Birth Story (sort of)

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Birth, birth story, C-section, labor, Pregnancy

I sort of journaled my pregnancy experience on here as a note to self and also for those that were curious. So many moms told me that they forgot all the woes of being pregnant and I honestly didn’t believe that was possible… but here I sit with an 8 month old and reading the old posts I wrote I realized I actually did forget.

Aside from my normal woes in the first and second trimester, I was feeling pretty good. I was staying active and making sure to take walks everyday and eat well- balanced meals. I am proud to say I only gained 15 lbs during the pregnancy but this isn’t very uncommon among moms that are plus-size but either way, I was proud of this accomplishment.  Around week 30 of the pregnancy I was hit like a ton of bricks. The weeks that were once flying by, started to painlessly drag. I was losing sleep, I was constantly in the bathroom (every 30 mins), my feet were the size of balloons, and the waddle was REAL.

That stupid freaking waddle.

I had what you would call Pelvic Girdle Pain – a condition I never heard of until I had it. Its when your pelvis gets misaligned due to the weight of the baby – my little angel wasn’t huge or anything but the pain was so severe that i needed help putting underwear on. Good thing it was summer because I could not be bothered to wear pants. Getting up and down, laying down, etc. everything hurt like my pelvis was going to snap in half. So, 10 weeks left felt like 10 more months.

During my final trimester, i learned baby girl was breach; due to my age my doc thought it was best to schedule a C-section for Aug 15. She got into position on her own but they still kept my date just in case she wanted to go back to breach – she didn’t – she kept herself right on top of that pelvis lol. I had a scare during week 36 – I was officially on maternity leave but i developed a rash that alarmed my OB and I was sent to Labor and Delivery to see if I needed to be induced. Thankfully all was well and I was sent home.

No one tells you all the fun you get to have when you’re super pregnant and have to go see the OB 1x per week and have a sonogram 1x per week. All the lovely trips.  During my week 37 visit, my OB told me my girl was NO WHERE near ready to be born as she was high up and I wasnt dilating at all. LIKE, at all. And she guessed I would carry until 42 weeks. I almost started crying when i got the news because i wanted to deliver already- I couldnt even dress myself let alone imagine another 5 weeks of it just waiting for baby.

But my doc was surprised to learn my Csec was still scheduled and she asked if I wanted to give birth week 39 instead of waiting.

Fam, can I tell you how those sad tears became happy tears??? I signed the dotted line and prepared for my c-sec.

Some may say I took the “easy” way out but as selfish as I may seem, I couldn’t bear anymore pain or the risk of needing an emergency C-sec. So I got a full nights sleep the night before my C-sec and had a very good and uneventful surgery.

Getting an epidural was surreal. Getting morphine was awful – the moment the surgery began I was telling my angel, my anesthesiologist every time I was feeling nauseous and he would adjust my dosage. I was a special case as he had never met anyone as sensitive to morphine as I was. My baby girl was delivered with zero complications and the sound of her cry was indescribable. She was covered in blood and guts, puffy, and screaming her little head off but she was so perfect.

Once they stitched me up, the let me hold her for the first time. The moment she smelled me she was rooting for my milk and they encouraged me to feed her if I wanted to; so I did. They wheeled me to recovery and my parents showed up to meet their first grand baby. There were pics taken, people taking turns holding her, etc and I remember none of it – i only remember shivering uncontrollably and sweating profusely with the worst nausea ever.

Not having eaten the night before, i was hungry and my husband fed me some jello. I was still really nauseous, shivering, and sweating – a symptom from the morphine leaving my body. I was still in recovery and unable to walk  when I called for a nurse because I really didn’t feel well. As she was coming near me, I locked eyes with her and projectile vomited across the room.

COMPLETELY Mortified. I continued to vomit like I was in the exorcist for TWELVE HOURS. God bless nurses. I swear. if they weren’t cleaning up my vomit, they were literally wiping my behind because I still couldn’t walk after having the c-section. Happy to say that I didn’t get any sick on my baby – she was happily nursing while her new mommy was tossing her cookies LOL.

Now, the one thing I was worried about was recovery since the last weeks of pregnancy were hell. To my amazement, I felt amazing. Once they removed the catheter, I was up and about like nothing. The pelvic pain was GONE, and aside from being gentle and avoid bending because I was literally cut open, I felt great.

I was so at peace with my decision to have the c-section but the downside was obviously getting sick from the morphine and having to stay in the hospital for 4 days. Would I do it again? The verdict is still out. I love being a momma but pregnancy was TOUGH and if it is to happen again, I leave that in God’s hands.

If you’re still reading, thanks for taking the time to read my “birth” story. Props to you Mommas doing it all – its not an easy job.

Things no one told me about the Second Trimester

Once the shock of actually being pregnant wore off, I looked forward to “the glow” and experiencing the beautiful miracle that is pregnancy. I will say that it is quite amazing what my body is doing to create a little one, but there are side effects that I never even fathomed. Sure, the idea of pregnancy is beautiful and special but no one warned me of the things that I have been experiencing so I am here today to share what no one told me.

I don’t know if my “advanced maternal age” plays a factor or not but there are some days where it just plain sucks. Sorry not sorry.

Sciatic Nerve Pain

Some decade ago, I had a slip and fall that resulted in chronic back issues and pain; pain that I was managing with treatment but pain I had no idea would worsen in intensity the moment I reached my second trimester. If you have never experienced Sciatic Nerve Pain – you are quite blessed. With the little one gaining weight at a steady pace, and the amount of weight being carried in my belly, my sciatic nerve was acting up badly. If I stood for longer than 20 minutes, i would experience intense burning on my right thigh along with sharp stabbing pains in random parts of my thigh. I live and work in NYC and the morning commute is 40 minutes – halfway through my ride I would be dying to walk in a circle or squat or something just to relieve the pain. Thankfully, I have been seeing a chiropractor has helped a great deal. The worst part that lingers is random sharp stabbing pains that take my breath away. But at least its not permanent!

Carpal Tunnel

You read that right. Carpal tunnel is a symptom of pregnancy. I have been an admin for 15 years; that’s a lot of typing and not to mention a product of the millennium where I text quite a bit. The carpal tunnel, pre-pregnancy has been annoying but never debilitating. After a  few stretches here and there, the pain would go away.

Around the 5th month of the pregnancy. my fingers began to feel numb and tingly. When I shared with my OB, she said it sounded like I may have carpal tunnel and she referred me to a specialist. The treatment, which at the time I refused, was a steroid shot in the hand. I have had needles in the hand before and its awful! So I declined but as the weeks went by, and as I struggle to type this at 6.5 months, I have lost all feeling in my middle and ring fingers on both hands; but the absolute worst of it is on my left hand- it will not bend while the pinky locks into place.

I sucked it up and made an appointment for the treatment. Its not guaranteed to work but I am willing to try anything to relieve the discomfort in my hands.

Irrational anxiety

Generally, I am an optimistic person. Even when things aren’t going well, I always believe that things are temporary and will always get better. The spike in hormones thanks to this baby growing in my belly, has made me scared of the most ridiculous things.

A few weeks ago, while sound asleep, my door bell rang at 11:30 PM. I shot up in bed and froze with fear. My husband was getting up to see who was at the door and I could not physically move. Then the doorbell rang again because we were taking so long to respond. My nerves were all over the place. My husband confirmed with was my brother who needed a spare key since he got locked out and even then, after confirming there was no mass murderer at the door, I was still paralyzed with anxiety.

In a completely unrelated event, I was overcome with anxiety over the short number of weeks in which the baby will be here. It happened on Mother’s Day of all days; I just felt so anxious about the impending arrival of my daughter. The weather was gloomy and there was nothing to do to get my mind off of worrying but as the days passed, I feel much better today than i did yesterday.

Extreme Fatigue and Shortness of Breath

The first trimester level of exhaustion was NO JOKE and I kept hearing that I would get my energy back in my 2nd Trimester. I’m here to tell you that with a mere 2 weeks left of my 2nd trimester, I am still exhausted. LOL. I force myself to stay active but the struggle is real.

Stairs are my worst enemy. I cannot do a flight of stairs without huffing an puffing. Putting on my socks has me panting like wild animal LOL. And pretty much anything i used to do easily pre-pregnancy.

I think the biggest thing of all that no one tells you about being pregnant is how much of a stranger you feel like to yourself. Your body doesn’t belong to you anymore and you can’t control things. This isnt to say I am unhappy at all about being pregnant; because I tried for a very long time to get here and I consider my baby a true blessing. But there are women out there who only have one child… I get it. Nine months is a long time but also a short time. Everything is temporary but if you have never been pregnant or have never had a rough pregnancy, cut a pregnant woman some slack. Everyone is different and everyone’s tolerance for pain and discomfort is different.

Pregnancy, Food Aversions, and Vegetarian Fried Rice

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baby, cravings, food aversion, Fried Rice, kimchi, kimchi fried rice, korean, Mommy to be, morning sickness, preggers, Pregnancy, pregnant

The day I found out I was pregnant, I thoroughly enjoyed a massive lunch of fish tacos, several glasses of Rose, and a scoop of cookie dough. I usually am not a huge sweets person but after having a tapas style dinner of wine, cheese, and oysters (that tasted very metallic to me that day), I came home and plowed through not one, but two cookies from Levain bakery. Those not familiar with Levain, they are massive cookies that are the size of softballs and can pass for a muffin top on their depth alone.

Since confirming my pregnancy, I became suddenly aware of all the wonderful foods I love that are on the list of foods pregnant women cannot have; right there at the top of the list: Deli Meat. Between morning sickness and the very sensitive stomach (AKA the runs), there were few things I really wanted and a turkey sandwich was at the top of the list. Thanks to a very rare but very dangerous risk of listeria, cold cuts were on the top of the No-no list, right there next to raw fish, under-cooked meat and eggs. After speaking with my doctor (because toast DOES get boring quickly), she assured me that indulging in a comfort food from a place that I trusted no more than 1x per week was ok – she wanted to ensure that I was getting enough to eat.

Aside from really wanting to eat the things I wasn’t supposed to, I didn’t have too much of a hard time. Getting ready for work in the mornings were rough as the morning sickness would set in as I was finishing my breakfast and last all the way through the 30 minute train ride all the way through lunch. I would pack my lunch and plan my dinners. To be honest, on most days, I really had to psych myself up to eat certain things but once I took the first bite, I had no issues. I heard about some expectant mothers having meat aversion and I thanked my stars I didn’t have that.

But then I got sick for 6 straight weeks. I couldn’t even think of anything pregnancy related- just how miserable I felt being sick for so long. As we speak, I am sick again thanks to seasonal allergies but I am feeling TONS better than I did before. But the moment the sickness started to subside, the weeks of baby-related symptoms I didn’t have came with a vengeance to make up for lost time. I had a roasted chicken in the slow cooker one day and when I was on my way home, my husband sent me a text telling me dinner was almost ready. I could not for the life of me go anywhere near that chicken. I love chicken. But I refused to eat it and instead went to my favorite Italian sandwich shop and ordered an eggplant sandwich. Eggplant. EGGPLANT? I can’t even believe it as I type it but I devoured it and it stayed down. My meal planning was done. I could not anticipate the food aversions so there was no point in planning.

Thankfully, I have some great coworkers who humor my weird pregnancy-related cravings and go on adventures with me to find what I fancy. When the meat aversion rolled around, all i wanted was creamy hummus and a warm fluffy pita. I feel blessed to have great hummus places near both work and home – even had the owner of my favorite Lebanese place personally deliver my hummus. Even as I type this, I think I could very well destroy a bowl of hummus with a fluffy pita…I digress. It has been a few weeks of the meat aversion but I have embraced meat when I could tolerate it. I craved fried tofu the other day, so I gave in. The past 2 weeks, I have been craving salad – crispy romaine lettuce with creamy dressing and occasionally, a protein I can tolerate.

Over the weekend, I agreed to get Korean BBQ for lunch which went well until they put chicken on the grill – feeling like chicken is going to be on the “yuck” list for a good while. Just recently hubby picked up some chicken from Popeye’s which normally, would have been welcomed, but the smell of that chicken had me in the kitchen frying up tofu and making fried rice out of my leftover kimchi – a recipe I totally made up but will totally make again.

I hope to get back to eating normally but until then, I will be indulging in all the carbs: Bread, bagels, pizza, and rice.

Kimchi Fried Rice

Ingredients:

2 Tbsp Butter

1 long onion, diced

1/2 cup leftover banchan: (2 Tbsp of Kimchi, chopped, 2 Tbsp of bean sprouts, 2 tbsp kimchi cucumbers, chopped, and 2 tbsp seaweed)

2 cups leftover white rice

2 Tbsp soy sauce

1 tsp sesame oil

Directions
Heat butter in a large frying pan and add the diced scallions; saute until fragrant.

Add the chopped banchan and its juices except for the seaweed which will be added towards the end.

Saute the banchan and scallions on medium heat for 3-5 minutes.

Add in the leftover white rice and break up with a spoon, while folding the banchan into the rice. The rice should get coated with the spicy sauce. This should take another 3- 5 minutes.

Once the banchan has been incorporated into the rice, drizzle the soy sauce and sesame oil over the rice and gently fold. Fold the rice until it has been heated through and allow to cook on low for 5 minutes.

I tossed in some fried tofu and topped with a fried egg.

Makes four 1 cup servings.

Big News!

Tags

baby, Mommy to be, preggers, Pregnancy, pregnant

For as long as I can remember, I have always wanted kids but I never felt 100% ready to have kids. When my husband and I started dating, it was understood that we both wanted children but wouldn’t rush into it. So we dated, we got engaged, got married…and then everyone started to ask where the babies were. I was 31 when I married my husband so I can understand why people were curious but honestly, now that I have been on the receiving end of these questions, they were invasive and annoying; they only made me dig my heels in about waiting a little longer.

After we got married, my husband started a grad school program…in DC. It was a 9 month program that required him to be away from home. I promised that on my 32nd birthday, after he finished school, we would open the baby factory – but not share this information with anyone.

After a year of trying and more pressure from family and friends, we both felt very strongly about telling people to back off. The added stress wasn’t going to help. We started tracking by using an ovulation kit. We tracked for 2 months and I found that either i wasn’t tracking at the right time of day or my window of fertilization was REALLY REALLY small. So, I stopped tracking my ovulation all together but continued to track my periods.

Brent and I discussed adoption when we hit the 2 year mark. We put out a feeler with an agency in the city but they never got back to us so we just continued to enjoy ourselves. I was in grad school and was dealing with the stress of school so no surprise there, no baby.

We were rounding the base upon the 3 year mark of us trying to make a baby and I finally told my husband that after the new year I would go to a doctor and see whats up. When I thought about us becoming parents, I desperately longed for that moment that hits a woman by surprise when her period is late and she takes a test and boom there is the positive. I wasn’t against IVF or anything, but I just wanted to experience making a baby “the old fashioned way” without the added stress of tracking cycles, temperatures, etc. I stopped looking at my period app other than to check when my period was coming and continued to not worry about baby-making.

On my 35th birthday, we celebrated with a delicious dinner with friends and family – it was perfect. I also made it my business to make time for friends. I was going out at least 2x a week for happy hours with coworkers. I even had a job interview for a really amazing job (spoiler alert, I did not get it).

On December 12, I was on my way to my job interview when I had the most intense cramps and broke out in a strange rash all over my arms out of nowhere. My period was due on Dec 14 so I hoped that my period wouldn’t come down during my interview. I noticed during my interview I was struggling to speak as I was so out of breath – like I ran up a flight of stairs. It was so embarrassing. The following day, I destroyed a bottle of rose with a coworker and on Dec 14, had a delicious lunch of fish tacos and champagne at a nearby restaurant. I was feeling particularly emotional and tired but I enjoyed my champagne so much I invited my hubby out to have another bottle of rose with me after work. We sipped champagne, ate oysters, and cheese. I usually love oysters but these tasted really metallic… the cheese was also overwhelmingly funky- so much so that I gagged – that never happens either. When we got home, I playfully took a pregnancy test since my period had yet to appear. I heard that the line appears immediately when a woman is pregnant, so since I didn’t see a line, I put the test in the trash and then proceeded to stuff my face with cookies and chips… like I didn’t just have a nice meal during happy hour. I don’t know what possessed me to, but I decided to peek into the trash and look at the test again.

And there it was.

A positive. A faint one, but a positive none the less.

I didn’t know what to do so I brought it to my husband and asked him what he saw. He calmly looked at it and slowly nodded “looks like you’re pregnant, babe”.

Oh. My. God.

I started trembling. Like teeth clattering and shivering type of trembles followed by the runs and intense nausea. It was like all of a sudden I had all the symptoms. I was a nervous wreck. We live in a 1 bedroom. Where will we put a baby? Am I ready to be a mom?

I barely slept that night. Every single worry crept into my mind. I’m 35 – high risk. I’m overweight. I have a job but I was hunting for something more specialized. I barely slept and the next morning, I decided to take a new test just to make sure. Gave the test to my husband and sure enough, still pregnant. The nerves and panic had subsided and I began to feel excited.

It finally happened and it happened the way I had always hoped it would.

Best birthday present yet.

We told our parents as soon as the 4th and 5th pregnancy tests were positive. We waited until week 12 to share the news with social media:

Food Snob is gonna be a Mommy.

Wow.