Old and Preggers – with Twins!
The Right to Mourn
This is a blog of my latest adventure.
22 July 2011 – 18.30
So, here I am. It’s confirmed. It’s official. I am registered in ante-natal classes. Why are they called classes by the way?
No one teaches anything. You go in there, they poke at you, take samples of your body fluids for the lab and tell you to come back same time next week. Everything I know about pregnancy, I read up myself. No one taught me anything during any of those ‘classes’. Anyhoo, several years after my last baby, I am pregnant and this time I know it’s for real. A couple of years ago, doctors gave me the ‘I’ word: infertile. Secondary infertility, they called it. How can a person who’s had children be considered infertile? Apparently, if you have a few miscarriages after you had successfully carried a child to term, you are considered secondarily infertile. I guess that’s better than being primarily infertile.
I am feeling okay. Boobs like over-ripened watermelons and slight heartburn but no nausea yet. I have been waiting for these babies for so long. When I became pregnant with our first child, I KNEW I was going to have twin boys. I even picked out their names and confided in my best friend about it. That hope kind of faded after my girls. For one who would have been happy with one child, I had plenty and I was not madly hoping for more. In fact, I had an IUD put in against my husband’s wishes. ‘It’s not your body’ I grumbled under my breath. I felt my body deserved a break – especially if I was going to try again (only I was not so sure I wanted to go again). Then my Father died and everything changed. I just knew I had to have a son and then I heard it again: the quiet voice in my spirit that guides me. So a couple of years later, I’m ready. Or am I?
I must admit I am a little concerned. I know people who are 35 and have stopped having babies and also have friends who are still hoping for their first at 50. I know the social culture among the elite that suggests that having more than three children is not cool and I have read all the stats about having babies over 40. Been doing a lot of uncool things lately. Fill you in on that later. We haven’t told anyone yet. Wasn’t planning on telling my hubby but he apparently knew it before I did. ‘I knew you would get pregnant before we left on vacation’ says he. How is that even possible? Can’t sneak anything past that one! The greatest part of this week is that I found two websites: mothersover40 and having-twins.com. Also been reading up about surviving bed rest as I see that in my immediate future: even before the scan confirmed there are fibroids competing for real estate in my womb with my babies, my ever-so-prescient husband had said: ‘No exercise, no stress, take it easy for the next few months’. How come that no-no list did not include sex? My libido is at sub-zero! Well, I am adjusting my diet and breaking out the anointing oil. It’s ‘back to sender’ (like my Nigerian friends would say) with those fibroids. No way are they going to deprive my babies of space and nutrition in my body. They are illegal squatters.
I really want these babies but I am also worried about all these things like weight gain, high-risk conditions, assisted deliveries (all my babies were born naturally) and what’s worse, my husband is getting on my last nerve. We were at the hospital to have the pregnancy confirmed and register for ante-natal and would he let me be the centre of attention? No-ooo. He had to shove his knee in the Doctor’s face and three hours after I was done, we were still running x-rays and all the female doctors were swooning over his inflamed knee! What does one have to do to get that kind of attention around here? Be an Octogenarian that’s pregnant with quadruplets?
26 July 2011 – 20.36
Told my sisters today that I’m expecting (left out the twins bit) and although happy for me, they both had questions when I told them not to tell Mother. My younger sister’s voice screeched down the phone: ‘How are you planning to pull that off?‘ but I could hear the chuckle in her voice and knew she was game. I didn’t have to imagine the expression on my elder sister’s face when I told her. She was sitting right across from me in my living room. She lives a few hours away, makes a point of calling, expects me to drop everything and be available to be her chaperone as soon as she gets off the plane every couple of weeks when she comes to town. ‘Dare I ask why?‘ ‘You know your mother!‘ I responded, irritated that she was going to make me sweat before joining in the mum (no pun intended) club.
I knew she would disapprove of my plan. She’s mum’s pet, who’s got five children of her own but then, she had them early having been married at 21. She was a Grandmother by 45 and looks half her age at 51. There are five of us and although there’s a good 7 years between the first (My elder sister and her twin brother – the avowed bachelor of the family) and I, Mother also started early (25) and after me, had the rest of us in quick succession to make up for lost time. We are all familiar with the story of how my younger brother tore her womb to shreds and put an end to any further thoughts she might have had of having more children (as if!). My younger sister and I were the career women in the family who waited till we found Mr Perfect to get married and that was after we both turned 30. Only she had the one child and vowed that was enough. So, although everyone would be thrilled, I also know Mother will start to stress me out with her worries and persistent questions. Not sure how I’ll swing it but it might just be best to make her wait until the babies are born to find out – or at least until well into the third trimester. That is, if my sisters, kids and hubby don’t snitch on me first. I just really need the next couple of months to be stress-free.
It’s not all cloaks and daggers with this pregnancy. I must admit there are some perks (pun intended) to being pregnant at any age but certainly more welcome at this age, which had not been so noticeable when I have been pregnant in my much younger past: the girls. OMG! These ladies were going south, well, definitely not as good-looking as they once used to be but now, wow! They are quite tender but I spent a couple of minutes admiring them this morning in the shower: hmmm… Since the pregnancy hormones started pumping, they have taken on a new lease of life. I am wearing a halter neck top with no bra this evening (just had to get out of my usual underwires) and they’re staying where I left them!
17 October 2011
I resumed my period today. I am partly relieved and partly sad. Relieved that my body’s finally gotten over the trauma of the miscarriage and sad because it is officially the end of that journey. More on that later.
The last entry I made was 26 July. I stopped writing temporarily because my sister went on at me about it being bad luck to share such private news with the world so early. I gave it some thought but decided to continue. I started to write about my last ante-natal visit. Watching the other mothers-in-waiting, there was something sad about seeing women dressed up in work clothes, some taking work-related calls while waiting for their appointment. It just seemed so out of place for a woman who should be resting up, revelling in being at one with nature and a partner with God in keeping human-kind going, stretching out, being pampered and cared for (like all of God’s creations during pregnancy) to be working flat out, stressed and harried with maintaining a work-life balance. It seems to me like women have been conned (once again by the men folk) in the best con of all: The kind that you work very hard to get into yourself.
For decades we fought for equality and finally, we got it. But what does it mean to be equal? Did we work so hard to be equal that we lost all the equality we had? In nature, there is division of labour. In the ant kingdom, the worker-ants are sterile females charged with looking for food, taking care of the young, and defending the nest from unwanted visitors. The males mate with the Queens and die off soon afterwards, their duty is done. The reproducing females are the Queens, whose job it is to lay eggs and perpetuate the colony. The Queen is continuously surrounded by worker ants who meet her every need, giving her food and disposing of her waste. Everyone has his/her place. If every ant in the colony had to forage, then every individual would be exposed to great dangers and the colony would be in danger of extinction. If ants know that, how come humans have evolved in the opposite direction? What is worse, women all around the world have bought into this delusion: that equality means having a career and raising children at the same time – supposedly the best of both worlds? In the ant kingdom, the equivalent of that is foraging and reproducing at the same time. How much smaller is an ant’s brain than the human’s again? I mean what does that leave the men doing? Nothing! How did we get here?!
Of course, I don’t believe a woman should be helpless, especially in a world filled with dishonourable men who could up and leave me and my children with no thought of what would become of them. Statistically, women become much poorer after divorce and live more impoverished lives than divorced men. In a world where marriage is not any more of a commitment than hair colour, it is dangerous for a woman to be without marketable skills that arm her with the means to take care of herself and her children if she had to. However, having lived both lives (working mother and ‘kept’ woman), I am now a firm believer of the fact that women should NOT HAVE TO WORK in their reproductive years. Work before the babies. Work after the babies are grown but when that is your job, let that be your job and do it well.
18 October 2011-10-17
So how did it happen? Well, I had been stressing over a number of personal issues. Not work-related, thankfully, as working for myself means I can dictate my pace of work. So these other stresses had me all worked up and I don’t know if that was the problem. At the very first ultra-sound, the doctor could not pick up fetal tones, so my Ob-Gyn asked me to repeat the scan a few weeks later. The week came and went but because I was home alone, I opted to wait for the hubby to return. Friday evening, I am sitting watching a TV show with the children when I started to feel crampy. I went to the restroom and there was a spot of blood. I laid down and stayed horizontal all evening until bedtime. When I spoke to the hubby, he insisted I go in to get the scan the next day, as he was not due back as scheduled. Not wanting to drive, I called a cab and went out early to a family clinic close by as the hospital at which I was registered is farther away. While waiting, I got a call from a very busy friend who happened to be having an uncharacteristically quiet weekend to join her for a Moroccan spa day. I said yes, still optimistic that I was going to be in and out of the clinic in no time. Another visit to the restroom countered that optimism and everything went into a mad spin.
I called my Family doctor to tell her I had more bleeding (I had sent her a text the night before). She was monitoring me closely due to the 2 odd miscarriages two years prior. She insisted I checked myself into the hospital. I went over to the hospital and was met by staff who booked me for the scan to determine the state of things. The scan indicated there were no fetal echoes. In plain language, there was no sound of life in my womb, even though there were signs of it. I refused to believe them and called my husband to update him. My spa friend was alarmed when I called her to pick up some toiletries for me from home and meet me at the hospital. Unable to hold back her shock at the fact that I was pregnant and had not told her, she was quick to express her disapproval at my attempt to have another child. Totally clueless to the fact that the time was not right for her ‘sermonizing’, she went on shaking her head in disapproval at me while I waited for the scan report. I all but bitch-slapped her but she was the only one with me so I closed my eyes, shut her out and prayed.
Back in the consulting room, the doctor on call started to speak about options but I would not hear of it and I had my friend take me home. Cutting short his trip, my husband arrived a few hours later to find me humming my pain out in a halting worship song. He laid his hands on my stomach and prayed. His presence calmed me down and I was sure everything would be fine. By Sunday morning though, the bleeding was much worse and we had to go to the emergency room. The Ob-Gyn recommended an evacuation and I stared at him in disbelief. It just was not how I saw this pregnancy going. This pregnancy had been predicted. These babies were long-awaited. When he left, the doctors started to prepare for the surgery but I could not wrap my head around the evident. I stared ahead in disbelief when the consent forms were brought in. My husband sat opposite the examination table from me looking at me through narrowed eyes. I could not tell what was going on with him and I wondered why he was not by my side. I thought: why is he just staring at me like that? Does he blame me? Does he believe this is my fault? Is it? I started to think back. Had I exercised too hard the week before? Was it the sauna while we were on vacation? I had not known that I was pregnant, although I had suspected it. I had spent 30 minutes in the sauna and another 30 in the steam room before a cold dip. Did I kill my own babies with my vanity? Did my husband hate me for it?
He eventually came over, sat next to me and held me gently. Then I realized he was praying. When the doctors came in to pick up the consent form, he started to fill them out. Then I spoke ‘I am not ready for this right now. It’s all going too fast’. My husband stopped filling the forms and asked: ‘Are you sure?’ I explained that I needed some time to process what was going on. The Doctor called a colleague and they started to enumerate the dangers of not going ahead with the evacuation. I would not budge. Unable to get my husband to side with them, the frustrated doctors continued murmuring their concerns. I called the Consultant Ob-Gyn and asked him if I had to have the procedure done right away. He said I could take some time. We left the hospital. On the way home, my husband explained that he had been very worried about my state of mind and had started praying because he also felt very strongly that I should not have the evacuation procedure. Not wanting to influence me, he kept his distance to allow me reach a decision on my own.
At home, I tried to get comfortable and take my mind off what was going on in my body. I ran a quick research online and decided that since I was still in the first trimester, it was better to let nature take its course. It did. A few hours later, it was over. I thought of sharing the evidence with the doctors for analysis but changed my mind. It was too difficult to look at. I let a few more days pass and went for a check-up. I was certified un-pregnant.
When I got home, I took a shower and got to work. I un-subscribed from the pregnancy tracking site that had been sending me weekly updates including in-utero photos and launched a grandiose project to take my mind off things. On the inside, I was full of questions but I also kept hearing a voice in my spirit: ‘This will work together for good’ but it hurt and I couldn’t wrap my head around why it hurt so much. I have children, I am healthy, I have a loving husband. I am blessed beyond my own comprehension. I did not feel that I had a right to be sad but I was. I was heartbroken. I have been through miscarriages before. Why did this one feel so different? The more I bottled up my feelings, the harder I planned. I soon realized that I was driving my husband nuts when he stormed out of the room as I elaborated my plans one day. After he left, I heard a voice say to me: ‘It’s okay to be sad. You don’t have to pretend you are alright. It’s okay to mourn.’ Finally I let it all out.
25 October 2011 21.08 (posted 29 March 2015)
This is my last post. It has been a short and eventful journey. Probably the shortest-lived pregnancy blog EVER. Did I count my chicks before they were hatched? Should I have waited until I was farther along before I blurted it out to the whole world? Perhaps. Life is about learning and growing. I have overcome my fear of being pregnant after 40. There are tonnes of women out there doing the same and nothing is more natural. I now believe that if your body can conceive, then you can be a mother. Shoot, women who were told they cannot conceive carry babies to term with the help of science and advanced medicine.
Since the blog is titled Old and Preggers and as I am no longer pregnant, it is only fitting to end it. Perhaps it might be on the cards to resume sometime in the future, perhaps not.
