Hi everyone, and thank you so much for taking the time to
read about my life.
I am a 34 year old
wife and mother to an amazing husband (J) and a wonderful miracle baby
(Delilah). We live on a tiny
island in Alaska while J commercial fishes and crabs, and I follow my lifelong dream of being a professional writer.
I met J when my family moved to Alaska from Tennessee in
1994, and we were strictly in the “friend zone” for 12 years, all through
middle school, high school and college. We actually kind of lost track of each other
until I moved to Seattle in the fall of 2005 to begin graduate school at the
University of Washington. Our mothers ran into each other one day and
discovered that we both lived in Seattle. They basically both called to say
that we needed to get together, so we did, because moms always turn out to be
right…
We got married in November of 2007, and 1 week later, I got
my infertility diagnosis. My sister (E) was currently going through IVF, so I
had a suspicion that I may have a problem also. Turns out that I have Poly
Cystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS) and an MTHFR1 Gene Mutation which means I don’t
ovulate, and when I do it is very random, and if I were to actually get
pregnant, the mutation prevents implantation because of blood clots. We had 5
total miscarriages between October 2007 and February 2010.
We did 2 rounds of fertility medication before I decided
that I just could not do it anymore, and we mostly gave up, but we called it “taking
a break”.
In March of 2010 I started seeing a new doctor who was very optimistic,
and we did a Clomid Challenge Test that June. Of course, that June I also got a
new job, that required us to move back to Alaska and it was one crazy month of
packing and getting everything in a barge container. I did not even pay
attention to when we were supposed to have sex (come to think of it, I don’t
actually remember if we had sex that month). But when I got the results it said
we were good to go for the next cycle so I waited and waited for my cycle to
start so I could get this baby making show on the road.
Turns out it is hard for your period to start when you are
pregnant. I was 9 weeks pregnant before I even figured it out (because I spent
most of my time lamenting about how my body never did what I wanted it to, and
it was just not having a period to drive me insane!).
My pregnancy was wrought with worry, and excitement. I was
put on bed rest at 7 months because of my blood pressure (and let me tell you,
bed rest is no fun! It seems like fun, but after a day or two, all you want is
to get up.), and then shipped to Seattle to wait for delivery. I am some kind
of queen when it comes to not realizing things are happening to my own body and
on March 5, my water broke. Did I notice? Nope, didn’t have any idea. I
actually thought I had just lost the ability to control my bladder because
Delilah was so wiggly and every time she wiggled, I wet myself all over again.
By the evening of March 6, I kept thinking “this is just too much pee” so we
finally went to the hospital so they could make sure. Seeing as how I didn’t know my water had been
broken for 2 days, I certainly hadn’t figured out that I was having regular
contractions every 3 minutes. The nurses
all looked at me like I was a mutant when I acted surprised and said that I
felt great and nothing hurt. I should have known I was going to eat those words
later…
Around 11pm I got rolled into a room and got my Pitocin all
set up and then I knew exactly how horrible pushing a whole person out of your
Whoo-Haa was. There were tons of problems, first my blood pressure was really
bad, and then Delilah’s was bad. My doctor came in, told me I had about 2 hours
to go and she was going to go lay down. I spent the next 20 minutes (while J
slept) having to hang over the back of the bed on my hands and knees because
things with Delilah were going from bad to worse. This part gets a little
foggy, but I know my doctor came running back in and said “Megan, you have 3 pushes to get this baby out before we take you to get a c-section”. They put a vacuum
on her head and she was finally pulled out after it popped off 3 times. Total
time pushing, about 90 seconds. She was blue
and limp and they immediately flooded the room with NICU nurses and doctors. At
first, I thought she was dead, that I had gone through all of this to have a
still born baby. For 5 minutes we waited for one little squeak, and when it
came, it was the most amazing squeak of my whole life.
But little did I know, that was when the real work was going
to start. I have been on an anti-depressant for several years, but I was not
prepared at all for the Post Partum Depression that was going to hit me. All I
kept thinking was how much I wanted to die. Getting help for that has been a
long process of changing medications and therapy, and now I do feel better. Not
great, but I don’t want to drown myself in the ocean anymore.
Besides attempted drowning and infertility, I do other stuff
when I get the chance. I knit all sorts of things, and I spin on my Majacraft
Pioneer. I read books and shop on Etsy. I hang out with my husband and text
with friends. My nails are always painted and my hair changes colors every 6
weeks. My favorite hobby has always been sleep, and I have the best pets in the
whole world (well except for Professor Chaos, who may actually be an evil
genius).
