What was your pregnancy journey like?
My pregnancy journey was very smooth right from the very beginning. I have always wanted to be a mum, growing up that’s all I wanted to do/be. It was no surprise to me that I would start my motherhood journey at a ‘youngish’ age as I just couldn’t wait. (I’m 23).
I found out that I was pregnant on a Sunday morning and what made me do a pregnancy test was the fact that I had been sweating like crazy for the past few days, and that was something that was extremely new to me. So I guess you could say that my first pregnancy symptom was sweats.
I was also one of those really really lucky ladies who experienced no morning sickness at all. I didn’t even spew once. My pregnancy was a breeze until I was about 36 weeks pregnant. I felt amazing, I still had all my energy, I just thought it was all rainbows and butterflies until I started to get excessive swelling in my feet and legs. At first I didn’t really think anything of it, but later on discovered I had really high blood pressure which resulted in preeclampsia. I was monitored closely and had lots and lots of blood tests. I was then induced on my due date as my blood pressure was still really high. I will talk about my birth experience in the next question, but all in all, I really enjoyed my pregnancy (until the end), and I also loved watching my fiance take care of me and our soon to be little babe! I would also love to share that we never found out what we were having. We said to ourselves right from the beginning that you don’t get very many surprises in life, and how special will that surprise be when they arrive. Of course I did all the old ‘wives tails’ but just a heads up, they weren’t very accurate for me hahah!
Tell us more about the birth.
Okayyy my birth story is a very wild ride. A lot happened in a small amount of time. So as I said above, I was induced at 40 weeks. On the Tuesday afternoon I got a call from my midwife to say that I needed to come into the hospital and be admitted as my blood pressure was high and they wanted to monitor me and bubs.
When we arrived they made the decision to induce me as it wasn’t safe to leave me with high BP. We started the induction process at about 5:00pm. I laboured all of that night and into the early hours of the next morning. As I had been laboring for quite a while an obstetrician came in at about 8:30am and started talking about other options for me I.E a C-Section or the use of forceps. I remember saying “please just give me half an hour longer”. At 9:02am Carson Scott Doake was born. I did it, and it was the most beautiful thing in the whole wide world.
My story didn’t end there though. After Carson was born he was laid on my chest, Mitchell cut his umbilical cord and he had his first feed. I then had some major complications and was rushed to theatre where they found I had a spontaneous hematoma. They drained a litre of blood from it and I was away from Carson for about 4 hours. Once I got out of surgery and was able see Carson again it made everything better 🙂 I won’t go into the details as it can be abit triggering, but let me tell you, the day you meet your baby, is the best day ever!!
What has been the most challenging part of your whole journey so far?
I think for me, the most challenging part was how much of a huge adjustment it really is. I overthink everything!
How are you feeling now that you are in the fourth trimester? Aside from tired, etc. How are YOU actually feeling about this whole new transformation?
I am finally doing so so well. Honestly, at the beginning, I found it so so hard. I thought I was silly, I thought I was a failure because why was I feeling so anxious all the time? I had really bad postpartum anxiety and I really grieved the fact that I didn’t get the birth or the start to parenthood that I had always dreamed of having. I was stuck in hospital for 6 days after giving birth, I was bed ridden, I couldn’t even stand or walk to pick my baby up from his bassinet. I found it really difficult to adjust to this new lifestyle. But I am absolutely loving every minute of it now. Carson is my absolute world and I would go through it all again in a heartbeat if it meant I got to meet him all over again.
Please don’t get me wrong, I definitely still have some bad days, but that is to be expected and I don’t think that it’s talked about enough. Becoming a parent is hard. It’s all so so new. It’s not always so glorious and fun like we see on social media. I just can’t describe the amount of appreciation I now have for any mum or parent raising a baby.
In one word, describe what ‘Motherhood’ means to you.
It is so hard to choose just one word! But I would say REWARDING.