Chronic pain is the number one reason I kept going back and forth about becoming pregnant. I was worried about the affects pregnancy would have on my body and what it would entail to carry a baby for 9 months. I was worried about labor itself and my existing lack of pain tolerance and how much neck pain I’d be in come day of. I was worried about the future and how fast my deterioration would occur post delivery and during care for my hypothetical child. Clearly, anxiety runs deep within me and I have chronic pain to thank for it.
In the end, I went with what I wanted and the vision I had for my future. Wanting a child outweighed the fear of pain. There will always be pain, but am I going to let it run my life?
That’s the question I was left with.
So here I am, at the end of my second trimester finding myself contemplating on all life decisions.
I am so grateful that God chose me to become a mother with very little effort while so many struggle with infertility. And even though, I prayed and prayed for an easy pregnancy and it’s been far from it thus far, I am still grateful. Grateful for a chance to be someone’s mother. Grateful to be able to start a family with my love and for us to pour our love for each other into our child.
I just never could’ve imagined the stress being pregnant would be on my body. And now that I am here, it is easy to overlook the gratitude and drown myself in the negatives.
I am definitely experiencing a lot more pain. When we were still in the process of deciding if this is what we wanted, I kept hearing good things about pain subsiding during pregnancy, so I was hopeful, but it’s not the case for all.
And even if I didn’t have my physical pain contributing to the stress of pregnancy, there’s still that internal pain–the emotional, mental, and organ-related internal pain along with all those pregnancy symptoms some people seem to bypass. Lucky them.
I know God is preparing me for something greater and I don’t want to be bitter about my experience because after all it is quite the experience. From feeling that first kick on the inside to feeling like you’re invincible and powerful and a beautiful human for being able to create life–seriously, so wild–all in all it can be pretty magical . . . when things are smooth.
For me, there has been too much turmoil during this pregnancy, so much pain and so much uncertainty, which is really testing my patience and limitations.
Who would’ve thought that a blood clot I had in my lung in 2014 would affect me so. I never realized I went about my life with having something abnormal in my blood ’til I got pregnant. On the bright side, I’m taking the lowest dose of blood thinners, but I hate how it enters my body. Needles. *shudder*
For the longest time, I injected myself until so much scar tissue built up around my stomach area creating an impenetrable barrier wall, I couldn’t even stab myself properly without the searing amount of pain that followed. As you can probably tell, I’m the type of person who likes being in control of things, which doesn’t always work in my favor. The best thing to do in life is let go of all control because in reality, you cannot control every aspect of your life. So it took a lot out of me to let go and allow my husband to administer my shots, which I cannot believe I didn’t do it sooner. I have suffered wayyyy less than when I injected myself. We have to be a little more creative in where to inject because the shot is best administered through the fattiest parts of the body and for me, that’s only my stomach area.
Honestly, I sound ridiculous saying it’s a bad problem to have when in reality not having much fat to begin with is a good problem to have–just not during a high risk pregnancy like mine.
I am getting so defeated when it comes to these shots. It’s getting harder to rotate around my stomach fat to inject. I can no longer do the front because of the built up scar tissue preventing me from sticking into it effectively. I have too many bruises to count, and to top it all off, pregnancy can feel very isolating, which no one warns you about. But more on the first trimester blues or pregnancy blues at a later date.
One really good thing I decided to do was hire a doula who has been so helpful thus far. I know I’ll benefit greatly from having one during labor, but I can’t yet picture what that would look like. I can only have high hopes she’d be able to help with pain management.
At the end of the day, pain management is what I am looking for. Pain is inevitable. I accept that. And yet, pain is still a huge fear of mine. However, knowing how I am with pain is a good thing because that means I’m going in with some sort of essential awareness and can come up with a game plan to combat my tendencies when pain arises.
Originally, I had high hopes of getting a C-section because I know surgery and I thought a C-section would be the best way to go for less neck pain strain. But, because of the blood thinners, my OB and high risk pregnancy specialist both agree a C-section is a far greater risk to my well-being and survival. I’m glad this was discussed so early into my pregnancy, I had time to accept and understand the whole process behind it all.
It’s the fact that I know surgery and what surgery entails, especially during the recovery phase and the journey of healing in the following years. I know what it’s like to live in chronic pain from inflamed scar tissue and from the shots in my front stomach area, I can attest that a C-section for me will be just as traumatizing to my body as I originally thought a vaginal birth would be. For my sake, I have to choose the lesser of two evils and trust my body knows exactly what she’s doing.
I have nothing against C-sections. Your body, your choice. And I know anything can happen during childbirth and sometimes emergency C-sections are necessary, but I feel confident-ish knowing my OB will do everything in her power to deliver my baby the traditional way. Medically speaking of course. My pain tolerance is low and there’s no way I’m doing without an epidural.
And that’s where my doula comes in, she’ll motivate me to keep moving. I hear there’s different types of epidurals and I’m looking forward to hearing more about it. In the Nurture book: A Modern, Caring Guide to Pregnancy, Birth, and Early Motherhood by Erica Chidi Cohen, she touches briefly on the subject. I’m open to receiving nitrous gas to start, then switching to a walking epidural when it gets bad. I do not want to be confined to a bed and unfortunately, knowing how I can get when it comes to pain, I would definitely find myself wanting to curl up in a ball and tense the F up, which are two things NOT to do during labor.
Other than that and the pregnancy insomnia I’m starting to face and the terrible acid reflux I’m having both from before pregnancy and pregnancy-induced acid reflux and the fact that baby girl is moving so much it hurts sometimes and how fast she’s growing–all good signs, but whoooaa there, slow down, I can’t keep up type of uncomfortable feeling, I am feeling pretty content and excited to meet my little rosebud.
November, seriously, cannot come soon enough. Get this thing outta me! LOL
with ❤ rebeccanne
rebeccanne's world 