D-Day

19 weeks and 6 days. November 16^th, 2012. D-day is what I call it now: diagnosis day.

I woke up (and I use the term ‘woke up’ loosely, as that would imply that I got some actual sleep) feeling over the moon. The day I would get to see my baby again was finally here! For those of you non-pregnancy buffs out there, the 18-20 week mark is when they do a super detailed scan of your baby to check for any red flags, health wise. To say that I wasn’t worried, like, at all would be a bit of a lie. I am a worrier, by nature. Somewhere deep behind my elation there was a little nagging feeling of “what if?” It was nowhere near enough to scare me or make me feel like I needed to prepare myself for bad news, so I made lunch plans with my boyfriend (let’s call him B) for after the ultrasound, snapped a quick photo for my Facebook pregnancy group and we made our way to the clinic.

When we got called back, everything started off perfectly normal – just like any of the ultrasounds I had already had. I was trying not to pee my pants, and the cheerful ultrasound tech was asking questions about my pregnancy as she took baby’s measurements. She asked if I wanted to know the gender and I said that I was told a few weeks ago that we were having a boy. She said that’s what it looked like to her as well, and I told her the name we had picked out. All of a sudden, it was like a switch went off and her demeanour completely changed. She lost her cheerful tone as a look of concentration spread across her face. I could tell she was trying to be professional by the way she explained what we were looking at, but I could also tell that something more was going on. My heart was in my throat, but I was too scared to ask.

She was looking at baby’s spine.

She measured and stared as she snapped photo after photo, the corners of her mouth showing the faintest hint of a frown. Every word that left her mouth was calm, cool and calculated. Each click of the mouse brought on a new wave of fearful nausea in the pit of my stomach. After that, she moved to baby’s brain.

I held it together long enough for the ultrasound to be done. Afterwards, she told me to stick around as she was going to have me speak to a doctor before I left. She closed the door, and my lip started to tremble as I looked at B. “Something’s wrong with our ba-“ I said, but my breath caught in my throat before I could finish my sentence. I tried to swallow, but my throat was too dry. “You don’t know that, please don’t cry” was his response, but it felt far away. It was like my body was preparing for the impending terrible news by trying to shut down. Even now, as I type these words, I can feel my chest getting tight and the tears start to form as the memory of that moment comes back to me. I was so scared. A few minutes later, she came back and directed us to a room where we would sit and wait for the doctor. Three chairs, some magazines and a portable ultrasound machine. The room felt cold. Sterile. I managed to slightly regain my composure while we waited, but as soon as he came into the room and sat down, a solemn look on his face, I knew it wasn’t good.

What he said was a complete blur until I heard the words “spina bifida” come out of his mouth. Aside from maybe reading those words a few times during my baby research, I had never heard of it before. I tried to listen carefully to what the Doctor was saying. Something about 3 different types. Can’t definitively diagnose which type until we get a “level 2 ultrasound.” Amniocentesis. Possible complications: lower limb paralysis, muscle weakness, loss of bowel/bladder control, fluid build up in the brain, issues with eating and sometimes even breathing. I felt like I was punched in the stomach. I don’t even know how I was crying with no air left in my lungs, but I vaguely remember being doubled over in the black leather recliner wondering where those faint sobs in the background were coming from. I tried to concentrate through the haze, and then it hit me. It was me. Those sobs were coming from me. After awhile, the Doctor left. I will never forget the look of sympathy on his face as our eyes met before he closed the door behind him. I’m not sure how long we stayed in that room, but I was still sobbing as we left and I can still see the concerned stares from complete strangers as B helped me to his car.

The rest of my day consisted of crying, numbness and sleeping. Somewhere in the midst of all this, I wrote this to my Facebook group:

“I’m absolutely devastated. I just had my ultrasound this morning, and my little boy was diagnosed with spina bifida. They don’t know how severe it is yet, I have a more detailed ultrasound Wednesday morning. This is by far the worst day of my entire life, and I could really use some positive vibes sent my way for Wednesday morning. I’m shocked, devastated and beyond terrified. I don’t know what to do or how I’m going to make it to Wednesday without knowing anything more.”

It turns out, I made it to Wednesday by surviving on the love and support of the incredible people in my life. My parents dropped everything and made the 8 hour trip to Calgary so they could be with me for the level 2 ultrasound. My best friend (who was no longer staying with us to complete her practicum) offered to make the trip down from Edmonton. B made sure I ate, held me as I cried and gave me space when I needed it. I tried my best to stay away from Dr. Google, but my desire to arm myself with information (even if it was worst-case-scenario information) got the best of me. I wanted to know anything and everything there was to know about spina bifida so I could make sense of what would happen on Wednesday.

It’s A…

It probably wouldn’t be too far off the mark to call me the world’s most impatient person. I was nearing the 16 week mark in my pregnancy, and I was completely convinced that I was having a girl. If I’m being completely honest? I thought I might be a bit disappointed if my little girl was actually a little boy. Add that to the list of ‘crap Krystle has said out loud that normal people only think on the inside.’ It’s a pretty big list. And if you’ve read my little ‘about me’ blurb, you already know that I have a son. Oops?

My next ultrasound was scheduled for when I was 19 weeks and 6 days, which was clearly too long of a wait to find out the gender. I started looking into 3D ultrasounds, only to find out that UC Baby wouldn’t do them this early. That’s when my cousin mentioned a woman who did ultrasounds out of her home in Edmonton, 2.5 hours away from where I lived at the time. I know what you’re thinking. What kind of crazy person drives 2.5 hours and pays ridiculous amounts of money to find out something they would learn for free (and in their own city) weeks later? The answer? This crazy person. Let alone the fact that this lady could have been a complete psychopath (thankfully, she was rather sweet). My best friend was staying with me at the time, so I jumped into the car with her and my boyfriend and off we went.

When we finally arrived, I thought I might actually vomit from something other than nausea for the first time in months. I was vibrating with nervous excitement as she prepped her ultrasound equipment. First, she showed me baby’s face. And actually, it looked terrifying. Thankfully, my best friend has about as much of a filter as I do, and I burst out laughing when she was like “okay, that’s so creepy!” After my not-quite-hard-yet pregnant belly stopped jiggling from the laughter, the ultrasound lady manoeuvred her little wand downwards and asked me if I had a guess as to what the gender of my baby was. I stared up at the screen, and was 100% sure I was seeing little baby boy junk. She confirmed.

I felt.. elated? Holy crap! I wasn’t disappointed! I couldn’t remember ever being so happy. I was having a boy! My creepy little gremlin baby was a boy! Up to that point, that was the best moment of my entire life.

I shared the news with my family, and immediately started discussing baby boy names with my boyfriend. After countless lists and countless hours spent trying to find a name we both agreed on, I was seriously questioning my relationship. Who was this person with the awful taste in baby names? After what seemed like forever (but was probably only a few days) we narrowed it down to two names: Carter and Jackson. I pictured my little gremlin, and tried to think of what name suited him best. It turns out that exactly zero human names are well-suited to gremlins, so I did the next best thing. Carter had been my grandma’s maiden name, and I loved the thought of having some meaning behind the name I would give to my son.

Carter. My little boy’s name would be Carter.

Pregnancy Brain

So, my last post was on May 20^th and it is now July 15^th. Worst. Blogger. Ever. I KNOW. What can I say? Life got crazy, as it often does. My next post may not be until 2016, so I hope you enjoy this one.

I’m pretty sure I did more research in the first few weeks of my second trimester than I did throughout my entire undergraduate degree. In short, here are a few key things I learned about pregnancy and life with a new baby:

• Breast milk and/or coconut oil will solve all of your problems. You heard me. All of them. Basically, I pictured raising my child in a container of coconut oil while squirting him with a water gun full of breast milk a few times a day. Sort of like a plant.
• Before baby comes, it is a good idea to “massage your perineum” with olive oil. Immediately upon reading this, I came bounding out of the bedroom with a huge smile on my face. “Hey sweetie, wanna rub some olive oil on my taint?” I got ‘the look.’ The look generally consisted of equal parts confusion and an attempt not to vomit. It had happened enough times since I had become pregnant that ‘the look’ was a totally justifiable classification for it. “What? Too sexy?”
• At some point in your pregnancy, you have to get tested for gestational diabetes. They force you to drink what I can only describe as liquid sugar with orange food colouring. My first thought after I was sure I wasn’t going to barf it right back up, was “well, if I didn’t have diabetes before…”. Some women are total weirdos and love this drink (I’m looking at you, Natalie)!
• Sleep will be non-existent long before you ever bring your child into this world. At a certain point, you are no longer allowed to sleep on your back. For obvious reasons, you cannot sleep on your stomach. They say that sleeping on your left side is best, but for someone like me who usually changes positions 100 times a night, no f*cks were given. I usually slept partly sitting up, or I hefted my large self from side to side throughout the night in a feeble attempt to get some actual rest between pee breaks and/or being up to pop some tums like they were tic tacs. People will joke that “you’d better get your sleep now, because you won’t get any when baby is here!” And you will want to stab them with the nearest sharp object. In my case, that was usually a fork.

The most accurate way to describe a pregnant lady (or at least me as a pregnant lady) is ‘forgetful psycho.’ I found a wet, wrinkled shirt in the refrigerator once. Right where the cheese strings used to be. This is called ‘pregnancy brain,’ which changes to ‘mommy brain’ immediately upon the birth of your child. I am not convinced it ever goes away. And the psycho part? I blame that partly on our health care system. Since when is it perfectly okay for a doctor to call someone who is growing a human being, and leave a message that she needs to see them about some blood work results 5 minutes before closing on a Friday? Her office happened to be 30 seconds down the street, and my pregnant ass ran jogged walked as fast as I could when they wouldn’t immediately answer my phone call. Tears in my eyes, I was hoping that I wouldn’t have a panic attack on the way there and also that I wouldn’t have to kick down their door when I arrived. Thankfully, it was still open. I rushed in, and with as much composure as I could muster, I shakily let the receptionist know about the voicemail I received. The doctor who had called happened to overhear me (probably because I was yelling) and called me into the back. My tact long gone, I blurted out “is my baby okay?” before the door was even closed behind her. When she told me that baby was just fine, I was so relieved that I forgot all about wanting to throttle her for her horrid voicemail 5 seconds earlier. She asked me about my platelets and if I had a history of them being low, to which I responded that this was the first I had ever heard of my platelets at all. She mentioned that they weren’t low enough that it was a huge deal, but she wanted to refer me to a hematologist and to let me know that my pregnancy was no longer considered low risk. This meant that I could no longer be seen at her office, as it was a low-risk maternity clinic. I was still so elated that there was nothing wrong with my baby that I didn’t realize what a pain in the ass this would be in my immediate future.