him that I thought we should go in. I love my boyfriend and he cracks me up! He had said, “okay” and fell back asleep!! 🤣 So after we fully get up we made out way to the ER.
Once at the ER, we were told that due to Covid my boyfriend had to wait outside. So as he sat in the empty parking lot waiting for answers, I was sitting in the birthing center waiting for answers. Two am turned into 5am. 5am turned into 10am. 10am turned into noon. And I had finally been SOMETHING. All I remember hearing was the word “preeclampsia”, the word “NICU”, and “if the baby comes.” I went numb. I had no idea how exactly I should even feel or what any of it even meant.
At that point my boyfriend was able to to come up with me because we were being transferred to a different hospital. My family are a bunch of jokesters and without thinking I had messaged mom “how much do you think a plane ride would be compared to an ambulance.” Little did I know that was the last message I was able to send my mom. Next thing I knew I was crying to my boyfriend that “I didn’t want anything to happen to me” as I was being loaded onto a stretcher. For the longest time I was not able to admit I had said those words. It might not sound like something to be upset over. But to me it felt like I was the most selfish woman in the world. I was crying over what might happen to me and never ONCE asked about my baby..I guess a pregnancy always seemed too good to be true for me and I was prepared for something to go wrong from day one..I would take it all back now. I would enjoy every second of my pregnancy if I could go back.
One year ago today was my First Sign of Preeclampsia. I felt a pain in my upper right abdomin. The pressure was so intense that I felt like I couldn’t catch my breath. Each deep breath I would try to take was like something was blocking my ability to breathe..yet I was still breathing. It felt like two plates suctioned together. Every movement and every breath was pure agony.
I tried to brush it off as a gas bubble. I took bubble baths (which I never do) thinking it would help relax me. It never did. I remember pulling a chair into the shower and just sitting there as the water poured over me as I cried. I remember going to the opening night of Christmas lights to see how I would feel. I couldn’t even enjoy it at all. I couldn’t sleep so I stayed up trying different ways to catch my breath.
But again…I pushed it off for a whole day before I decided to go into a doctor.. I was scared. In my head I was fighting between doing what is right and getting checked out for the baby, or settle for I was over reacting like I usually am. It was a battle in my head over what the truth of those two statements were. I knew the best thing to do was just to go to the doctor. But what did I do? Pushed it off.
Happy Sunday! I took some time off because things got a little crazy for me. I had an Instagram post not too long ago about this bulge in my upper left abdomen. I had went into my primary care provider where I was told it was just diastasis recti. So I went on about my day just thinking about how this is normal for postpartum women. Now let me pause for a second and explain. Diastasis Recti is a separation of the abdominal muscles when you are pregnant. I never thought I could of had it because I never got big since I only made it to 25 weeks. From the very beginning my gut was telling me it was NOT in fact diastasis recti.
After a couple of weeks telling everyone I had diastasis recti, I finally decided to ask others who would know. I posted on one of my Facebook postpartum support groups a picture of my stomach. I asked if it was normal looking for diastasis recti. EVERY SINGLE Woman on there told me to get a second opinion. I decided to call my OB in Minot, ND since he was the one who had done my surgery. I always fall victim to google. So I was freaking out thinking that I had a tumor or that my organs weren’t placed back correctly. I was only seeing the worst. I never thought it was a hernia because there was no pain, no hardness, just a bulge of skin and an odd shaped belly.
Front ViewLeft Side ViewRight Side ViewView From Above
At the appointment with the OB, I discussed all of my concerns. I was checked for diastasis recti and was told that I was correct about it not being that after all. He told me that it does not go up that high in the abdomen. Which makes sense to me. I do have diastasis recti, but that’s not what was causing the bulge. So a CT scan was ordered. I waited another week wondering what it could be that the doctor couldn’t even know for sure what it was. In the mean time I have been becoming sick. I actually thought I might have been pregnant. I get nauseous all the time at random. The smell of B’s oatmeal made me run to the bathroom wanting to throw up. Later, my hummus made me run to the bathroom wanting to throw up. My days now consist of me getting really sick, then tired, then I’m fine. I took a test and I’m not pregnant. The doctor confirmed that I was not pregnant. So what is causing me to be sick?!
The CT Scan results had finally came back. I have an umbilical hernia at 3.1 cm. It turns out, that is actually and the larger end of umbilical hernias. A hernia happens when the intestine or tissue bulges through the muscle. It can become deadly if it begins strangulation of the organs. So once again…I am preparing for another surgery. Atleast this time I have time to prepare for it. The percentage of women who get an umbilical hernia from pregnancy is about 0.08 percent (healthline.com). My grandma had a hernia postpartum, but I don’t personally know anyone else who has had one. Why does no one tell pregnant women about all of these things?! Well, I guess that’s what motivation me to begin these blogs!
I hope to bring hope and things in common to people out there who need it. I want all of the women who come across this to know what is natural and what is normal with their bodies and that they are alone. I want them to know that everything about pregnancy, birth, and being a mother is NOT what we are told it is.
Resources:
Citation Resources: What You Need to Know About Umbilical Hernias During and After Pregnancy by Noreen Iftikhar,MD (17 February 2018) healthline.com
Confessions of a Preemie Mom 