My pregnancy with Happy Baby was very different than my pregnancy with my son. I had such a wonderful first pregnancy, I was so happy, I loved being pregnant, and the few issues I had (he kicked my bladder until I was peeing blood) were fairly minor. After that pregnancy ended with a stillborn... well, Happy Baby’s pregnancy was terrifying. I was so scared to “count my chicken before it was hatched” shall we say. It never occurred to me that I would lose my son but I obsessed over losing my daughter. From the minute I got pregnant I expected another sad ending and so did my wife. As a matter of fact Wifey was more pessimistic than I was refusing to even plan what would happen after Happy Baby came.
I was very broken after losing my son but I knew I wanted to have another baby. It is what I always wanted, I felt cheated after going through an entire pregnancy and having it end so badly. People started asking within about a month of my son passing when I was going to get pregnant again. I wanted to desperately but there was no way we could afford it. One day my mom asked when I would get pregnant, I told her we couldn’t afford it, and she said she would pay! And not only for me, but for Wifey to get pregnant afterwards! I cried happy tears and started researching for a new father, one that would work for both of us. We picked a guy who our children could find out about when they turned 18 and who had blue eyes (Wifey has beautiful blue eyes and I wanted our children to have them). We jumped through all the legal hoops and we were ready to try to get pregnant.
I have PCOS and have never had a regular period my whole life, so I had to go on progesterone to induce a period, then on Clomid. It sucked! Progesterone gives me horrible pms, I get very depressed and bitchy. The problem was that I was also still grieving my son. I don’t know how my wife put up with me! The Clomid was bad too, it made me sick and then I started seeing lights and wavy lines. I looked it up and found out this was a BAD side effect of Clomid and I should stop right away. I ignored it because I wanted a baby so bad, horrible I know. Thank goodness I got pregnant right away!
This time I didn’t have as bad morning sickness though I started to suffer from some dizziness. Then I started to get very confused and forgetful. I started having fainting spells. I would go into hysterics when I was hungry, crying and freaking out over nothing. The doctors took my blood pressure and said it was low, eat more salt. They pretty much told me I was ‘stressed’ and that it was all in my head. I am so SICK of doctors telling me stress is what is making me sick! I honestly don’t remember a lot of my pregnancy because I was so confused the whole time, my brain decided to check out!
I do remember being very obsessed with making sure Happy Baby was moving. As soon as I started to feel movement I would poke her if it had been a while. It was so reassuring when she kicked me back. After she came out she would flinch when poked but not wake up, poor thing!
Something else I remember, something most people could not understand, was that I still couldn’t be around babies or even other pregnant women. They all reminded me of my son. I knew people talked about me behind my back. They all wondered how I would ever be able to be near my daughter if I couldn’t handle being near babies. I would have complete breakdowns when I heard one cry. I got very good at ‘seeing through’ babies in public or running and hiding. This may seem strange for a pregnant woman to do, I still don’t understand it. To this day I sometimes have problems with pregnant women because that’s all my son was to me, a pregnancy. But I’m okay with babies now thank goodness, I was okay the minute I held Happy Baby!
I also remember being very upset when I found out I would have to have another c-section. The first one was such a horrible traumatic experience that I practically had PTSD from it. I researched VBAC’s and asked/begged my OB to let me do it. He refused, it would only be 16 months between c-sections and the risk of uterine rupture was too high. He said he couldn’t stop me from refusing a c-section but I would have no support from him or any other doctor. My wife was very upset with me for even considering a VBAC after that, she didn’t want to lose me, and after all we had been through I decided to follow the doctor’s advice.
The week of my scheduled c-section there was one crazy snowfall after another. We had decided on going to the newer hospital in the next town over because I didn’t think I could handle being in the same room my son was taken out of me in. We considered getting a hotel in that town, my wife wanted to but I decided against it because I didn’t think I’d sleep very well in a hotel and I wanted to try to sleep as much as possible before our daughter was born.
Of course that morning we got up and it was a bit of a blizzard. My father in law offered us a ride in his truck but we looked at the highway cameras and the road looked okay so we went in our car. The snow was crazy and the visibility was poor and soon I was kind of wishing we had taken up my father in laws offer. Then, we heard this weird noise, my wife was like “is there a helicopter nearby?” and I was like “um, hun, that is our car, you need to pull over” then the car shuttered and felt like it was limping, we blew a tire... We immediately called my father in law to come rescue us then sat and waited. I called the hospital to tell them we might be a couple minutes late. Cars zoomed past us, and the snow kept coming down. Finally my father in law showed up and we went to get out of the car and go to the truck. Wow, I opened the door and could see nothing, with a wind-chill of -25 Celsius (-13F) the wind felt like it went right threw me. I was standing in deep snow, with a very large belly, and dizziness issues. I leaned into the wind and tried not to fall down. At the end of our car my wife was there to help me into the truck. She then went back for our stuff, it was when she got back to the truck that things went really wrong, she slipped and fell into the ditch on the side of the road! And silly me tried to help by jumping in after her, luckily my father in law grabbed the back of my shirt so I didn’t fall out of the truck! My wife struggled on the icy snowy hill and would slide down. A couple of times she fell back down while I melted down in the truck. Finally she pulled herself into the truck and buckled in, to the hospital we went!
At the hospital we were told I had been bumped on the c-section list and would have to wait for a room. Me and my poor wife had to sit, soaking wet and freezing in the waiting room until a room opened up. Finally a room opened up and we were let in! I then had to sit and wait. I was terrified. I kept reliving my last c-section. Thank goodness the nurses were amazing. I finally was able to go in and have my baby! She was 8lbs 4 ounces 54cm long and the most beautiful baby I had ever seen!