I have now tried to sit down and write this blog five times. Every time I get overwhelmed and tears start rolling down my face. My eyes blur and I am no longer able to focus on my laptop screen, or I have just been convincing myself of it in order to procrastinate. I don't know if it's tears of immense sadness for my children that I'll never get to watch grow.
Is it reliving every moment like it was yesterday? Is it the realisation of the abundance of women that will be reading this and have felt so alone. I think it is all of that and so much more that will ultimately unravel the further I progress with this article.
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| Credit: LaBelle Dame @ www.labelledame.com/ |
I've questioned; how much should I say? Should I tell them all, my whole story, that to many will be inconceivable as to just how someone has been so "unlucky". I have worried that it will be too overwhelming, will it upset people? Then the realisation is hit me, this is my story, and my story to tell. This is the very reason we need awareness around this subject, so it is not "taboo", so we don't feel we have to limit "our story" to accommodate others. So here it is, here is my story. It's a long one, so get your coffee and sit back and travel through this roller coaster with me.
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| Nearly 13 years ago! |
I was married young at 20 and thought like many, that my child rearing days were basically endless. I mean really why would I think otherwise? No one I knew had a horrific story to cloud my judgment. That was until one evening a very close friend of mine had been staying at my place. My husband was in the Army and away out on field exercise. I was new to this whole army spouse game and not yet accustomed to being home alone at night for an extended amount of time.
One night I was suddenly in the worst pain of my life. My friend rushed me into hospital. Like most emergency departments do, I was treated as if I was an over exaggerating female having her monthly problems.
It wasn't until an ultrasound was conducted that there was suddenly some urgency about my care. Morphine was pumped into my veins and a surgeon suddenly appeared by my side. I was told that I had a large cyst on my right ovary and that it was so large it was creating "Torsion". This is where the ovary rotates and can cut off blood flow. This can not only cause a lot of pain, loss of the ovary, but life also threatening in some cases. They said that they needed my husband here now as if there were difficult calls to be made during the surgery, him being my next of kin would need to make those decisions. The problem was, he had no phone service whilst he was out on field exercise. The surgeon contacted the Army base and was able to speak to him via a satellite phone. The Army rushed him back and he was there 15 minutes before I went under. I woke from the procedure in the Maternity Ward, on Mother's Day with being told that I had sever Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS) and that my chances of falling pregnant were very slim. I tried to take all this in as I hear the cries of newborns and joyous mothers surrounding me in every direction. I'm not one to be jealous or a hateful person but at that very moment I was. To say I was shattered was an understatement. My husband lost control, his anger, frustration and hurt that he felt for me erupted and verbally expressed his disgust at them for how heartless they were to have me in a maternity ward on Mother's Day whilst giving me this news. He demanded I be transferred to another Ward. it was as if quicker than I could blink they where pushing my bed down to surgical recovery ward. The next day the gynaecologist came for their daily morning visit, he explained that if I did have any chance at all of falling pregnant that my window of opportunity was small and best to do it now as if just had a "clean out" so to say. My husband and I had said just before our wedding that we would like a few years just the two of us enjoying married life...it had only been 6 months. We decided that none of that mattered anymore and that we would try straight away. To my surprise it didn't take long, only 4 months!!!! I was so smug thinking "Pfft, what did those doctors even know!".
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| BP was 158/87 |
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| 2 days before Lilli was born |
My pregnancy was nothing less than eventful with Gestational Diabetes and Pre Eclampsia. I was induced early as my blood pressure was becoming dangerously high.
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| Swelling from Pre Eclampsia |
10 hours into the labour they picked up that something was wrong with the baby and suspected it wasn't getting oxygen to its brain. They hoisted my legs up into the stirrups and placed a tube up inside my vagina with the intention to prick the babies head to test the blood for oxygen levels. They quickly ran off, leaving my legs still in the stirrups. It felt like they were gone for eternity. I am told him was maybe 5 minutes at the most. My crying was uncontrollable, my chest was tightening an anxiety attack was coming on. A team of mixed medical professionals burst though the doors, the panic started. I was rushed to the operating theatre to have an emergency caesarean. With contractions so close together they had me positioned so awkwardly on the edge of the bed in order to give me a spinal for the surgery. Many of you may not know but they first give you a local anaesthetic before inserting the spinal blocker. Next thing I know I felt an almighty tugging and a baby cry. My baby was alive!!!!!
A beautiful baby girl called Lilli-ann weighing at 8 pound 9 ounces.
Lilli was the perfect baby, like text book perfect! We did what a lot of new parents do and discussed that we would start trying for our next child when she was 1 year old. Her 2nd birthday came and went and we had suffered our first miscarriage. Of course very upset by the whole situation we were told by everyone around us "it's common" and "you are young" oh and "well you know you can fall pregnant so it will be fine". I held on tightly to all of these words of wisdom and felt sure we would be blessed with our rainbow baby (this is a term used for a live birth of a baby following a loss). Then came my second and third miscarriage. I reached out and started talking more openly about my losses and discovered how much more common it was than I thought. All the women I had spoken to had no more than three miscarriages before they were blessed with their rainbow babies. My optimism return and we commenced trying to fall pregnant again.
I became very accustomed to visiting the Emergency Department for reoccurring ovarian cyst ruptures. One attendance resulted in another surgery where I was told that they had also discovered Endometriosis (Endo) and that this too could be a cause for my fertility struggles.
They referred me to a specialist who had suggested we try a medication called Clomid. Thinking back, they had spoken about this medication as if it was "godly", that all our problems would be solved, or was that me and my hopes that just heard only those intentions of the drug? The first 3 months on it came and went and on the fourth month I feel pregnant, I received my HCG results from my GP and my levels were too low and not viable. Days later I experienced my forth miscarriage. The following month I commenced taking Clomid again. At our follow up appointment we were to review where to from here. I was scared but still hopeful that they would tell me that all they needed to do was increase my dosage again or try for longer. I was sadly disappointed when they told me that this medication could only be used for 6 months at a time due to its side effects. They then proceeded to tell me that they needed to do a test called hysterosalpingography (HSG) to check if my ovaries had any blockages. I remember them explaining the procedure as something that was no big deal, pretty much just like an internal ultrasound but that they would push dye in areas to see general flow of things. My husband was heading away the very next day, no big deal. But my sister insisted she come up, looking back I think she knew more than I did, or her instincts from my anxiety kicked in and she knew I needed her, a female to sympathise with me and help care for my daughter. I was majorly mistaken to think it was a simple procedure. Well at least not for me. They elevate your buttocks at a level for them to "access" things better. They give you a sedative as they have to insert tubes into your vagina and up into your tubes, they state it will be uncomfortable but my god was it painful. They gave me a second does of sedatives to calm me down and proceeded to try and travel up my right Fallopian tube. It wasn't budging. They opened a balloon that is positioned at the top of this probe and tried to push dye through. It wasn't working...They pushed harder and harder, another dose of sedative was needed due to the force they were using. The dye, or lack of, showed that my Fallopian tubes were blocked. I remember the nurse holding my hand so compassionately and with a soft look into my eyes and tears in hers she said "it's ok honey, there is always IVF". I was shattered. I had never ever considered that I really couldn't have any more children, just that it would be more difficult for me than most. It was so easy to fall pregnant with Lilli. I'm embarrassed to say I did become fairly irrational and they had to heavily sedate me. I came to and they had called my husband in from the waiting room. I screamed at them, with voice and tone barely understandable, I told them to get him out of there, that I didn't want to see him. He was to leave on his trip within a few hours and prayed he would just leave earlier. I was angry and ashamed. He was an amazing father to our daughter and I couldn't give him more children, you know that one thing female bodies were designed to do, I couldn't, I was defective like and old appliance that needed to be disposed of. I was ashamed and couldn't face him. Another dosage of sedative and I finally agreed to see him. He scooped me up into his arms, cradled me against his chest and held me so tightly. He tried reassuring me that everything was ok. With desperation in his voice he said that he has his girls, we were the world to him and that's all he needed, I didn't believe it. I knew he was just telling me what he thought he ought to say in that kind of situation. I was so glad that my sister arrived. She has a way of making me laugh like no other. She was exactly what I needed over the next few days, It was so good having her there to help care for Lilli as I was trying to process everything.
Life carried on as normal and we decided that If somehow I managed to get pregnant it would be a blessing but no more trying! Sex became fun again, no longer a chore. No longer anxiously waiting for the day I could do a pregnancy test every month. No more crying because I got my period. I suppose you could say we started living again. We engrossed our selves into being a single child family and I have no misconception that Lilli was above and beyond spoilt, in every way possible. Birthdays and Christmas's were extravagant as the way I looked at it was; I was never going to get to experience another 4 year old birthday. This was my one chance for all this and would do it to the best of my ability.
Over the next few years my health steadily became worse, countless hospital admissions and surgeries. Then to my surprise I had fallen pregnant. The excitement, oh boy I remember it. I could not believe I'd proved those doctors wrong. I was ecstatic and started to pull all Lilli's old baby stuff out...then I had my fifth miscarriage. I was told all the same things over again from the doctors that it was a total fluke that I had even fallen pregnant again. But the fact that my body had actually fallen pregnant again gave me new hope. We started trying again, but with that went the excitement, sex was again a chore and something to enter into my period and conception app on my phone. Shortly the stresses followed closely behind, the disappointment and again pressure on our marriage. It had become an obsession for me and I had become a pee stick fanatic. I now see I had a real problem. Lilli was now 5 and I so badly wanted to her have a sibling. The age gap was big enough and wanted to limit it as much as possible. The stress became to much on my marriage and my husband said that's it. We need to have a break from trying or there will be no "family" for this child to be born into. I had been selfish, it wasn't only me this effected. It had not dawned on me before that every road block I hit, he hit it too. Every miscarriage was his baby lost also. I had been so absorbed with trying to conceive and I needed to consider him for once. So we stoped trying and I fell pregnant again!!! I went into this one with so much caution, probably to much, where I was irrationally paranoid about everything and anything that could cause a miscarriage and over analysed every single thing my body did. But my fears again became true and I lost my 6th baby. This hit me hard and I went into a deep depression where I think if it wasn't for the fact that I had Lilli to live for I don't know what I would have done. To draw me out of the depression we went on a three week holiday in our caravan. Just the three of us on the road.
It was great, just what I needed. On the way back my husband turned to me and said "let's do IVF?" I almost fell off my chair. I couldn't believe it. We had never considered it before as it was not financially viable but we had come into some money and he said "stuff the deposit for a house, I don't want you waking up in 5,10,20 years and regretting never trying it".
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| We embraced life as a single child family |
It was great, just what I needed. On the way back my husband turned to me and said "let's do IVF?" I almost fell off my chair. I couldn't believe it. We had never considered it before as it was not financially viable but we had come into some money and he said "stuff the deposit for a house, I don't want you waking up in 5,10,20 years and regretting never trying it". We had our first IVF appointment and boy was that overwhelming but didn't deter us. We were told all the statistics for successful cycles. We handed over the $15k and started the process.
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| IVF injections |
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| Injection bruises |
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| The number of eggs retrieved |
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| My one good embryo |
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| positive IVF pregnancy tests |
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| Lilli was so excited |
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| 12 weeks pregnant |
100% fine.
Now to say that this was the end of my miscarriage loss would be great, but sadly it was not. My health was increasingly becoming worse yet again. The team of specialist I were seeing wanted to see if they could try a new treatment to help me. It was an aggressive one, but if it worked the payoff was way worth it. The commenced me on a medication called Zoladex. It is an implant that is injected under the top layer of fat to your stomach. This drug is used for hormone based cancer treatments. It helps to stop growths and puts you basically into a medical menopause. Well at least that's what all studies shown to date had done. Of course me, my body, had to be the exception. I discovered I was pregnant. They were blown away and just couldn't wrap their head around how this could happen. I lost the baby shortly after and they believe this time it was because of that medication.
Mt health still is not good and I ended up having to stop working under doctors advice. Every day is a struggle. whether it be from pain, fatigue, mothers guilt or mourning the loss of my 7 babies.
I got a tattoo to honour my miracles here with me and my 7 angel babies. The stars represent my angels and are forever with me.
If you have experienced a loss or know someone that has, I'm here. I willing to chat and assist any way I can. Please know you are not alone.
For information or support please visit the below web sites;
Pregnancy, Birth, Baby Organisation; http://www.pregnancybirthbaby.org.au/miscarriage?gclid=CjwKEAjw_PfGBRDW_sutqMbQsmMSJAAMpUapJduEfJV4oYm4_xm2GE916AFu0E9fiGdj8tYixW99HBoCr5Tw_wcB
Bears of Hope;http://www.bearsofhope.org.au/a/181.html
Counselling;
https://www.lifeline.org.au/get-help/get-help-home?gclid=CjwKEAjw_PfGBRDW_sutqMbQsmMSJAAMpUapHEJf4goFeShBv3F5H2GEijyqjlqcvH597fHuFmyfQxoCBLrw_wcB
