After my diagnosis of Endometriosis and PCOS and first surgical procedure where it had traveled out of the pelvic cavity to my bladder and bowel things kind of settled down for a while.  I should add a preface here, that if your stomach can’t handle lingo and images of the human body then this will not be the blog for you.  I can be pretty blunt.  I didn’t’ used to be, but this just part of the adjustment I suppose to being ill.  Shit like that doesn’t bother you, including my wonderfully foul language. ha!

Anyways, as I was saying… things settled for about a year or two.  I was still in college, working, having fun with friends, almost completely back to normal.  I had some back issues caused by my insanely large breasts and after discovering insurance would cover a reduction I went in immediately for an appointment.  I had dropped a bunch of weight after being treated for the PCOS and the weight was definitely not lost in my boobs!  I was and E!  insane right?  I’m a size 2 for those who don’t know me well, but was a 4-6 when I had the procedure. Nothing else special here, but I had a reduction, and to this day it was the best surgery I have ever had!  I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

Other than that I was being treated for the fertility stuff.  I was set to go in for a check up as my pain was getting worse.  The doctors needed to schedule another laporoscopy.  After the procedure the doctor informed me I had minimal chance of ever getting pregnant.  It was now or never.  I was young and naive and not in a relationship that was good for me, but I wanted a child and he knew that.  It was not my best decision in life, but I married the guy I was dating in college.  We thought we knew everything we needed to know about life and thought we were making the right decisions.  I think we both knew this would never work out.  Shit, the entire week before the wedding was the most stressful of my entire life and the actual wedding day was no picnic either.  Looking back I realize what an idiot I was.  You change so much between 20 and 30 I don’t think it should be legal to get married until at least your late twenties!  haha  but i digress….

I was on fertility treatments months before the wedding.  We were married in July and shockingly pregnant by September (back to what I said earlier about my decision – I wouldn’t trade it for anything! I wouldn’t not be where I am or have my amazing child were it not for that decision) and thank goodness because the treatments were causing me to have cyst ruptures constantly.  I was averaging about 4 a month!  It was awful and I was so sick.  Our 3 weeks in Barbados after the wedding was miserable with those treatments.  But I was pregnant and I was ecstatic!  All I ever wanted at this point in my life was to have a baby!  and it worked!  YAY! Great timing too as I was just about to graduate from college! So, Im done right??  all smooth sailing from here?!  Ha! My first check up my doctor told me not to get too excited as I needed to wait and see if I could make it to 12 weeks.  I had 60% chance of miscarriage and needed to continue the injections.  oh yay!  Every morning like clock work I would wake up and puke.  I felt fine the rest of the day but after a while that got to be terribly annoying.  I made it to 12 weeks though!  Super exciting!  Even more so maybe the puking would stop.  It didn’t until about 25 weeks! yuck!

Then things really started to go wrong.  In December we were in California for Christmas and New Years with my ex husbands family.  We were driving in San Fransisco. I can’t quite remember where or what we were doing but I had severe pain in my abdomen.  I have never been so scared in my life.  My heart stopped as all I could think was that I was losing the baby.  It was so painful and shooting into my back.  I had never felt anything like this before.  We immediately pulled over to the nearest gas station and called 911.  I was rushed to the closest hospital where I was given medication to help with the pain, that was safe for the baby, and underwent a few tests.  It was a kidney stone and a large one.  Roughly the size of a marble.  Turns out most women if they get a kidney stone in their lifetime will tend to get it during pregnancy.  Something with the hormones apparently can contribute to this…Lucky us!  I was sent home to recover.  It was not passable and would make me ill every now and then.  The rest of the week was rough.  I vaguely remember one night waking up with extreme nausea and pain and throwing up into a wired trash can with no bag and thinking things couldn’t get much more miserable than this.  Now, I wish I would stop saying things like that because either I am jinx-ing myself or just setting myself up for a challenge that I will fail!

The rest of the pregnancy was ok.  Not ideal, but ok.  At 32 weeks I started spotting and had to stay in the hospital for 3 days, alone. My ex was out of town on interviews I believe for an internship.  Bella was trying to come out early and they were able to stop it.  I had to be on bed rest for the remainder of the pregnancy.  At first I thought ok that’s not too bad.  After a week I was already getting very antsy and exhausted of day time television.  Any woman that has had to go through bed rest understands this.  It is not fun!  At least now a days there’s netflix.  Back then we couldn’t even record shows believe it or not!    At 36 weeks my kidneys were giving me troubles, and my function was declining.  The doctor said we would try to wait but if anything else happened we would need to induce promptly.

37 weeks things declined more.  I was brought to the hospital at 7PM and given Pitocin to induce.  If anyone is pregnant and needs to be induced, DO NOT let them give you Pitocin under ANY circumstances!  It make things worse. Always.  The last 5 hours before I had to be rushed in for a C-section I had non stop contractions.  That’s right. There were no breaks!  Isabella went into distress, I was rushed in for an emergency C-section and My Beautiful baby girl was born around 1:30 PM the next day.  It wasn’t the perfect birth but I didn’t care anymore.  She was there, she was healthy, and she was everything I dreamed she would be and more.  It was the best day of my life.

In my mind at the time it was a sign of great things to come.  I was the happiest I have ever been in my life.  Holding your child for the first time is an experience like no other. The pregnancy however, I would realize later was not.  That pregnancy would change the course of my entire life for the best (for obvious reasons) and for the worst.  It was the trigger in my body, the smoking gun, and with Bella’s birth, the gun had just gone off.

-Just a Regular Sick Girl