On episode 33, we have Caryn from South Carolina who is a wife, mother and fertility coach. She has three kids with her husband. Her oldest is 16, middle is 11 and her youngest is 8. She is on today to share her pregnancy story at 42.
Before we get into her pregnancy at 42, we need to start from the beginning of her fertility journey. It wasn’t an easy one. She thought once you want to get pregnant no matter what age, she was going to get pregnant. That didn’t happen. She went through IVF with her first child. It was so easy, she thought. She assumed it would be just as easy for the other pregnancies. She was pregnant with twins at 39; it took five years, 17 fertility cycles, one lost fallopian tube, and five miscarriages. She couldn’t understand why all those bad things happened. Caryn believes there are so few surprises in life that she never wanted to find out the gender of her babies. She ended up going into labor very early with the twins. Her son was born at 20 weeks and her daughter was born at 23 weeks which is an interval delivery. Her 20-week-old son didn’t survive. Her 23-week-old daughter spent a very long time in the NICU and is 11 years old today. Her daughter was one in ten children born in the USA that year that was delivered at 23 weeks and survived. The doctors didn’t think her daughter had a chance, but Caryn believes she willed her baby home. She lost one baby; she wasn’t losing another. Her daughter didn’t get off scott-free she says, she has a whole host of medical issues and special needs. Caryn says her daughter is an amazing child that has taught her so much.
After 17 rounds of fertility treatment, their finances were a wreck. They had so many expenses with their daughter, and she had a lot of needs and time. Caryn assumed they were done having children. She always wanted a third child, but she assumed her husband didn’t want another after everything they’d been through. She didn’t feel complete. They had 3 frozen embryos, but her thyroid was all over the place. She wanted to discuss them both with the fertility doctor. She was hoping her husband would be ok transferring all of the embryos at once and see what happened. She didn’t want to go through major effort, but she must be on several medications to keep a pregnancy. At 42, Caryn was complaining about some pain. Her doctor wanted to do an HSG test that might suggest she had a fibroid that was causing the pain. She was also very tired and wasn’t feeling well in general. The doctor gave her some medication and told her to call her when her cycle started. Weeks went by and she realized her cycle never started. She called her doctor, but she refused to do additional testing until her cycle came. After the HSG test her doctor called while she was changing her daughter in the Nordstrom restroom, she remembers well. Her doctor told her to come in for a fetal ultrasound. She snapped back those are for pregnant women. Her doctor tried to explain she was indeed pregnant. Caryn couldn’t believe it! While they were on the phone her doctor emailed her the blood test results to prove her pregnancy to her. Caryn was used to a low HSG with her previous pregnancies, but this test showed an HSG in the 1,000’s! She thought she had a cycle but assumed it was a missed miscarriage once the doctor put her on the medication. She was 7 weeks pregnant, and she was in shock.
This is our superpower, we can grow a human being.
She believes this pregnancy at 42 was meant to be. She doesn’t want to lie and say it was an easy pregnancy. She was nervous to be on the medications she was required to be on to keep the pregnancy. It was scary to be bleeding while pregnant. She was bleeding on and off for 13 weeks. She remembers having to cancel Thanksgiving because she had to be on bedrest. It was a hematoma that caused the bleeding. The words from her high-risk doctor with the twins were echoing in mind throughout the pregnancy, “Everything that happened to your children is your body’s fault and you should never carry another child.” To help keep the pregnancy, she had a cerclage which is a procedure that stitches up the cervical openings to prevent preterm birth. She thinks being on progesterone and anxiety caused her to gain excessive weight. It was stressful while the PTSD of previous pregnancies surfaced. Overall, she loved it. She enjoyed the pregnancy. She spoke to her baby frequently. She felt deeply connected to the little human she was growing inside of her. She felt like she flaunted her twin pregnancy because she was so excited. This time, she wanted to keep it to herself. She didn’t share her pregnancy with others unless they saw her. She finally shared her pregnancy at 30 weeks. She was glad to be able to cleanse her previous negative pregnancy experiences. She previously gave birth to her twin daughter at 23 weeks, so she had anxiety during this week of the pregnancy. It just so happened that her husband and daughter would be out of town to see her daughter’s specialist in Florida at 23 weeks. She says she was flipping out and was so nervous that week. She didn’t want to go through another birth at 23 weeks. She was confident in her doctor’s care and told herself the baby was healthy. She tried staying in the moment and told herself not to jump too far ahead. She took it day by day.
She looked at pregnancy after everything she went through like she was a free agent when it came to her diet. She generally ate whatever she wanted. She craved carbs: bagels, bread, french fries… She was pregnant in March, so she regularly stopped for Shamrock shakes at McDonald’s. She could have one of those a few times a day. That only happened a few times, she promises her health coach. She’s vegetarian, so she believes that manifested itself in other ways. She knew to drink a lot of water, though. She says drinking water was a great habit she kept during pregnancy. She says Braxton Hicks can be caused by dehydration. It was important to her to take a pregnancy multi-vitamin that had a DHEA and folic acid.
Caryn had her bag packed at 32 weeks. She even prepared gift baskets for her son and daughter. She feels like she was more prepared for this one than the others. She felt very strongly she wanted a VBAC for this birth. She had the cerclage removed at 34 weeks. She wound up at the hospital 2 weeks later because she was having contractions. Of course, her doctor was out of town the week she went into labor. The doctor that took his place refused to let her have a VBAC. She wasn’t dilating anyway, so a c-section was inevitable. This was her longest pregnancy. She carried her to 36.5 weeks. She remembers sitting in the wheelchair waiting for her c-section and being sad. She knew this would be the last time life would grow inside of her. She said she had a c-section and the baby went straight to the NICU. Caryn didn’t get to hold her before she was wheeled away. She got to kiss her, but not hold her.
Caryn was still in the hospital in recovery from the c-section while they brought in another woman with her baby. She remembers coming down from the hormones and PTSD. She started screaming for her baby she hadn’t yet held. She felt like it happened to her again. She couldn’t see her baby until she could stand up on her own, so she pushed herself. She still had to wait for the epidural to wear off. It would be hours until she could see her daughter, which impacted her recovery. She was in so much pain, but she was motivated. She was going to be going home without her child from the hospital, yet again. Holding her for the first time was amazing and scary. She had tears in her eyes. She was in the NICU for 9 days. Taking her home was also amazing but also anti-climatic because her kids weren’t able to come to the hospital to see her. Her gift baskets weren’t handed out like she had planned.
Mentally, she was mess she says. She was excited to take her daughter home, but she felt like she was faking a scene leaving the hospital in a wheelchair holding her baby. It wasn’t the same experience other women had. She felt like she was robbed. At the same time she was so grateful she was coming home. She didn’t have to give her bottles, she exclusively breastfed until she was 9 months old. It was an accomplishment. It felt good once she was home to feel “normal”. Breastfeeding went well, she got mastitis a time or two and a clogged duct. It was hard because she didn’t sleep through the night until she was 9 months old. Her boobs hurt. Her recovery went well, though.
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