The Scariest Year of My Life
The whole thing started, as it usually does, with a positive pregnancy test.
The reason I took the test in the first place is that in-between holiday festivities with our friends and family I was throwing up in mall toilets, out the windows of the car, and in the laundry basket in the middle of the night when I couldn’t get to the bathroom in time.
I was in complete denial about even the most remote possibility of being pregnant; my husband and I had been trying to conceive for three years without even so much as a hint of a double line on the dozens and dozens of pregnancy tests I’d taken over the years.
And all of a sudden, in the midst of the bustling holidays, the night before the first day of my final semester of college, I took a pregnancy test. And it was positive.
I literally slid down the wall, sank to the bathroom floor and sobbed. We had wanted so badly to get pregnant, for so long, and here I was sick on the bathroom floor, watching my dream of college graduation slip through my fingers.
I have terrible pregnancies. Horrible, awful, puking, hair falling out, pumped full of medication pregnancies, and I knew this one wouldn’t be any different.
Not only did this pregnancy end up being different from my first pregnancy, it ended up being such a train-wreck it needed multiple teams of medical specialists all over the state.
The pregnancy started off with me being hospitalized for dehydration and a nearly non-existent blood pressure. I was given a P.I.C.C. line, a permanent I.V., to deliver intravenous medication & hydrating fluids, and sent home with a team of nurses to spend the remainder of my pregnancy on bed rest.
All this fun was interrupted with multiple admissions to the hospital for horrible complications and intermittent preterm labor, wherein I was rushed on a gurney, screaming down the halls of the maternity wing trying to keep that precious little baby inside.
It was a horrible, traumatic experience for both me and the baby, one that nearly cost us both our lives.
But in the end, we both survived, if by an inch. I delivered a healthy baby boy moments after my uterus refused to cooperate, collapsing on the delivery table.
Everyone did their job, including my exhausted uterus, and in the end I came home with a healthy, rambunctious, beautiful baby boy.
Becoming pregnant changed my life, and I’d love to hear more about your best or most difficult pregnancy moments. By replying, you will be entered to win an exclusive Million Moms Challenge Gift Pack, which includes an all expenses paid trip to a conference on mothers hosted by the UN Foundation in DC (Jan/Feb 2012), an iPad2, a custom-made Million Moms Challenge pendant and $50 donation in your name to Global Giving.
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This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Million Moms Challenge. The opinions and text are all mine. Contest runs September 19 to October 16, 2011. A random winner will be announced by October 18, 2011.