Gwyneth - Part 1

I have finally come to that place.

The place where I think I can tell the whole story - start to finish, beginning to end. 

The story of Gwyneth Maude Rowan Campbell.

*     *     *

When I finally recovered from the shock of my third pregancy of 2010, I found myself in a strange place.

I had been through a lot in the previous four years. The previous twelve months alone were filled with grief, joy, despair, ambivalence, and hope.

While I was stunned and somewhat excited by the voicemail on my phone confirming this pregnancy, I knew that I could not handle yet another miscarriage. I remember that I refused to start writing in another journal for this next baby - whom I'd nicknamed "Little Gumdrop" - until I got through the first ultrasound. I thought, No way. I cannot let my heart be ripped from my chest and ground into pieces again.

And so I did not allow myself to be excited. I told immediate family so they could be there for us in case things went wrong again, but inside, I kept telling myself not to get attached. Not to be excited. Not to share this news with anyone. I couldn't do it.

*     *     *

Sometime in January of 2011, I went to my first ultrasound. 

You cannot imagine my near ecstasy when the technician told me to look at the screen, and I saw what I knew - without any explanation - was my baby's heart beating on that monitor.

It was a moment I will carry with me for all my days on this earth.

I was crying, I was laughing, I was elated and scared and amazed all in one fell swoop.

*     *     *

That heartbeat - it changed me. Little did I know it would change my entire life.

My "little gumdrop" was a force to be reckoned with from the word go. She made herself known in every possible way. I had nausea that kept me from eating all day - only after 8pm could I keep anything down. And when I did - what was happening?!? Somehow I had been imbued with her father's tastebuds AND his metabolism.

I could eat like a truck driver. It was nothing for me to pound back chocolate bars, bags of chips, hungry man breakfast orders, extra cheese on everything - I have to admit, being pregnant was the time of my life in terms of eating! (After 17 weeks I'd only gained 4 pounds).

But there were some oddities. I suddenly had cravings for rootbeer floats. Which I happen to think rank among the most disgusting "foods" in the world. But while pregnant, I loved them. I couldn't tolerate cooking meat of any kind, and I didn't crave pickles. It seemed like I was having a fairly normal pregnancy.

I saw my family doctor for one more visit, and then received a spot with the local midwives. I was excited - my dream was for an at-home water birth. I was fairly terrified of delivery, but my biggest focus was on breastfeeding.

*     *     *

I had been introduced to the guru of all things breastfeeding - Dr. Jack Newman of the Newman Breastfeeding Clinic in Toronto - by my midwife. He had written the gold standard book of all things breastfeeding - aptly titled, Dr. Jack Newman's Guide to Breastfeeding. I jokingly began referring to the book as my "breastfeeding Bible." 

It was the ONLY book I read about parenting or childbirth while pregnant.

Not What to Expect When You're Expecting. Not any of the other many books my friends recommended. 

Just Dr. Jack's book. It went with me everywhere. I pored over the illustrations and diagrams and photos and dog-eared my loaned copy until it was wearing thin.

Here's the thing: I yearned for the closeness of nursing my child. It was something that had been glaringly missing in my maternal line. Everyone in my family had given up - my sister, my mom (I don't think my grandmother or great-grandmother even bothered).

I still don't understand what drove me to be so obsessed about feeding my baby. Perhaps it was to prove everyone wrong - the doctor who told me my breasts didn't have the right "design" for nursing. My mother and sister who told me it was too hard and not to worry about it. 

And so I read and read and read. I told myself I didn't want to read all the other books or blogs or articles. I didn't want to hear all the things that could go wrong. I just knew that breast-feeding was the one thing I had to do right.

*     *     *

In March, I took a week's vacation during my school break to visit my university roommate who lived in Colorado. I hadn't told her I was expecting. She too was pregnant, with her second, and I was excited to surprise her at the airport with my new t-shirt, which simply said, "Pregnant is the new sexy."

Kelli and I shared a wonderful week together with her husband Jack and their 14-month-old daughter, Ellie. We talked all things babies, shared our dreams and baby names, and I even convinced her to risk trying some sushi - rebel that I am!

Midway through my visit, Kelli shared some upsetting news from the Emergency Room at the hospital where both she and her husband worked as nurses. A woman had been admitted at 26 weeks pregnant, and her water had broken.

We were both sobered by this news. I remember asking Kelli, "Will her baby even live?"

"Oh yes," Kelli assured me. "I'm sure she and her baby will be okay."

It was the first I'd known that a baby born so early could survive.

*     *     *

On my second appointment with the midwife, at the end of April 2011, I completed a standard urine test to check for protein levels. Generally I had been feeling well - the nausea had mercifully made itself scarce at this point - but I was experiencing some swelling that was a nuissance but nothing more. I was five months along and was getting back to running a few times a week. Things seemed to be picking up. 

After peeing on my test strip, I looked at the chart and saw that my colour was a bit higher than "normal." This of course meant nothing to me - I'd never experienced more than ten weeks of pregnancy before, and everything was new.

My midwife made a note of the elevated level, but assured me there was nothing to be worried about. I asked her about my swollen feet and hands. "I thought that didn't really happen until closer to the end?"

She reassured me, saying, "I don't think you have anything to worry about. We will see you again in a month."

I went home and wrote the date in my calendar for my third midwife appointment: May 27, 2011.

*     *     *

. . . to be continued . . . 

Motherhood is a Choice: Part 2

I found myself in an unexpected situation in August of 2010.

After announcing to family and close friends that we had made the choice to have no kids, I had this strange inkling that I might be pregnant.

I was late, but this wasn't unusual with my PCOS.

I gave my mom the garden ornament. She cried and asked if I was sure.

We attended a Red Hats event with her fellow August-birthday friend Peg. I remember going along and while I don't recall anything of that day, I do know that when I dropped my mom back at her place, I confided that I was wondering if I might be pregnant. I was exhibiting quite a few symptoms that made me wonder.

It took me another week before I finally broke down and took a home-pregnancy test. I had been disappointed so many times before that I just couldn't bear to face another frustrating and futile experience.

My husband was planning to go away for a guys' weekend at a cottage, so I thought perhaps I'd wait until he was gone and take the test by myself.

That lasted for all of one day.

I gave in on Thursday morning. I took the test.

It was positive.

I still remember the surreal feeling I had in those first moments. I really didn't know whether to cry or fly.

I went to work. It was school photo day. I remember getting my picture taken and then telling my Vice-Principal that I would need to miss one of my classes to see the doctor that afternoon.

I honestly don't even remember how or when I told Ian. I just know that I told him before he went on his weekend away.

We were both excited, but cautiously so.

In the next few weeks, I started feeling signs of fatigue and even nausea. This pregnancy became real to me in a way I could hardly describe even now.

I started journalling every day - my thoughts and dreams - in a book for my unborn child. I nicknamed my tiny fetus "Little Bean" and I cannot tell you how in love I was with this ball of cells growing inside me.

About this time, the wife of one of my colleagues revealed that she was also pregnant. I knew they had struggled as well to conceive, and so I congratulated my co-worker and wished him well.

He was worried. He felt she'd told everyone too soon. She was only ten weeks along, and he knew things could still go wrong. But he didn't want to dampen her excitement.

In the third week of September, he came to work with horrible news. His wife had gone in for an ultrasound. While on the table, the technician informed her that she wasn't pregnant anymore. The doctor came in and told her she would likely need to have a D&C to "deal with" the remains of the fetus.

I was absolutely horrified and heartbroken. I remember crying with him in the English office, and I definitely wished I hadn't told him I was pregnant.

That week, I made them a lasagna and an apple pie. My colleague seemed stunned. He thanked me but I knew he was not really able to focus on anything in that moment.

On the last Friday in September, one week after my colleague's loss, I went to the hospital for my first ultrasound. I went alone. I remember thinking of my friends and what they were going through, and feeling some warped type of survivor's guilt as I waited for the technician to show me my baby on the screen.

Only that never happened. She told me to call my doctor's office later that afternoon for the results.

When I called the doctor, the receptionist told me that my dates were off and I wasn't far enough along for the ultrasound to show anything yet. I would need to rebook for another appointment in two weeks.

I remember talking to my mom and saying, "Well, at least I didn't just have the same experience as my friends did."

*    *    *

It was a Wednesday morning. It was the first week of October, and by my calculations, I was nearly at the 11-week mark in my pregnancy. I was getting excited about Canadian Thanksgiving, which was coming that weekend. Ian and I had made plans to finally tell our family about the baby.

As soon as I escaped from that first moment between asleep and awake, I knew something was wrong. I was bleeding.

I went to the bathroom and everything was red.

I called to Ian, and he quickly dressed and took me to the Emergency Room.

On arrival, they took me into one of the private rooms and gave me a pregnancy test. It came back positive. The doctor tried to be reassuring - perhaps all was not lost.

Then I went in for another ultrasound. I remember the room. Even with the low lighting, I was cut to the quick by the painting on the wall - a Trisha Romance print called "School Days" with lovely young children heading into their tiny one-room schoolhouse.

Trisha Romance's painting entitled "School Days"

That image was seared into my mind's eye, and it hollowed my heart. I felt a sense of spite towards the art, as if I were being personally attacked by that beautiful painting of happy, cherubic children.

As I lay on that cold uncomfortable bed, I cried silently. Tears sliding down my cheeks, I was unable to process what was happening to me.

The doctor came to talk to me. He told me that although I still had high levels of HCG in my blood, I was indeed no longer carrying a viable fetus. He sent me home and told me to take things easy.

Ian and I went back to my mom's place. I remember being in a fair bit of pain - sort of like cramps - and sleeping for most of the afternoon.

Around 6pm, the contractions started. I was going into labour.

The pain was absolutely excruciating, and I had never seen so much blood in my life. Anyone who knows me knows that I pass out if I cut my finger. This was not going to end well.

My mom is a retired nurse. She started timing my contractions. I don't remember much of the next two hours, but I do remember her telling Ian, "We have to take her to the hospital or she's going to bleed to death."

A lot happened over the next twenty-four hours. I was kept in the ER in a bed and they tried to help slow my bleeding and deal with the contractions.

I do remember one incident of my time there that evening. I remember waiting outside the patient bathroom. I was standing in my hospital gown, looking down at my toenails. A nurse came by and said, "Wow! What a great red colour on your nails - I love it!"

All I could think was, "It's the exact same colour as the baby that's bleeding away from me."

- To be continued -

You've come a long way, baby

Wow.

I can hardly believe it. I started this blog OVER FIVE YEARS ago. And then kids happened and voila... no more blogging for me!

Since then, a lot has happened. My first "precious preemie" (as she calls herself) is now nearly SEVEN years old and attends grade one at our local elementary school.

One week BEFORE she started school, I gave birth - early again - to our NEXT precious preemie.

It sort of sent our whole family into a vortex.

Here we were, a beautiful postmodern family with one kid, a decent income, and a perfectly sized home in a perfectly sized town. Soon my only child would start school full-time, and finally I'd be finished with daycare costs and diapers and potty training and breastfeeding - FOREVER.

But no, let's not get ahead of ourselves. If you believe in a higher power, you could say that said power was having a good old laugh at my presumptuousness.

Just as I started selling off all our baby items, a funny thing happened. Not funny ha-ha. Not really funny at all, to be honest.

In the early weeks of the new year in 2015, I started to wonder if - after four unsuccessful years of trying to get pregnant - I might be expecting. I dropped my twenty on the counter at Walmart and brought home the emotional roller-coaster in the pretty box, ready to urinate my feelings onto it in the hopes of a faint line in a tiny window.

Alas.

No line.

I waited a few days. I tried again. No line. No period. No nothing.

I went to the doctor. I had another pee test and a blood test. Both negative.

Fast forward another week. I ended up in the emergency room with unexplained abdominal cramping. The first question they asked was, "Could you be pregnant?"

I flippantly retorted, "Only if the last four tests in two weeks were wrong."

So... another pee test. Another blood test. An ultrasound.

Nothing.

Just before my mother left at the start of March for her annual three week cruise to warmer climes, I confided, "I think I must have hit menopause." She gave me a big hug and promised we'd talk when she returned at the end of the month.

And what a month it was!

As a high school teacher, I've grown accustomed to stress in my life playing havoc with my monthly menstrual cycle. I've been known to go three months without a period - and not be pregnant.

But for some reason, this time felt different. I wasn't really very stressed at work. I was working part time and feeling like things were going well. I was also aware that having just turned thirty-eight in February, menopause was now galloping headlong towards me from the horizon. I honestly felt okay with the possibility that my time had come to give up buying "women's hygiene" products - hoorah!

I will never forget driving with my husband and our now nearly four-year-old daughter Gwyneth to have some dinner on the first night of March Break that year. From the back seat, a little girl voiced a request that I was sort of surprised hadn't come sooner:

"Mommy, I'm tired of playing with dolls. Can I have a baby sister?"

My husband and I just looked at each other.

"Honey, I can't promise you anything. Maybe you can ask God for a sister if you want one, and Mommy and Daddy will see what we can do," I responded halfheartedly.

I should have known right then that I was in for trouble. Gwyneth has always possessed a sixth sense that would make the stoutest skeptic believe in the supernatural.

The next evening, quite begrudgingly, I dropped another twenty on the Walmart counter. The cashier stole a glance my way and said, "Good luck."

"Yeah, not really," I retorted. "Not exactly what I was hoping for right now." I'm not sure why I was so grouchy, but perhaps part of me knew what that test would reveal.

I went home and blatantly ignored the directions to use my "first pee of the morning" for the test.

I peed on that stick, whacked it down on the bathroom counter, and went out to the kitchen to pace for two minutes while I waited for what I hoped - for once - would NOT be a line inside a window.

When I returned, I had to laugh in spite of myself. For only the second time in my life, I was looking at a home pregnancy test with a positive result.

As I marched downstairs to find Ian and Gwyneth watching TV, I clearly was still taking in the news. I looked at them and said, "Oh good, you're both sitting down. I'm having another baby."

Gwyneth jumped out of her seat and yelled, "Hooray! Hooray! God's giving me a new baby sister! I just KNEW he would answer me!"

My husband looked like I had shot him at point blank range with a bazooka.

My mom and I did have a talk when she got home, but it wasn't about hormone replacement therapy or how to manage hot flashes. Instead, while eating breakfast at a local diner, I watched her facial expression turn from confusion, to disbelief, and then to joy as Gwyneth told her, "Mommy's having a new baby sister for me!"

My pregnancy was another whole post (or two) in itself. But for now, let's just say that on September 2, 2015, we welcomed Gwyneth's baby sister, Kinsey Maeve Rowan Campbell, into our family.

And life would never be the same.