My health the last year

I'm going to go ahead and totally overshare with all of you regarding my health. Way tmi health update. Stop reading now if you don't want to know details.

My year since Emily was born has been a very difficult year. My pregnancy with her was already a hard year with hg and home health, and I expected it to get easier once she arrived, but it didn't. I still have some vitamin deficiencies and food aversions that are directly related to her pregnancy, too.

I got mastitis twice when Emily was young and at least one time was likely related to her tongue tie revision and her not removing milk effectively. Emily also has never liked to sleep and cried alot as a newborn. She still cries way more than the average baby, but I love my baby and insist on meeting her needs even if it means I lose sleep.

I was having random on and off heavy bleeding for months after her birth and saw a specialist and he kept brushing it off as "just hormonal", but nothing was getting better. I'd be fine for a few days and then Id be standing in Costco and be covered in my own blood. Id feel fine some days and other days Id be nauseated and puke and bleed heavily. I saw one resident at mayo that told me i was bleeding so much because i was sleep deprived! Oy! After some persistence on my part and getting a second opinion gynecologist and an Mri, they found a tiny tear on my cervix and cauterized it and all the bleeding finally stopped in June, nearly 5 months after she was born. I have never been so happy to not be bleeding constantly.

After all of my babies I've struggled some with anxiety and depression, more so after Joey than Ina. There were definitely situational components to both and I struggled with this too when I was younger. I was trying to do natural things and hoping that once the bleeding got under control things would get better for me on this front. They didn't. I'm a very very private person, and confided in my closest friends asking for advice and help on labor day weekend. One friend jumped to the conclusion based upon text messages that she thought I was suicidal and intended to kill myself. This was far from the truth, but she then decided to call the police instead of picking up to call me or mutual friends or my husband to see what my state of mind was. Yes, I was upset that night. No, I did not need the police called and involved in my life. I was upset and crying and talking to my husband late that night when a policeman shined his flashlight into our window, shortly after I opened the door I had cuffs on my hands and was put in the back of a police car because my friend told them that I was going to commit suicide. I was taken away to a mental health facility that was truly the thing that nightmares are made of and locked up against my will. I will spare you from the details, but it was horrifying. Prisoners are given more rights. I was denied access to a pump and access to my nursing children. I begged for them to at least give me a pump or allow my husband to bring mine, my breasts hurt so badly. I had no idea if or how Emily was being fed and that was my biggest worry. I didn't have pumped milk in the freezer nor would Emily take it if i did because she always had a hard time eating because of her tongue. Luckily one friend came over and nursed Emily the entire time i was gone. What a blessing. The psychiatrist met with me about 15 hours after being put in there and then 2 hours later I was released. He agreed that I was very stressed out and probably needed some more support, but that I did not belong in a inpatient setting. As a result of this visit, we were reported to dcf and investigated for months after. We were "double reported" as in got reported twice in 24 hours, once because of me being brought in by the police and once because I was a breastfeeding mother who drank a beer at 10pm at night. The nurse who reported me for that wouldn't have even known that I was nursing but I kept begging for a pump because I was so scared of getting mastitis again and I was incredibly engorged and in pain. After I left, I did follow up with a primary care dr for help with the anxiety and depression bouts and it has been helping.

Dcf dropped the case against us rather rapidly stating there was no abuse indicated, but because of us being double reported we had to complete months of classes and in home checks. Very very stressful when I was already very stressed. That ended around Thanksgiving. It's not being paranoid when you've actually got government people in your house scrutinizing your every decision, it's not paranoia, it's very real fear.

In November I started having some breast problems and there was concern that it could be breast cancer. Mayo and our insurance was being very uncooperative with getting me the appointments I needed to be checked, and so I went through a painfully slow process of having that evaluated while I worried. Most recently I saw the breast surgeon who believes it's more likely I have some sort of bleeding issue going on and she has referred me to hematology to be worked up eventually.

Then in January I fainted. Rob found me unconscious. I have a loss of memory of about 5 hours and evidently denied being transported by EMS when they were at my house. I fainted again the next morning and couldn't stop puking and went to the hospital and was admitted. They suspected that it may be related to medication or that my intracranial hypertension was returning. I've been considered "in remission" of this since getting pregnant with Ina. They wanted to do a lumbar puncture to check for this, it was mildly elevated but not enough to convince me to go on the medicines that really did not help the first time. They tried to do the lumbar puncture bedside and it was horrible and painful and I had bleeding complications. They did it under fluouroscopy the next day and also did a number of all tests, all relatively inconclusive. I was discharged on the third day and had a horrible post lumbar puncture headache develop. I called the dr on call and they encouraged me to wait until Monday, or go into the ER. I wound up going into the ER because I was in so much pain. They couldn't do the blood patch because it was a Sunday and they don't do them on Sundays. I was also then given the news that I had bacteria growing in my spinal fluid and that there was concern for meningitis, so they didn't want to treat me for the headache and accidentally seal in meningitis basically. They gave me many powerful pain drugs and sent me home and told me to come back tomorrow if I still needed the blood patch. I came back and they said they couldn't do it that day and were still concerned about meningitis and so they gave me antibiotics and more pain meds. I came back the following day and had the blood patch procedure done on my spine and had relief from those symptoms.

I evidently ovulated late from stress in the hospital, and to my shock, had an early positive pregnancy test. On Ina's birthday, I was certain I had lost the baby and was miscarrying. Our emotions on this are still very mixed.

This doesn't even get into Emilys hospital visit in the fall or all of the regular kid illnesses that we've dealt with all year! I really didn't necessarily want to share this.

`I am a deeply personal private person and even people who are very close to me don't know all of this. I am so very physically tired though and so tired of people asking other people how I am and false information being given from friends that have turned against me when I've needed them most. I have lost friends this last year and my heart hurts and breaks from that. Please know that I am doing the best that I can. You might not think it from where you sit, but take a moment and see where I've been sitting, and know that I have been doing my very best. I am eternally grateful to my friends and family who have been at my side serving me and my family and showing me how Jesus calls us to love and be loved. Thank God for them and thank God for life.

Jax Airshow Nursing Experience

Two years ago, in October 2012, we were at the Jax Airshow that was at Jax Beach that year and I had my worst nursing in public experience ever. Some of you know this story to a certain degree, but I thought I’d post about it especially given it is 2 years later and today I was feeling particularly defensive nursing at the airshow at NAS Jax. Lucky for all the strangers there, nobody said anything to me, as it should be! wink emoticon Two years ago, we were sitting on the beach, watching the air show for hours at that point, when a stranger approached me and demanded I cover up or stop nursing and called me white trash, that I was trying to sexually “turn on” little boys playing nearby (which included my son!), and that I should be ashamed. I stayed calm and politely informed her of Florida law that I can breastfeed anywhere I legally am allowed to be. When I would not stop nursing and just kept politely informing her of the law, she started calling me names and threatened to go “get the sheriff to force me to stop.” She was so unkind to me, I was choking back tears and many strangers from all around me put their hands on my shoulder or offered words of support, saying that I was in the right and did nothing wrong. The lady stood and waited and talked to the sheriff. Then the Jax Beach police officer came up to me and knelt down on the beach next to me and told me to cover or stop nursing. He said I know you aren’t doing anything illegal, but please stop, “multiple” people are offended... Because the lady got one of her friends to go with her to complain. I told him I would not stop nursing or cover up more (and honestly, I was nursing pretty modestly, but that is completely beyond the point!). He then asked me to cover up "as a favor to him". I told him I did not have to cover up by law, and what did he expect me to do? To use a sand covered towel on my child? He said that to just do it as a favor to him and that more than one person was upset. I said, well, I AM upset that my right to breastfeed is not being protected, it is not against the law and I WILL NOT STOP. I told him I am upset that my family is being yelled at and ridiculed by a stranger, yet, I'm being asked to stop when I'm in the right. He should be telling her to stop harassing me. He quickly walked away after that and I was left in tears because I was so upset at this point. The police officer was no where to be seen the remainder of the event, this happened between Fat Albert flying and the rest of the Blue Angels flying, about 3:15pm until 4:30pm. He was in a golf cart but I didn’t see him after that. But you bet, that woman stood right nearby me, staring at me and my family, the rest of the event, smugly, because she felt that she was in the right because the Sheriff had asked me to cover. I had a few strangers come up to me and say that they thought I was completely fine and that breastfeeding was protected, etc, but by that point I felt so hurt by everything that had occurred no amount of comforting really was much use. But I insisted to stay through the rest of the air show, as my son Joey LOVES the blue angels. As it turned out, my baby had become very ill and I did not know it yet. Ina started puking violently as we left and was hospitalized for the entire week following - I am sure glad that as a mom, I followed my instincts and let her nurse constantly for the hours and hours that we were at the air show, she clearly needed all the milk she could get to try to fight off that virus. I had a LLL leader go and talk to the Sheriff’s office, and I called and talked to them on the phone. They did verbally apologize to me, mostly because I was so upset, but said that because the other lady complained first, that he was “forced” to address the situation and talk to me. Evidently, crazy people who have a problem with breastfeeding truly are more protected than breastfeeding is here. Sad, but true. Thank you to everyone that helped me that day, and after that day to help get through this traumatic day. heart emoticon Love you Rob, Elisabeth, Janet, and Harley. Below: photo of me being soooo "inappropriate" nursing Ina at the Air Show in 2012.

May 15 - HG Awareness Day

Today is Hyperemesis Gravidarum awareness day. For women like myself who have had HG, it takes what is supposed to be a huge blessing and very happy time and fills it with vomiting, nausea, rapid weight loss, dehydration, malnutrition... I honestly have a hard time even sharing about this, I still gag on certain foods and there are many I cannot even attempt to eat because of how violently I threw them up. Heck, there are still foods from Joey's and Ina's pregnancies that I cannot eat, and they are 3 and 7 years old. There are different "levels" of HG, even from pregnancy to pregnancy with the same woman. I can only hope and pray that if we are blessed with future pregnancies, I do not have HG, or if I do, they're like my easiest pregnancy, Ina's, where I only threw up once or twice daily the entire time. Easy peasy compared to my others! smile emoticon Perspective... Today though I ask you to please pray daily for all of those women who are currently suffering from HG, especially those who are being offered "therapeutic termination" of their pregnancy - which if you look on the HER website, it is a staggering 20% of HG pregnancies that end in abortion. It is one of the saddest things for me having connected with other moms who have HG online, seeing how many women decide to have abortions because the current therapies are not enough to bring mom relief. It is so very, very hard. Even on home health and daily fluids, nausea meds, etc, I still could barely walk around, wash my own hair, or even get up to puke. And thank you, for all of the friends, family, and care providers that were amazing to me during one or all of my pregnancies. I could tag people, but it would be too many smile emoticon heart emoticon My babies may not know it, but they have you to thank you for their lives and I have you to thank for mine, too. You all almost make up for the poor treatment I got from care providers, the doctors who offered me abortion, the times I had to argue with doctors in ERs about needing fluids... being sent back HOME because the doctor wanted to go to lunch before seeing me, when I was super dehydrated and tried to transfer to an OB to get on home health during Emily's pregnancy.... I could go on and on and on. Some of the instances are just too hard for me to think about or even write about. So, please, pray for the women who have HG, pray for the sweet babies who have never made it to earth to take their first breath because of HG (either because of miscarriage, or abortion), pray for the friends and family members of those suffering, and pray for all of the doctors who are researching to find better therapies than currently exist. I'd also like to add that at the end of my pregnancy, I got some relief from a supplement called Lauricidin - Recommended By Physicians Worldwide. After taking it for a week, it was the first time ever I had been pregnant and not also nauseated - in all of my pregnancies. I still threw up some, but it did offer me tremendous relief and I was able to come almost completely off the antinausea meds in the last month of my pregnancy except for after an occasional violent puke. There is some research being done about other pharmaceuticals that may help in pregnancy, but I personally do not feel confident enough from what I've read to share about them yet. If you know someone with HG, call, email, show up and help. It might seem like it is very little or not enough, but if you just show up and help a little every time, it really is huge. Some of the things that helped me most were people dropping lunch off on the porch for my kids, people who came in and folded laundry or did a load of dishes, friends who watched my kids while I got stabbed for the 10th time that day to get an IV in place. It might seem small, but it is not.

Ina's Birth Story

I was 41 weeks and 3 days and had pretty much resigned to being pregnant forever. I had been up all night, as I had almost every night in the last week and a half, because my joints hurt too bad to fall asleep, especially my hips and knees whenever I was laying down. At 3:45am, I decided to try to sleep again. After I layed down for maybe 10 mins, I had a painful contraction that was much stronger than the ones I had been having over the past weeks/months, and I sat up in bed and stayed sitting until it stopped. I had glanced at the clock and it was just prior to 4am. I had two more, and did the same thing sitting up/laying down, and then after that one I went and sat in the bathroom. I had 3 more, and looked at the clock and it had only been 15 mins with 6 total contractions. I woke up Rob and told him to stay awake because I thought I was in labor and it was going fast, but I wanted to shower to be sure, since all of my past contractions would usually die out in the shower. I got in the shower and had more contractions and when I got out Rob had fallen back asleep. (Good thing I didn’t need him!) I woke him up and told him I think we needed to call Irma (my doula) and the birth center because I think it was happening fast. He insisted we time more contractions first, so I put up with him timing contractions for a few mins and after he kept “messing up” and wanting to start over, I yelled at him to just go by the last three he had and start calling people. By those, I was having about 1-1.5 minute long contractions every 2.5 minutes. And I couldn’t walk, talk, move through them at all. After we called and decided we were going into the birth center, Rob started loading up the car with our stuff and I told him to get the list of the things I said to “grab as we were leaving” and I told him to not get like half the stuff on the list, since I didn’t feel like we had time and I didn’t think we’d need them. Rob grabbed Joey out of bed and loaded him into the car about 5:10. Joey wanted to know why we were going to have the baby in the dark and couldn’t we wait until day time? On the way, Rob called his parents to come meet us at the birth center (they were going to be with Joey while I was in labor) and called my parents in California to tell them I was in labor. I was told later that there was a beautiful crescent moon with Venus right near it that Rob and Irma both saw while going to the birth center, but I didn’t notice. We made it to Fruitful Vine about 5:30, and made my way to exam room to find out I was 5-6cm dilated, and then we went over to one of the birthing suites. Hope was apologizing that I was getting the small room, because there was another mom there that had her baby earlier in the night and was still in the other room. I don’t remember if I told her I didn’t care or if I was just thinking it, but I really would have had the baby where-ever at that point. The moment we walked into one of the birth rooms, Joey announced that his baby sister’s name is Ina Beth to everyone in the room. Totally made me laugh, that he kept his mouth shut the entire pregnancy and decided to announce it the moment I was in labor - we thought he had forgotten it. When Rob was unloading the stuff, Joey stayed with me and started immediately pigging out on his “birth snacks” that he had been waiting weeks to eat. I had maybe 3 more contractions and Irma got there and shortly after, my inlaws got there about 6am and went with Joey into the waiting room to watch DVDs. I had been sitting on the bed and moved to kneeling in front of the bed. My water broke after about 20 mins like that and then I got up on the bed at 6:30am. Hope wanted to check me but I had another contraction start, and out came half of her head along with her left hand. The next contraction came and out came the rest of her at 6:36am along with the rest of my amniotic fluid all over Hope, lol! Super fast! (oh, and no tearing either!) We had planned to have Joey come in for her being born, but it all happened so incredibly fast that there was no time, so we waited until after the placenta was out and she had nursed some and then Rob went to the waiting room to get Joey. We also didn’t get any labor or birth photos because of this. He asked Joey if he wanted to come see his baby sister and my inlaws were shocked and said “Already!?” :) We have a short video of just after Joey met Ina, the first thing he said was “Can we take her home?” and then he was talking to her very quietly saying “I’m your big brother and you’re my baby sister”, holding his hand up against hers. She was super wide-eyed alert the moment he started talking to her too, so sweet. Also, since I'm frequently asked, my Ina Beth is named after my childhood babysitter who died in a car accident when she was 16. I was a young girl and Ina Beth was like a big sister to me.

Emmy Lou's Birth Story

Emily's pregnancy was my hardest pregnancy with severe hyperemesis gravidarum. In my second trimester I was on home health with home IV fluids for hydration and I had a zofran pump in my stomach to help deliver constant nausea medication subcutaneously. Even with this, I still puked multiple times daily and lost about 25% of my body weight. The day for Emily was due, I had been at my husband's grandma's house cleaning it out and packing things up because after the baby was born we were planning to move in. We finished for the day and went to my inlaws with Ina while Rob and Joey went to help my brother in law with some trash. Around 5pm, I was sitting and nursing Ina and felt like I had to pee, so I got up and walked to the bathroom and as I was walking a felt a familiar "pop". I had a feeling it was my water and ran to the bathroom so I didn't start leaking fluid everywhere. It was definitely my water. I texted my doula and I called rob to tell him that he needed to come back to get me. I called fruitful vine and since I had such a fast labor with Ina, we had decided I'd come in right away if my water broke first even if contractions weren't very strong. Robs grandma was worried I was going to have the baby before Rob got there and thought we should call an ambulance. Rob came and got me and since it was dinner time, Joey and Ina just stayed with my inlaws and we stopped by our house to grab a few things and then went to the birth center. I was only 3 cm dilated, and contractions weren't at all intense. I was walking around and laughing and talking and just hanging out. I layed down for a bit around 9 and after laying down contractions were coming harder and faster and I wanted to get into the bath tub and waiting for it to fill up felt like forever. I labored in the tub for the rest of my labor and Emily was born quickly under water at 11:48pm on Sunday, February 16, just 12 minutes short of being born on her due date. I got out of the tub to birth the placenta and Emily latched on and nursed immediately after birth. I had heavier bleeding than is usual and got medicine to help stop the bleeding, which took longer to help than I liked, but I was thankful that it stopped and I didn't have to transfer. I felt faint the first time I got up, but felt ok within an hour or so and then went home with Rob and Emily. Joey and Ina met their sister Emily for the first time late Monday morning.