A light at the end of darkness
It has been many months now since I have written a post. This is mainly due to the fact that for the remainder of my pregnancy I had a brain output that was about as powerful as attempting to run a truck with a tank full of mashed peas. I simply needed all of my energy to just get through each and every day and could not fathom putting fingers on keyboard to capture anything more than the occasional blurt out of listless and random thoughts. Now sleep deprivation has clouded my sharpness, but it is time to get rolling into the land of the living again and indulge in my ramblings once more.
Well, we made it. HG continued but was endured and finally eradicated with the safe arrival of a beautiful baby girl, 3 and a half weeks ago & the day before her original due date. Did the pregnancy get easier? To some degree, yes, the HG became easier to manage throughout the final 3-4 months. I had to remain on the anti-vomit tablets every day right up until the day I gave birth. I still spewed and had relentless nausea every single day until the end of the pregnancy, yet these tablets were my functional lifeline, allowing me to put one foot in front of the other each day, reducing the severity of the spews and nausea. I don't even want to know what I would have been like without them. Of course it wouldn't be me unless things remained complicated right through until the end. In addition to HG, I suffered other 'normal' pregnancy issues such as pelvic instability and girdle pain; carpal tunnel syndrome; a resurgence of my rheumatoid arthritis symptoms, rendering my hands/fingers a painful mess; severe acid reflux; discomfort from having huge hippo-like belly proportions; and of course fluid retention that turned my already pudgy ankles into cankles with balloon like features. Good times. Labour and birth was always going to have dramatic flair. I managed to score myself pre-eclampsia in the final week leading up to our 40th week, which led to a quickly induced labour that managed to give me the experience of a full day of labour without any success, so eventually a stressed out bubba meant I ended up having an emergency caesarean to bring little one safely into the world.
There will never be enough words to express the love, gratitude and relief that arrived with our precious little human. Hearing that first little gurgle and cry will forever be the most incredible sound I've ever heard. It may sound like a cliche, but in that moment, it made every vomit & retch, hospital trip and miserable moment totally worth it.
About to leave hospital with bubba
Just like that HG was over. My final throw up happened while lying on the operating table, when they took out the placenta and started stitching me up. I am still pinching myself 3 weeks later that I can eat like a normal human being again. And... WATER.... I can drink WATER! I drank litres of it immediately following surgery and am almost permanently attached to my drink bottle each day. It is bliss that only those who have had something so basic taken away from them could appreciate the enormity of gaining it back.
Health is Wealth
My tough experience throughout this year, and even the rocky road of health that I walked in the previous year, has illuminated the value of good health and well being more than ever. I am acutely aware that despite how awful HG was, I was fortunate enough to have only a temporary illness, that not only did I know wouldn't last forever, I also had an enormous reward at the end of it that made getting through the dark days possible. Those suffering from terminal illnesses or with uncertainty regarding their prognosis, or chronic and incurable afflictions, do not have that luxury. The medication that I was taking to curb the vomiting is the same one that many chemotherapy patients take during their own treatment. I was often reminded that some people feel as retched as I did without any guarantees whether they will ever feel any better. My heart breaks for those people. It is this knowledge that helped me regain some perspective about my own good fortune and helped me remain grateful for the positives in my life.
Additionally as someone who has previously suffered four miscarriages myself, I was also especially aware of many who suffer HG and sometimes end up having a loss and not having a baby to take home at the end of their suffering. There was a point, particularly between weeks 13-20 of my pregnancy when I began to acknowledge my own vulnerability and fragile mental state regarding this issue. It was really only when I surrendered to the reality that getting through this pregnancy meant everything to me, and that any attempts to 'prepare' myself for another loss were ultimately futile in protecting myself from any further pain & grief, that I began to cope better. When you accept that some things are entirely out of your own control, acknowledge your true feelings, and allow yourself to feel the emotions that come with it, that is when you can actually grow and develop in the experience, whatever the outcome. I learnt to focus on the small things that I could control, whether something as simple as finding the energy to wash my hair, how to get through the working day, or dealing with the morning throw up without ruining the whole day. I learnt to appreciate the small wins, to be patient enough to ride out what needed to be waited out, and to allow myself to feel the full array of emotions that come with it all.
Blessings in disguise
In a weird way, HG has almost become something to be grateful for. What?? No I'm serious! At least I think I'm serious. You know that old adage "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger."? Overall, the experience became a means to grow & develop and solidify what was most important to me in my future plans. It was like the universe gave me the biggest kick up the backside to finally appreciate my personal health and well-being and what that really entails. Something that I have probably taken for granted my whole life. I am currently studying (albeit at snail pace) for a degree in psychology. Possibly heading towards a specialty in health psychology and women's health. So if I am to truly gain an understanding and a decent insight into this area, I think I needed to learn a lesson or two about the different experience between health and illness, and its relationship to emotional health and well-being. When you have personally been disempowered by your own poor health, when your body has let you down no matter what your attitude or intentions may be, when you have struggled to live without pain and suffering on a day to day level, or when you've had your emotional well-being cloud your ability to look after yourself, than your ability to relate moves out of merely abstract concepts that you read about in books into tangible insight that may one day become genuinely advantageous in helping others.
I crave health and fitness like never before. I've lived a fitness life on a yo-yo string. Ridden the roller coaster of gaining and losing weight, being fit and eating well, to being unfit and on the edge of an unhealthy lifestyle. Simple things such as drinking water, eating vegetables, the ability to exercise and physically train are now major goals that mean something so much deeper than ever before. God has given me the good fortune to have a sound body that works, a temporary illness that I could recover from, and a beautiful little girl to raise and be a good role model for. I owe it to myself to not squander it or take it for granted, and to use the experience of a tough time as motivation for positivity moving forwards.
Watch this space... future goals, dreams and plans are now being formulated. This blog may yet return to it's original focus on health, well-being and training. For now, my biggest journey, the pathway of motherhood is only just beginning and I'm looking forward to a new chapter and a different ride. Oh, and continuing to not wake up hugging the toilet bowl every day.
