My pregnancy is shit

My pregnancy has been rough. I had (what I thought was) a difficult first trimester because I was super sick. I lived off of Gatorade, anti-nausea meds and crackers. I could hardly eat. I lost about 40 pounds. 

My 2nd trimester, I started having severe bone pains. That’s why my first trimester wasn’t difficult, it was just hard because it was getting worse. My pelvis was (is) separating in the wrong way. I had to start going to physical therapy and a chiropractor to stop further damage. I was told that they couldn’t fix anything already done to my body but help it (possibly) not get worse. I am usually struggling to walk by noon everyday. I occasionally have to use a cane. I can’t go to the store for more than 5 minutes, if I don’t use an electric wheelchair. 

When I went to my 28 week ultrasound, I was informed that my baby has IUGR which is a growth restriction. I now have to see the doctor weekly or biweekly because at some point, my body will be less inhabitable and they will save him from it. Meaning I will 100% deliver early, we have to constantly watch to see just how early. 

During all of this, I’m planning my baby shower and all the other things most people have to do in their last 3 months of pregnancy while I could have days or weeks left in mine. Most people have a larger safety net of people to help them with these things than I ended up with, although my family is extremely supportive, I’ve lost friends. 

I chose to keep this baby but hear my emphasis on CHOSE because it’s my body and it was my CHOICE. I go back and forth on how I feel about this decision. I didn’t know that my body would betray me when I started this pregnancy. I didn’t know I would have chronic pain or have an overwhelming sense of abandonment. I didn’t know that I would cause my baby to suffer as much as this pregnancy has made me suffer. It’s hard. I can say 100%, that I would never force someone to go through a tenth of what I have. I don’t think it is fair to ask anyone to be, stay or continue something that could kill you. I have so much anxiety about my mortality rate because the statistics aren’t great for black women giving birth. I have anxiety about my baby’s survival. I have anxiety about how we will live in this world if we both survive this birth. 

All these very justifiable feelings are from my ongoing personal experience. No laws could ever understand that. 

Anxiety

I have no real idea why I chose to keep my baby outside of a selfish reason. Honestly, I was still devastated by so much loss that I couldn’t bear to lose anything else. 

I was depressed, my anxiety was off the charts, my hormones weren’t at normal levels and I was, as I had been, lost. 

I do not think this baby will cure these things. It’s not his job to fix me. But I couldn’t let go of one more thing and this was something I could control. I couldn’t control the loss of my job, livelihood or first pregnancy but I couldn’t even control this one but I had a choice and I chose to do whatever I could to keep this baby. 

I know this decision was selfish because I don’t have a full time job, I haven’t fully supported myself for almost a year at this point. I spent the first 5 months in a crippling downward spiral of self pity. The last 7 months, I’ve spent pregnant with those same feelings plus 2 pregnancies and a miscarriage. 

Now I’m over the halfway mark and this pregnancy is moving forward. I don’t know what I’m doing. I never realized what pregnancy entailed. I’m 35 years old which makes it a geriatric pregnancy. I thought that was such a funny thing to call it because I never felt old in my 30’s. I used to travel the world until a year ago, even with a broken patella, nothing slowed me down. 

But, for me, being 35 means my body is pretty stressed out because of this pregnancy. Between arthritis, pelvis separation and losing bone density (think crumbling teeth and bones) not to mention the fun things that happen to almost all pregnant people (frequent urination, morning sickness, swollen everything, waddling, crying and so much more) I’m exhausted. 

I sleep 12 hours a day when I can. And that’s just the physical things happening. Having to deal with the grief and loss because I know I need to heal while I can still get sleep and have time for weekly therapy, is a lot to deal with too. 

But the choice I made is made. And I have to believe that even though I was being selfish at the time, I will do my best to be a whole person by the time the baby comes. 

I will get my life back on track. I won’t let my anxieties control me because my baby needs a whole mommy. I can’t control anyone or anything but me. 

I’m F*cking Pregnant

Laying face down on the leather couch, which is about as comfortable as it sounds, I mumbled, “I’m pretty sure I’m dying.” 

My body was wrecked. I was exhausted, my bones were like lead pipes and I had a cough. It felt like the flu. Well not exactly like the flu. More like flu-light. All the aches and pains of the flu but no actual sickness. 

All I could do is take turns laying face down on the couch and face down on my bed. 

I had to take a few days off from my paid social media account. 

How could I “shake it for dollars” online if I was dying. 

My mother was extremely helpful (read: rude) during my illness. She teased me mercilessly, that I was pregnant. I never wanted kids and I had declared as much at 10 years old. So her taunts of, you’re probably just pregnant made me even more nauseated. 

I had the flu and just because I wanted to throw up, didn’t mean I was pregnant. 

I couldn’t be pregnant because I was just pregnant and recovering from a miscarriage. 

But to be on the safe side, I called my friend, the nurse and asked her to bring me a test anyway. 

I wanted to prove to the world, I wasn’t pregnant and I had the flu! During flu season! Like a normal person. 

I had to pee a lot because I was drinking plenty of water since my stomach was holding very little in these days. 

As soon as my friend arrived with the test, I grabbed a styrofoam bowl and headed to the bathroom. I refuse to eat from styrofoam but I assumed peeing in it would be fine and I have so many issues peeing in the little cups. 

With my styrofoam bowl full of pee, the eye dropper and the test, I proceeded to follow the instructions.

The test says results in as little as 3 minutes. 

It took as little as 3 seconds for the double lines to appear. 

“I’m fucking pregnant!” I shouted. 

My friend was ecstatic as I paced and repeated “I’m fucking pregnant”

As I finally took a seat on the stupid, leather couch, my phone dinged alerting me to a text. 

{I’m home.} it read. {I’m pregnant} I replied. 

My friend was shocked that I would tell the person responsible for half of the pregnancy over text message but I didn’t want to sugarcoat it. I was in shock, he deserved a little shock too. 

I can’t tell you

I can’t tell you that someone I love has hurt me. Because I don’t want you to hate them on my behalf. They’re not always mean and dismissive to me. It’s just sometimes. 
I don’t want you to see me crying in ball every time you look at them. Because they don’t always make me feel worthless. 
It’s just sometimes. Like when someone hurts them and says things to make them feel worthless, they’re full of this negative energy that’s just dying to come out. 
And sometimes I end up being the one to receive it all. 
I can’t tell you why I’m having a bad day because I don’t want you to hate the person I love just because it’s them hurting me. 

Hurt people hurt people. 
So all I can tell you is I’m having a bad day. 
I’m ok and I’ll be fine. As I shut myself in my room and cry and let the hurt end inside me. 
Cuz I won’t hurt people the way they hurt me.  

Broken Tooth

In the middle of leaving China unexpectedly, I was getting a root canal. I had gone to my first appointment where they drilled a hole in the tooth to relive the pain. Going home to America meant, I couldn’t get it fixed because I didn’t have insurance. So I spent the last 7 months, constantly digging food out of the hole. It’s gross but I don’t have thousands of dollars to get it fixed so I dealt with it.
Unfortunately my tooth was getting weaker everyday. Yesterday as I bit into a pizza roll, I also bit into my tooth. It broke off and I almost ate it. Today as I bit into a piece of bread, more of my tooth came with it.
I called the dentist because thanks to pregnancy, I have insurance. Unfortunately it was extremely difficult to find a dentist covered by my insurance. And when I did, they said they can’t see me until February 28th. That’s basically 2 months away. And emergency dental won’t see me because I’m in my first trimester of pregnancy. So either way I have to wait.
I’m worried because I’m afraid to eat anything else. I don’t want to lose more of my tooth or swallow it.
I tried to explain the situation to someone in my family and they completely dismissed me. And thanks to hormones, I’ve locked myself in my room so I can cry. Of course I blame the crying on hormones because while this person was pretty mean to me and hurtful, I never cry. I feel sadness when they get like that but I usually don’t cry.

My next step, now that I’m not face leaking is to call the OB GYN and ask what I can do.

Roy asked me why I was having a bad day today but I couldn’t tell him. At the very least, I’m getting a lot of writing done through everything that’s happening.

Day 4 of my miscarriage.

Day 4 of my miscarriage (written October 21, 2018)
Apparently it’s still happening. I’m still losing my baby. It’s not fast and there’s nothing doctors can do. I spend my days feeling pain and cold and misery. I spent tonight crying. I can’t remember if I cried myself to sleep last night. It seems like a long time ago. I probably did. 
I cry a lot these days. 

I felt so indifferent about being pregnant. I took a test that said positive an hour later, I took another one a week later to check again. I was pregnant. 
I made an appointment to have a professional check the following Monday. I didn’t have time to do much. I didn’t process being pregnant. How can I possibly process something dying inside me. 

I was pretty shitty at being pregnant. I couldn’t get my appetite right or remember my vitamins. I didn’t really get to make a habit of eating properly. 
I ate pineapples, they cause miscarriages. I smoked a few cigarettes a day, that causes miscarriages. 

Sometimes people blame themselves for these things when it isn’t their fault. 

This was my fault. I never wanted kids and now I don’t have one. 
How many times did I wish I wasn’t pregnant. How long was I unsure about my baby. 
I lost my baby. Whatever combination of hell that is my everyday life, came together and I lost my baby. Our baby. 

It was his too. So now I’m an empty vessel, shell of myself and he feels like he has to take responsibility for me. 

I’m pregnant

It’s more of a statement than anything. I’m pregnant for the 2nd time this year. I had a miscarriage. I didn’t write much during that time. It was pretty hard on me. I did make lots of videos talking about it. The pregnancy and the miscarriage. I won’t post those probably. I haven’t even watched them myself. But I will post the one day I did write my feelings down during that time.