Light in the Dark

Finding out your pregnant, going through each trimester, to then finally the beautiful miracle of delivering your baby...all amazing, wonderful, and incredibly precious, right?  No, not for me, not for us, not the way we planned or ever pictured my pregnancy and delivery to go.  Never knowing that my life would forever be changed and not in the, "I'm a parent now" kind of way.  This is my pregnancy turned NEW LIFE story.

I just turned 24, and when I say just turned 24, I mean I took my pregnancy test on my birthday when I found out I was in fact pregnant!  My husband and I had gotten married the year before and started trying right away to have a baby.  With months of trying and not getting pregnant we were both surprised to find out it was true!  

I had a pretty good pregnancy.  No complications in my entire first and second trimester.  At 17 weeks pregnant we had our first and only ultrasound.  We will never forget finding out we were having a healthy baby girl! 

My husband only had one brother and his dad had many brothers and only one sister, so we thought we were going to have a boy, hearing we were having a girl was great!  She was so talkative her lips never stopped moving it was so beautiful to see on the screen.  Her heartbeat was strong and loud...again so incredible and breathtaking to hear!  We were overjoyed and very excited we could not wait to meet her! 

My third trimester was pretty miserable though.  Not the entire trimester but from about the middle to the end was awful.  I was so swollen and not just my feet or even my legs and my feet.  I was swollen from the top of my head to the tips of my toes!  I had my weekly appointments the final month of my pregnancy and now when I think back, I have no idea how my doctor did not notice something was wrong!  Even I knew something had to be wrong to be that swollen everywhere. 

My due date was January thirteenth.  When I went in for my appointment the week before I was due, a doctor I don't usually see finally knew something wasn't right and so I had blood work done.  She recommended I be induced on January the sixth because I was borderline preeclampsia, and we didn’t want to wait in case I got worse.

We arrived at the hospital at 5am on the morning of January the sixth.  By 7am the doctor started me on Pitocin to help bring on the contractions. Nothing was progressing so after a couple hours my doctor broke my water to try and help the progression of my delivery. 

Every two hours I had to have blood work done because my platelet count was dropping. The doctor told me if they drop to a certain point, I will not be able to get the epidural should I need a cesarean section and they would have to sedate me to deliver the baby.  I didn't want to be sedated when my baby girl entered the world, I knew I needed to at least get the epidural so I would for sure be awake to meet my baby girl.  I was even put on magnesium to prevent any seizures during the delivery. 

Quick backstory… I am a person that does not like to take any medication at all. I have always preferred to do things the more functional, natural, holistic way first before taking anything conventional.  So, when planning my delivery, I knew I didn’t want the epidural I wanted to try and deliver naturally or as close to as possible. 

Needless to say, my delivery was already completely the opposite of what I wanted. However, I also just wanted to ensure my baby girl was safe and healthy that’s what mattered most to me.  I listened to the doctors and did what they thought was best for me and our baby. 

I was miserable to say the least.  Baby girl was safe and still doing well but she did not want to come down and I wasn’t contracting at all. Even after two bags of Pitocin and magnesium nothing was progressing with the delivery, but I was still most grateful our baby was doing well. I however was not doing so well. I was huge and even more swollen with the bags flowing through my body in my I.V. The magnesium made me so hot and uncomfortable. I just felt out of it and so tired. 

Finally, the doctor came in and told me my platelet count was still dropping and they had to do the epidural or else if I needed the c-section I wouldn’t be able to get one later and would have to be sedated. 

The pain I felt with the epidural was so awful! I wasn’t having any contractions at all to help disguise or distract the pain from the huge needle going into my back, so I almost passed out. What made things worse was that they had to do it twice because they didn’t do it right the first time, that whole procedure was just awful. I hated not having the choice but to get the epidural however I didn’t want to miss seeing my baby being delivered so this was the only option I had. 

Later that evening after no progression with the delivery and baby girl not wanting to come out, I was told I had to have a cesarean section. I remember the doctor telling me that and saying it would all be okay and as soon as she walked away, I just cried. My mom hugged me, and she cried because I was crying and then my mother-in-law cried too and held my hand. My husband wiped my tears.  They said it would be okay, but I just felt sad and so scared! This was not what I wanted not my plan or the beautiful idea I wanted or had in my head. I thought things were going to be so different, but nothing was going as we wished it to be.

I already had the epidural in so that made the transition a bit easier for the doctors to start.  As soon as they placed me on the table, I got so incredibly antsy. I couldn’t stop wanting to move I was so nervous and didn’t know what to expect. They gave me a shot to help calm me down, but it made me extremely tired, and I felt more out of it. I could barely keep my eyes open. 

I’ll never forget the smell of burnt flesh in the air as they started the c-section. That was when I realized it was my flesh my skin that I smelled, and it was a scary thought. Right before they were about to bring our baby into the world, I remember the doctor saying, “Okay you’re going to feel a lot of pressure now”. That was an understatement if I ever heard one! The pressure was so bad I felt severe pain like they were breaking my ribs almost. At one point I told them they were hurting me. They advised it was just the pressure and she was almost here. 

Finally, she was out, and they showed her to me quickly before placing her on the bed to clean her up. My husband kept reassuring me she was okay and healthy. He got to cut the umbilical cord. I felt happy knowing she was safe and healthy, but I could barely keep my eyes open yet all I wanted was to hold her so badly, but my arms were still wrapped down as they were trying to finish sewing me back up. 

How I wanted to hold her so badly! But I did get to kiss her and smell her for the first time!

Something I always told my husband when our delivery date got closer was to go with my daughter when they take her out of the room after the delivery.  I asked him not to wait with me. I wanted to make sure she was safe, and he always knew where she was at all times. So, after delivery, when they were going to take her out, I told him to go with her I would be okay. 

I wished I would go with them both, but I had to wait.  After they sewed me up, they wanted to make sure I wasn’t going to hemorrhage out, so I had to wait a bit even longer after my incision was all closed up. Once I was done, they took me to the room where our baby girl was with my husband. I don’t even remember much because I was so out of it, and I slept a lot. 

I look back and see pictures of myself and our baby right after the delivery and don’t remember those times at all. I have pictures with family and don’t remember that either. It was a truly and honestly awful experience and delivery for me. I hated not remembering those moments. 

After delivery and so out of it I don’t remember this at all. I was so swollen, and my color wasn’t right either.

The next day I was more alert thankfully.  Our daughter passed all the tests and was healthy and doing well. She had her dad’s toes (that was the first thing I noticed after she was delivered!) and my dark hair! She was so beautiful! 

The day after my delivery feeling better and finally getting to hold my baby girl!!

She was delivered on Wednesday and by mid-day Friday we were taking the discharge class to get ready to leave the hospital. I remember they quickly went over the “mother blues” in a paragraph in the discharge paperwork. They said you may feel sad or cry at a lot and that was normal after having a baby and it would go away soon nothing to worry about. That was it. Never in my LIFE did I think twice about it because I never knew just how much my life was about to change forever! 

As soon as we got home this overwhelming dark cloud came over me. I started crying. I felt so scared and anxious, and I couldn’t understand any of it. I thought I just had a baby and she a healthy this is supposed to be the happiest time of my life. Why am I feeling this way!?? 

My husband had to run to get my prescription from the store and I was terrified to be left alone and with a new baby!  I had no choice I needed the medication, and it wasn’t far, so I prayed and counted the minutes until my husband got back home. I kept thinking and hoping I would feel better but had no idea this was all just the beginning of my new life.

Two days passed, then three, and still nothing was getting any better for me. I lived in this petrified terrifying fear from the time I woke up to the time I fell asleep at night.  I never once thought of hurting my baby or even imagined I would, like I have heard stories before from other moms going through this.  I however did not want anything to do with my baby.  Saying that out loud hurts my heart so much.  How could I not want my baby?  I felt like if I didn’t have her, I wouldn’t be going through the most awful scary and worse anxiety of my entire life!  At that moment I felt like I had made the biggest mistake of my life!

My family had to watch me all the time to make sure I was okay and wouldn’t hurt myself. I didn’t think of ways to hurt myself, but I did want to die, I felt if I could just die then this pain would go away.  My husband forced me to hold our baby, change her diaper, and bathe her to try and form a bond with her.  I know now he was trying so hard to help but at the time I was so numb and just going through the motions not realizing how much he was hurting too.    

I was literally a baby just like she was.  I was incredibly helpless in all ways possible.  I couldn’t even function.  I couldn’t eat so I had lost all my baby weight in just a short few weeks.  It was not healthy at all.

My husband didn’t have time off or leave from work, so he had to go back, and I was so scared to be alone.  The entire time I only wanted my husband or my mom.  When my husband went back to work, he had to drop me off at my moms or my sisters in the early morning and then pick us both up when he got off work.  He had two kids at this point!  I have never ever been so helpless in my life and no matter how badly my mind might have tried to tell me that I could do this and to get up and actually function I just could not physically do any of it.

I remember clearly one day I was trying to sleep at my moms on her bed while she watched the baby.  She came into the room and was sitting on her chair looking at me, I can still see the worry in her eyes.  I wasn’t sleeping, I couldn’t sleep.  My brain never shut off always full of fear, worry, and anxiety so I never got good resting sleep.  I looked at my mom, got up onto my knees and started clawing at my chest pleading for my mom to just take things ugly feelings out of me, just cut me open and take them out!!  I cried and she held me and cried saying she wished she could. Again, looking back, I realize just how much my mom was hurting right alongside me.

What I put my husband and family through is something that makes me so sad.  When we are going through our anxiety and or really any mental illness, we are never alone because they love us so much they hurt when we hurt.  Though at the time we don’t feel that way, we do feel very much alone and just want to feel better, never realizing how much our family and partners are going through it with us too. 

My poor husband didn’t understand at all what I was going through, either did my family, or my in-laws.  I mean how could they, right?  I didn’t even understand why my life turned upside down since coming home from the hospital. 

I have lived with anxiety my entire life but this kind of anxiety I was feeling was like nothing I have ever felt before.  My stomach was in a huge knot.  All I did was cry.  I could not be in the dark or alone at all or I would freak out even more, if that was even possible with as bad as I was feeling already.  I couldn’t shower alone.  My husband had to help me, again as if I was his child and not the wife who just had his baby and was supposed to be a nurturing mother, but I was nothing of that sort.

 I was a shell of myself.  I was so empty and dark.  I was a literal zombie!  I could see everyone around me, but I couldn’t hear them.  I could even see their mouths moving and them laughing but I could not hear them.  I felt outside of my body, and I was looking down on my family and myself, but I wasn’t anywhere inside of my body.  I felt like I was going crazy and would end up in the hospital.  I have never been in such a dark place before and I didn’t think I would ever get out.

I finally went to the doctor who prescribed me anxiety medication.  Like I mentioned before I am not a medication person at all, I hate taking any kinds of pills.  At this point in my life, I became desperate for anything at all if it would make me feel like myself again and take away this persistent fear and pain I have had for a couple weeks now.

As the doctor advised these medications can take up to a couple weeks to work, I cried losing hope once again because I wanted a “quick fix”!  No, I was desperate for a “quick fix”!  Hearing that this can take a while to work just killed me, but I had no choice something was better than nothing. 

After two weeks, I didn’t feel better at all.  These pills were not working for me, so I went back to the doctor.  They switched the medication and again I felt hopeless having to wait again another two weeks to feel better.  This medication seemed to help a little bit but not completely.  I was still living with so much fear.

I went to a therapist who diagnosed me with PPTSD, Post Partum Traumatic Stress Disorder!  I have never even heard of this before.  She recommended a list of therapists to see, and I chose one and started to see her once a week. 

I realized a lot about myself that as a child happened and didn’t even know about through EMDR, eye movement desensitization and reprocessing.  This is a therapy proven to help reduce symptoms related to anxiety, depression, addictions, traumas, PTSD, phobias, and other emotional problems.

I did EMDR a few times in multiple sessions.  I truly with all of me believe this helped me more than the medication itself.  I say this because though the medication took the edge off for me in helping to physically feel better, I knew it was more of a band aid fix for me.  Living with anxiety my entire life and it only progressively getting worse as I grew made me realize what I was dealing with had to have run so much deeper than I ever imagined.

EMDR helped me to get to the root of what may be causing the anxiety I was experiencing.  It brought to light a lot of the traumas and triggers that I would push under the rug or go around.  I knew I could only cover or push under the rug for so long before it was going to catch up with me. 

Within a few months of therapy, I started to feel like myself again.  I stayed on the medication for about a year and then started to ween myself off, slowly.  I started taking vitamins and supplements to help with my healing as well as continuing to see my therapist once a week for about a year.

Finally after weeks of not feeling like myself, I started to heal and feel more like myself again!

When I experienced the trauma of my labor with my daughter, and the severe anxiety that lasted for a couple months, after feeling more like myself the fear of it all coming back stayed with me for a very very long time.  I know that’s normal to feel that way when you go through something so traumatic, but it didn’t make things easier for me. 

For years and years after having my daughter, I would get so sad and angry that I didn’t have a say or a choice in how my delivery went!  Nor did I have a choice in how I was going to feel after having my daughter.  I felt as if my life during that time was dictated for me, and I just went with the motions with no say in any of it.  All of those important things just taken away from me.

Since my labor and delivery was so awful I didn’t want to have any more children.  I always wanted 3 babies, but the fear of going through that again made that choice for me.  I was petrified to relive that again.  I wish I had known now what I didn’t know then and my decisions and choices would have been different, but I didn’t.  I lived in enormous pain and suffering, and I made my decisions based on those feelings at the time I lived them.

I am no longer sad or angry with how things went and what I went through those couple months after having my daughter.  I feel more empowered and stronger having survived what I did and not giving up. 

My daughter is my heart as is her dad!  I have an amazing family and my daughter is so resilient, strong, and so loving!  I could never imagine my life without her in it and I would go through what I did a million times over just to have her in my life because she’s more than worth it!

I have grown so much and am filled with light and love and because of what I did go through I discovered my purpose in life!  I am here to help others like myself.  To share my story and help those that feel alone in their anxiety and fear.  Even if it’s just one person then it’s all worth it. This was that light in the darkest time in my life. 

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