Pregnancy has taught me many things. It has taught me that I am willing to put my child’s needs above my own before they are even born, that I like the feeling of our baby moving about inside me, that maternity clothes are super comfy and that my boobs look way fuller and frankly better when I am up the duff. But after our youngest was born I knew for sure I was done forever with being pregnant. I can say this with absolute certainty because I didn’t just give birth to our daughter, I also gave up my uterus and all its bits an pieces. If you want to be technical I was lucky enough to hold onto my ovaries so yes via a surrogate we could procreate, but I will never hold a baby inside me again. It wasn’t by choice either, although I did have time for the shock to sink in after a diagnosis of complete previa and increta at 19 weeks gestation, before I went into labor at 26 weeks gestation after the most difficult and complicated pregnancy (inside my womb). So this, my last pregnancy taught me many things too, many different things than my first three pregnancies taught me.
I learnt that:
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God only gives us what we can handle – I have heard the saying many times before that God only gives you what you are strong enough to handle. Well God must think I’m incredibly strong after the onslaught of complications thrown our way whilst pregnant with our last baby. I remember telling friends “I want to finish where I started” referring to the fact I wanted one more baby to cherish and love, possibly another girl like our first born. I feel God listened and God gave. Both my first and fourth babies brought with them the most difficult of deliveries and recoveries with me suffering a secondary PPH after our first and me surviving months of bed rest and heavy bleeding, preterm labor,sepsis, an emergency hysterectomy and losing 5L of blood after our fourth was born via classical section (meaning a mighty big cut). I reason that I must have grown in strength since first becoming a mother and feel blessed that God has given me the strength to endure such a traumatic ordeal and come out on the other side even stronger in my love and trust in Him.
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God carries us when we are too weak/unable to stand/hold ourselves- Many times during this pregnancy my cheeks were cleansed in tears, my heart filled with fear and I was left questioning if I could continue. I was told to give the steering wheel to God, encouraged to let go of my worries and simply trust. I prayed for a positive outcome, for a planned and safe delivery, for the survival of my baby and me. And on the days I was too emotionally depleted to pray I took comfort in the knowledge our Church family were praying for us. In the end all I could do was trust. During my incredibly painful labor, as my temperature rose and I became septic, I felt comfort as I sensed a larger presence in my room surrounding the teams of doctors that had assembled to discuss my fate. The words “As I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil” swirled in my head, and I felt reassured that God had me in His perfect plan and it had already been figured out for me. And whilst I may have been quoting Coolio in my drugged up, spaced out delirium, I knew with certainty this was God talking to me through Psalm 23:4. When I woke from the heavy sedation in ICU, arms puffy and strapped to a cold metal bed in a sterile white prison, unable to talk as I was intubated, hole where my baby had been, God gave me another sign to trust in His plan. On my right hand a small pink stain resembling a tiny footprint appeared and remained for my entire hospital stay. Instantly I knew I had indeed given birth to a girl and I also knew this was God carrying me when I was too weak to walk myself. “My precious child, I love you and will never leave you. Never, ever, during your trials and testings. When you saw only one set of footprints, It was then that I carried you.” Again God surrounded me with his love and brought me hope and strength and will in my darkest hours.
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Trust in God’s plan – It always amazes me how meeting some people can in hindsight seem so uncanny. I truly believe God assembled people chosen by Him to be on this journey with me. From the medical team to those who offered emotional support, it really felt like He had already chosen this path and the players. The ambulance officer who collected me at 22 weeks gestation as I bled heavily in the dark of night, he was the husband of a kind midwife whom I first met at my antenatal classes while pregnant with our first baby in a different hospital 5 years ago. A year ago we had moved into the same suburb as the hospital I was admitted to, the hospital that takes on all the high risk pregnancies, so it was easier for my family to come and see me daily. My most favorite midwife began working at this hospital a week before I was admitted. She came and saw me the morning after I was brought in by ambulance. Like a mother she soothed me by gently wiping away my tears with a damp cloth and holding my hand with concern and comfort. And as she found me a shattered mess after our first was born and in SCN (Special Care Nursery) 5 years earlier, again she found me a broken body in ICU and brought me a photo of my youngest daughter who was in NICU. The oncologist who saved my life finished working at that hospital 5 days after our baby was delivered. I am told he’s the best in the country and had the pregnancy progressed as we had hoped he wouldn’t have been the one to perform the lifesaving surgery I required following our daughter’s birth. If I think about the timing, and how quickly the placenta was growing towards my organs, like a rouge tumor destroying what got in it’s path, how within two weeks it went from an MRI revealing it was increta stage to delivery and realising we were at percreta stage with my bladder already compromised, the timing of this delivery was like a knifes edge. Things could have very easily gone another direction with such different outcomes a real possibility.
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God plants desires in our hearts He can fulfill – I have known for as long as I can remember that my life’s biggest goal was to be married and mother to four children. Thinking back to the uncertainty I carried for many years over whether this would actually be a reality, not knowing if scars from a previous assault had robbed me of my dreams, I can now say with certainty God doesn’t plant seeds of want within us that He cannot provide. It might not come about in the way you had expected or anticipated. However , He has your desires already written into His plan. I did get my husband and four children, they came at a huge physical cost and the road was emotionally brutally challenging, but I am where I dreamed I would be.
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My wedding vows hold true in the harshest of settings – When we married, my husband and I promised each other that in sickness and in heath we would stand by each other. This pregnancy has taught me that these vows will not waver. Tirelessly my husband cared for me as my youthful energy raced away and my body began to fail me. He showered me, dressed me and placed me back in bed each night. As I lay in bed holding onto our baby growing inside me, unable to move through the weight that any movement might spell the end as heavy bleeding never subsided, he held my hand. As I became unkempt and fragile he still loved me. He didn’t see my legs becoming scarily skinny as my muscles unused withered away, nor did he see my hair become a nest as I could not groom myself. He brushed my hair, he carried me, yet he still saw beauty in me. Sheltering me from his own fears, he held me tight through mine. And when after our baby was born and I was finally able to stand up again and see what I had become, he showed me that he too had unruly pubes grown in solidarity. And we joked about how if we were able to love each other at that point we would likely start a fire! I know he has a fire for me in his heart and I know God brought us together through meticulous planning and possibly some divine intervention. And now we know our family was assembled to live through God, He has surrounded us with our Church family and given us each other and then blessed us with our four miracles.
Each pregnancy has taught me many things. I am stronger than I knew. I love more than I could have ever imagined. I am more blessed than I believed possible. And through the pain and tears, the heart swelling sweet moments and joy, I would live it all a thousand times over to be blessed with the four little beings that call me “Mummy”.
