It is okay to not be okay - Pregnancy Journey Interlude

I was so happy to be pregnant…initially. This was something I thought I wanted. It is a rite of passage for a woman, every woman, isn’t it? And I was ready to go through it with grace. I had prayed and it seemed like my prayers were answered; I didn’t have to do an IVF even though doctors told me I wouldn’t get pregnant without it, I had no pregnancy symptoms except for the occasional tiredness…but that was it.

Then they tell me I have a clot. Do you know the chances of a pregnant woman developing a clot? One in a THOUSAND chances. Ha, yes. I had a 0.001% chance of developing a clot and develop it I did. Even the doctors didn’t believe it at first. I was the one who did the research, saw that I had all the symptoms, insisted I be checked and lo and behold, a clot. Not only that, no, you would think my life would be that simple? No. It had gone to my lungs; I had a pulmonary embolism and it was a miracle I was alive.

Still, I held on like a champ. I smiled, I danced, I took part in church activities, I was thankful, etc. I thought or I assumed I was okay. But I don’t think I was. But yet, I held on. With aches from the injection sites as I carried on with life, the nightmare fast becoming a reality that I had to quit my job, etc., I still held on. Do you know how many injections I had to give myself each day just to function? Three injections. The one time that I switched to tablets because the injections were not working as effectively as they should, I ended up back in the hospital. You guessed it, I had gotten a pulmonary embolism (a clot in my lungs) AGAIN. Do you know the chances of surviving not one, but TWO pulmonary embolisms?

The straw that broke the camel’s back? The constantly changing mode of delivery. From C-section, to vaginal, then back to C-section again and the worst part? Everyone still expected me to be fine. At this point, if I had known, I don’t think I would have gotten pregnant. Everyone was just talking and stating their own opinions because it wasn’t happening to them. Do you know how many injections I had taken so far? At least 500. Yes, 500 injections. Do you know the cost of just one injection? I will leave that to your imagination. But let’s be honest, how could I be ok?

So, everyone gave their loving opinion and me? I. Was. Drowning. For the first time, I started to not like the being growing inside me; it was literally taking my life and it felt like I had to choose; me or him?

I could feel his happy kicks slowing down, I could feel the disconnect…but the only thing in my mind was, ‘how can I keep both of us alive without any repercussions? If I die, would I go to heaven? Would he be well taken care of?’

This was a period every woman is or should be excited about. And me more so, because I had made it to the 38th week of pregnancy. From not being able to conceive, to the doctors wanting to terminate, to the doctors wanting to bring him out at 34 weeks, to the clot increasing in size, etc., so you would think that I should have been happy because I had fought tooth and nail. But I wasn’t. I finally wasn’t. Because it seemed as if anytime my head was finally above water and I could catch my breath, something else was pushing me down under and all everybody could say was, ‘this was for your own good, we love you’.

To put it into context, you lose significantly more blood doing a C-section in comparison to a vaginal delivery. So, on the one hand if I choose to do a C-section, the chances of me losing a lot more blood than usual was very high because my blood wasn’t clotting due to the injections I was taking. My baby may live, but would I survive it? Moreover, it wasn’t advisable to undergo surgery when you had a clot.

On the other hand if I chose to do a vaginal delivery, the strain of the whole process may harm my baby and we may eventually have to resort to C-section, and my baby may not survive it. But everyone kept saying, ‘this is a precious baby. Nothing should happen to him’ as they leaned towards the option of a C-section. And I thought, ‘what about me?’ So, the choices that lay before me had serious repercussions and were detrimental to me…and the life inside me did not have a say.

I know. I sound selfish. Some might say this is motherhood. But…for most mothers, they began at the starting line; they had a fair chance. For me? I started way before the starting line, with so many obstacles before me it felt like a military boot camp and every time I felt like, ‘ok I am almost at the starting line, I’ve got this’, something else is put before me that just tells me you shouldn’t have prayed.

Even my prayer life that I held on to…I don’t even know at this point. All I know is that, I. Am. So. Tired. And if I hear one more, ‘it is for your own good’, I may kill someone. I didn’t even have any pregnancy craving or hormonal change; I was a calm pregnant woman with no food aversions, smell restrictions, etc., but I was told recently that I was being emotional. And I thought, ‘isn’t this an understandable reaction to the year I just had?’ And yes, for the record, in a couple of weeks, I won’t have a job. I am about to bring a child into this world, jobless. 

I can’t remember the number of times I have apologised to my son because I know it isn’t his fault. I love him, very much…but, I am so tired of being ok. Really, really tired.