Monday, May 30, 2016

A month has passed since meeting with the anesthesiologist.. For a while, I was doing ok. Feeling better about things, genuinely feeling better about life... But something has happened lately. What that is, I don't know. But out of the blue I feel stuck again. Lack of sleep, lacking motivation to do everything, but having a packed schedule :/ It's overwhelming and exhausting. I feel a lot of pressure to keep up with my kids playdates, keeping them social with playgroups or strong start, and also, getting them out to be active for at least a little bit of the day cuz thats all I can seem to do lately.

I saw a photo on facebook that made me go "yes! exactly. This is EXACTLY how I feel!"

It's so hard to explain it.. But this sums up most of it. so if you see me at playgroup, and im sitting away from everyone, and not being as social as I usually am.. this is why. and I'm feeling it A LOT lately. To the point where I've just skipped out on playgroup as a whole because I feel like I just cant do it :/

So if I seem distant, quiet, etc. I am for a reason. I'll eventually be on my way back up. I just gotta get in my groove.

Thursday, April 21, 2016

Meeting with the anesthesiologist.

Today I met with the anesthesiologist. This was what I was waiting MONTHS for, in hopes to get some clarity to what went on.

The questions I had to ask were the following (underneath is his answers)

Why was my midwife, husband, and baby removed from the OR before  I went under?
- They were not asked to leave,  at some point, your primary care, support, and baby all leave to go to the nursery. And I was not put under, I was heavily sedated until I was comfortable.

Why would no one answer me when I asked if I was ok/dying?
-I remember this actually, I responded letting you know you were ok
^ I honestly did not hear that response.

Was I even talking? or was it a side effect of the medicine, that I thought I was talking, but wasn't?
- Yes you were talking and I was basing your comfort levels off your responses and how you told me you felt. You were in a lot of pain, but each medication made a little difference. I kept asking if you wanted to be put under but you said you were ok.
^What confuses me about this, is if I didnt hear his response to me asking if I was ok, how was I responding these times?

He told me one of the medications causes nightmares (or I think in my situation feelings of anxiousness since I never went to sleep). He thinks that's what caused me to feel like I was alone/dying. I made it a point to let him know that past the room going white I didnt hear anything, so when he said I was ok, I didnt hear that. He reassured me he never left my side though, he was just behind my head getting the next round of medication ready.

He also said he didn't like putting moms under because it risked erasing the memory of baby being born (he said) and he didn't want to take that moment from me. Especially since I had the awesome experience of nursing Arya on the OR table <3

He told me the general time span length of a spinal is 1.5 hours which was approx when it started wearing off. He thinks that going on to do my tubes was what caused what I went through. They said usually the other meds they gave me typically get the mom through the rest of the surgery. So we arent sure what happened.

I know this all wasn't his fault, I'm not blaming him. He did a great job in this emergency situation. And today when we met he was very apologetic. I left feeling a bit better.. But still confused because my midwife was asked to leave... but at that point the headache started..

Talking about this experience stresses me out every time. I either wind up crying, having a BAD headache from fighting back tears, or I cry and still get a headache anyway.. It drains everything from me... I came home and slept from 230 right up to 5. and still felt exhausted upon waking up..

One day I really hope to get past this. I realize I'm alive, that I didn't die. But I get tired of hearing people tell me that. It doesn't take away that very vivid memory of feeling like I was losing it all. and all those thoughts that flooded through my mind at that exact moment. They felt real, they WERE real. How can I get past that? :/ I guess that's where counselling will come into play.

I think that just about covers it all.

Sunday, April 10, 2016

Our Journey in life

Since my last update was well over a year ago, we will do one big update.
1. I found out we were expecting baby #4 in May 2015
2. Summer started school and is doing great! 2 more months til she has completed Kindergarten.. She's 6 now!!
3. Ben is in french immersion preschool and doing well, and can count to 8 in french, and 18 in english. His ears are doing well, but coated with a build up on one side which hinders his hearing.. He is 4 and a half now!
4. Brielle is TWO!!!! and a diva in the making. Legit.
5. Arya was born on my dads birthday January 25th :)
6. I am currently trying to get out of this mess of emotions pertaining to my birth.

now the story:
The first 2 months post-partum were a haze. I felt like time dragged on as I tried to be overjoyed as any mom with a newborn should, I found myself in a slump. I felt disconnected from my family, and from life. I felt like I was just a figure walking through life. Some points had no sound. Like I couldn't take in or process anything going on around me. Then one day it finally hit me, I needed help.

Lets rewind back. Past the actual event, to when I decided I had wanted a csection.. What made me decide this? My hubby had a vasectomy.. but for some reason, I still wanted my tubes removed for "just in case sake". He hadn't gone back for his sperm count, so I often wondered what if... What if we wound up pregnant.. He only wanted 3 kids, but here I was, pregnant with 4th (which he reacted fine to).. but imagine if a 5th were to come along? Each pregnancy also got harder and harder on my body. I liked the idea of knowing my kids were cared for, by someone I trusted. That I knew Adam would be there, unlike if I went into labour during the night... that my scar had no chance of rupturing. That I didnt go through labour to wind up with a csection anyway.
I also feared natural delivery because both cases (Summer and Ben) had serious repercussions, for me, and them. That stuff sticks with you. But then, guilt came along. I didn't trust my body to do what I knew it could do. If I did, I never would have experienced what I went through, and maybe today, I'd be enjoying life more than I was. I feel like I was getting punished for not trusting my body.. I missed out on my favourite part, the newborn stage, of our very last baby.. that's gone now.. and that adds to the struggle.

With all that being said, I decided to go for a csection and to have my tubes removed. Fast forward to the actual day. We got into the OR, and started to get prepped when my  OB was called upstairs for a potential delivery (he had to check in on his patient). During the time the OR staff and I were chatting away and same with the anesthesiologist about how he had a daughter named Aria, and asked if we were spelling it with an I or like Game of Thrones Arya. When I told him Game of Thrones, it
sparked a conversation about the series and books which relaxed me a lot. Once the doc came back in we got my spinal in place, got Adam into the room and they started the surgery. Baby Arya was born, she was perfect. But something wasn't going right with the procedure. It was taking longer than I remembered (but I knew it would take a bit since I was getting my tubes removed). As I was holding and attempting to nurse arya on the OR table (she was a champ by the way), my OB explained that I had scar tissue connecting to my bladder and he was removing it, but there was bleeding that he had to get under control too... at that point, I was starting to feel a dull ache... I started saying ow as it got more and more uncomfortable... My spinal had started wearing off... I was feeling the pain of them cauterizing areas of me. The anesthesiologist gave me some more medications which didn't work, then attempted to use gas which also wasnt doing much but making the room spin. I remember
hearing my midwife say "ok heather I'm taking the baby now" which was a good call because at that point I didn't even know she was on me I was so dizzy. I heard the anesthesiologist say he wanted to put me under so I didnt have to feel the pain. So they started that process and the room went white. I heard my midwife say "we are going upstairs now with the baby" (we being her and Adam).  I distinctly recall me saying "whats going on? Am I ok? Am I dying?"  (as the room was bright white). No one answered me. I kept repeating it and started crying... I felt like I was dying, dead already actually, as no one responded to me. I started to cry thinking about how I never got to say goodbye or I love you to my kids, Adam, my family, my friends... and now I was gone.. and Adam was left by himself, on the opposite end of the country from our family, to raise 4 kids. That I wouldnt get to see my kids grow up, they wouldn't have a mommy. All those thoughts ran through my head while asking
if I was ok, and then things went black.

I woke up to me being transferred to the bed to be rolled into recovery. There they did the ice cube test which I had feeling of as soon as it was placed on me. I heard the nurses talking in awe of how this happened. I wasn't the first person it happened to that day. Whether it was a bad batch of spinals, who knows. I don't think we will ever know.

As time passed on, I felt like I was doing ok, but around a week and a half post partum, I REALLY started to downward spiral. I felt like I couldn't and didn't want to bond with Arya, or my other kids. (those of you who know me, know this is a HUGE contrast from my usual self) I had non stop headaches, wanted to sleep all the time.. Didn't really CARE to get out of bed.. Was having flashbacks to that exact moment in the OR. Having anxiety attacks in the shower. I'll always remember the one time I finally chose to reach out.. Not even Adam knew what I was going through.. What was that one moment? The day I picked Summer up from school. She wanted a play date with her friend, but her friend already had plans. I said "I'll play with you Summer!" and she replied "You never wanna play with me anymore". It was so hard to swallow that lump in my throat and hold back tears. My daughter was starting to suffer too, thanks to me.. I wrote an email to the midwives that night, and was scheduled in within the next few days. I thought I was just maybe overwhelmed. Or exhausted from transitioning to life with 4 kids.

Once I met with the midwife, we tried to figure out a plan of action.
1. Meet with a counsellor to help sort out the trauma from my birth
2. Have a 24 hour bonding day with Arya where I did nothing but stay in bed
3. Schedule a meeting with the OB and anesthesiologist to see if I could get some of it off my chest and get some answers to questions I had.

I called up a counsellor and met with her a few days later. I felt like it really wasn't going to benefit me until I met with the anesthesiologist so I haven't been back since. But she did bring up some good points. The removal of my tubes, its so final. It closes that chapter of my life. I found out I was actually grieving the "loss" of that stage of my life. I'm 27. That's a young age to be going through a permanent procedure like a tube removal. Even though we KNEW we were done having kids, I felt it hitting hard. Likely because I loved being pregnant.. I love kids.. but now I'm done, and its me having to come to that realization that we are in fact done. And it's hard, it makes me really sad. I'm SO grateful that I have all my kiddos, they're awesome. But that door is closed now, and it's a hard thing to accept..

Moving forward, I still hadn't heard anything from the anesthesiologist by the time I had been discharged from midwife care. My doctor called me, and we had a few weekly appointments to make sure I was doing ok, then cut back to every 2 weeks to allow for potential meetings. He gave me the number of someone who was able to meet with me, hear out my experience, my questions, answer some questions, and forward everything to the anesthesiologist; as I had still not heard back from him. And at this point, we needed to start getting this recovery process started for me.

I met with her and she did all I mentioned above, then found me in the cafeteria at the hospital to tell me that he was now aware of everything, and he'd be willing to meet with me if it would help. We arranged a meeting, which I am currently waiting on. I am trying to take everything one day at a time. I think this meeting will help big time though. I know the meeting with the woman did.

I will update again when the meeting has taken place.