On episode 46, we have Amelie, from Belgium, to share her pregnancy story at 41. She normally speaks French, is a scientist at the university, and is a yoga practitioner. She and her partner have a son and two step-children with two dogs and two chickens.
After a year of trying to get pregnant on her own, she went to a fertility doctor to start the IVF process. After several weeks of testing, they decided to stop because it was too stressful and painful to continue. It caused her too much stress and anxiety. They decided to stop everything and she didn’t want to think about it anymore. She gave up the idea of having children. The next four months she and her husband saw friends, hosted lots of parties and traveled all around Europe. When she got back home, she found out she was pregnant.
It wasn’t that I didn’t find the right person. I wasn’t the right person.
You might assume Amelie thinks she got pregnant because she ‘stopped trying.’ She doesn’t even like that phrase. It was something that always stayed with her. She believes she got pregnant by chance. She was so disconnected from their initial plan of getting pregnant, that she didn’t even notice her cycle didn’t start. She blames this on being in complete denial. A few weeks went by when one night she realized she hadn’t had her cycle, for what felt like ages. She had a pregnancy test, so that was the first thing she did the next morning. It was positive, but she thought it must be a mistake. She didn’t tell her husband. She made an appointment on her way to work for the end of the day and worked as usual. Her doctor laughed at her when Amelie told her it was a false positive. The doctor told her this was the best news she’s had all day and assumed she was pregnant. This was the time she started to believe it might be possible. The doctor suggested doing a blood test to confirm she was in fact pregnant. After she left, she walked by a theater that was showing, Litte Prince by Antonine De Saint-Exupery. It was that moment she knew she was having a boy. She told her husband that night she might be pregnant, but probably not. He was surprised because he had already put the idea of having a baby out of his head.
She got the call from her doctor the next morning to confirm she was indeed pregnant. She was confident everything would go just as it should. She was careful, but she wasn’t afraid. Being pregnant got rid of all her anxiety and stress. She was at peace. She’s not sure why she became so calm during pregnancy. She believes it might be the hormones, but she can’t explain it. She thought she would be anxious at every little thing, but she said that wasn’t the case. She was diagnosed with gestational diabetes in the last three months of her pregnancy. She already had a healthy diet, so she couldn’t change much there. She stopped eating fruit and she didn’t eat sweets. It was difficult for her, so her doctor recommended she see a a dietitian. She felt guilty giving her baby too much sugar and shots of insulin. She already felt like she was a bad mother before he was even born. Between six and seven months, she lost eleven pounds because of the diabetes and that worried her.
For her doctor, it was important that she be seen by a woman, be near a close hospital, and didn’t sugar-coat anything. Amlie is a scientist, so she wanted to receive factual information from her doctor.
At one of her appointments, the tech asked her if she wanted a girl or boy. She told the sonogram tech she wanted a girl. The tech replied with, “it’s a boy.” She thought it was fantastic because she really didn’t care. She wanted to know the gender of her baby because she wanted to create a personal link to the baby. For her, it wasn’t about getting the clothes and toys that matched the gender. It wasn’t important to her. Her husband didn’t want to know. She was the only one that knew. Friends and family tried to talk her into telling them, but she didn’t budge. It was her secret. She worried if she told anyone, it would get back to her husband which she didn’t want to happen. The one person she told was her beautician. She made multiple appointments just so she could talk about her baby boy and the pregnancy.
Amelie has been a yoga practitioner for 25 years. She recommends flow yoga for any women that are pregnant. It includes breathing and movement with music. It’s gentle and calming she describes. She also says it helps to prepare for birth by opening your hips. She took a prenatal yoga class that she did later in pregnancy when flow was too uncomfortable. She enjoyed being around other pregnant women. She also exercised in the pool. She doesn’t describe it as gentle, but it helped her increase her strength. This was a class for pregnant women which she also enjoyed being surrounded by. She also took a birthing ball class to prepare for birth. At the beginning, she wanted a doula, but with all her preparation, she was confident she was ready without one. At about seven months, she felt prepared for birth.
She felt ready but she was scared the hospital would make decisions for her without asking. She was afraid she would fill out her birth plan without the doctor ever looking at it. She stressed about it. It was important to her the doctor not cut anything without asking her first, and her husband didn’t want to cut the umbilical cord. He felt too much pressure to do it with his first two, so she promised him he didn’t have to this time.
At 39 weeks, because of her blood sugar, the doctor told her the placenta wasn’t working, and she needed to go to the hospital. It was a Sunday evening when she arrived, and she was induced the next morning. She was woken up at 5 am to give her a pill to start the induction. After two hours, they took her to the birth room where the contractions were so strong, she describes them as violent. She had room to practice some yoga and used the pregnancy ball. There was also a big bath to help relieve some of the pain, but she was ready for an epidural. She got an epidural, but it didn’t work which she wasn’t prepare for. She still doesn’t know why it didn’t work. Now, it was 1:00 am and she was 7 cm dilated when she knew it was really starting. She spent the next two hours pushing. During those two hours she held on to her husband. He would later tell her that he couldn’t feel his hands because she was squeezing them so hard. The pain was so intense, she felt so weak, she didn’t think she could do it anymore. She thought she was going to die for the next two minutes. She felt prepared for those last pushes. She says it was odd but she wasn’t in too much pain. Once the baby’s head was out, they could see the cord was wrapped around the baby’s head. The doctor had to push the baby back in. She surprised herself by staying calm and was confident everything was fine. A few more pushes, the shoulders were out. The doctor caught him and immediately place her son on her chest. This is when her husband found out the gender. Even when she had her son laying on her chest, he didn’t even ask. She says having her son on her chest was the greatest moment of her life.
She was able to stay in that room with the baby for two hours, and then she was taken to her room for the night. Skin to skin was very important to her during that time. The next day she was ashamed to feel those thoughts of death during birth. She asked to speak with a psychologist that told her it was normal to think about dying during labor.
Amelie tried to breastfeed for the first three days at the hospital, but one breast was not working. The other was working, but not well. The next week her son had lost 15% of his weight. She started pumping, but it was not enough for him. She bottle fed him with formula which helped get him back up to a good weight.
Her recovery was challenging. She got a vaginal infection that caused her pain for three months afterwards. It took her that long to be able to walk properly again. It was painful and felt like it was burning. The best part of her recovery was having her husband and the baby together for four months before she had to go back to work. It was important to her that the baby bond with her husband just as much as her.
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