On episode 41, we have Sophia, from London, England. She had a whirlwind romance as she describes with her husband Cookie. They met on a Friday, confessed their love Saturday, and married exactly one year later when she was 38 years old. They both wanted children, so they were actively trying to get pregnant. She assumed it would happen right away. She went to the doctor after a few months of actively trying. At the time, depending on your age and where you live, you are in titled to one round of IVF. She never heard from that doctor again. She called back a few months later to find out he wasn’t practicing medicine anymore. During this time, she left her high-stress job and decided to get a dog they call Sausage. A month later she found out she was pregnant with her son.
She was so excited to be pregnant, but the midwife warned her age, ethnicity and high BIM were going to cause complications. Every appointment she was reminded of the stats and the challenges she was going to face. She didn’t tell anyone she was pregnant until about 20 weeks. At 27 weeks, her midwife told her she was going out of the country. Her family lives on the outskirts of London. All of her friends had children that are older. She didn’t have support outside of her husband. She felt alone and scared most of the pregnancy. At six months pregnant they bought a fixer-upper of their dreams. It was finished right before she had an emergency c-section. They moved in when she was just a few weeks postpartum. She had a breast reduction in her 20’s that blocked the supply of milk. Her milk came in, but she was unable to breastfeed. She remembers crying a lot because everything was just a mess. Then they decided to do a full renovation when she was two months postpartum and 40 years old. She entered a contest to be on home renovation t-show and won. She moved between friends and family houses with the baby for two weeks at a time. Then they lived at a hotel for the last 10 weeks while the renovation was being completed and the show was being recorded. She didn’t understand postpartum. She starting having dizzy spells and wasn’t feeling well, so she took a pregnancy test. It was positive, and she was bleeding. When she went to have the pregnancy confirmed, they didn’t want to do the exam because they said her cervix appears to be closed but there was also swelling. They were worried it could harm the pregnancy. She had to wait another 4-5 weeks before they would to an exam to confirm the pregnancy.
I chose to have a child at this age because it was the right time.
Sophia describes her pregnancy as ok. She says she was anxious during her pregnancy. It was just March of 2020 and she was starting to get concerned. She didn’t want to leave the house even though her husband worked in central London. She was due in May and was told that her husband was not going to be able to come with her. That sent her into a spiral and she panicked because she needed him to be there. ‘Because of her age,’ they told her that she needed extra scans and gave her a phone number if she had questions. They were also worried the placenta would break away, so they wanted her to have a c-section before her due date. During this time of the world there were less doctors available, so it was normal to speak to a different person when you called. She spent a lot of time on hold. She had a hard time focusing on the pregnancy because there was such a focus on what was going on in the world. The midwife told her to pay attention to the when the baby moved. She became hyper focused on writing down each time the baby moved. She worried when the baby didn’t move for long periods of time. She spent a lot of time worrying.
To prepare, she says she didn’t really know what she was doing. She power read hypnobirthing to prepare for birth. She loves music, so she also focused on creating playlists that helped relax her.
Sophia was due on a Sunday, but they don’t schedule c-sections on a Sunday. They had the Monday or Wednesday before available. She chose Wednesday because that was her son’s birthday. When she got home, Cookie questioned if that was a good idea. She agreed this might not be a good idea, so she called the hospital to reschedule, but was unable. Her son and daughter were going to have the same birthday exactly one year apart.
At 39 weeks 3 days, Sophia arrived at the hospital at 7:00 am for her scheduled c-section by herself. The hospital was very behind schedule, so she didn’t get into the OR until 2:00 pm. All of the prep took about an hour, but the actual birth took only about 15 minutes. Cookie was able to be by her side at this point. As they used forceps to pull out the baby, she heard her husband asked what was on her face. They said it was just bruising from the forceps. She desperately wanted to see her baby. She was also have a reaction to the epidural that was causing her to itch. She was nauseous and her blood pressure was going down. Her daughter was born with a hemangiomas which is a visible birthmark, but she didn’t know it at the time. Cookie had to leave and she went back to the maternity ward with her daughter.
Sophia really wanted to leave the hospital and be at home with her new daughter and son. The hospital was concerned it was too early, but she wasn’t sure why. She did all of the physical things to be able to leave, but she felt they were delaying her. She finally took a stand and said she was leaving. She only stayed at the hospital for two days.
Her daughter is healthy and the birthmark was becoming more and more present. They told her it was bruising. They told her the birthmark formed when the placenta was formed and it is called an infantile hemangioma. They said it would disappear after three years, but it didn’t. Sophia’s daughter is getting laser treatments to have it removed.
She didn’t feel like she had a postpartum time. She threw herself into being a creator online. She was back to lifting up her son because her husband was working from home. Everyone promised to come help after the baby was born, but lock-down prevented anyone from being able to come. She wanted the slow recovery, but with two children under two, she wasn’t able to achieve that. She waited the six weeks before she started working out. She believed that if she was fit, it would prevent her from getting sink. Mentally, she says she was very foggy.
Because her breast reduction in her 20’s prevented her from breastfeeding, formula was her only choice. There were shortages of many things in the UK during that time, one of them being formula. She had to have friends mail her formula from up north. She worried how she was going to be able to feed her baby. Her daughter had a tongue tie, but she couldn’t go the hospital for this. She found a specialist to come to her house to fix the tongue tie.
Sophia said she had to take a step back. Her daughter is almost three and her son is almost four now, and she is just now starting to feel a little lighter. She is still learning about her body and isn’t sure she might be perimenopausal.
Resources:
Over 40 Fabulous and Pregnant on Instagram
Leave a Reply