Baby Baby, Can’t You Hear My Heartbeat?
25 weeks ago I rushed to the emergency room. I had started to bleed in no small amount and had just hit 12 weeks of pregnancy. While waiting to be seen, a young woman was wheeled through the waiting room to the parking lot, holding her newborn baby boy (that was what the balloon trailing her said, in any case). I remember feeling extremely overwhelmed. I felt so happy for her, and yet at the same time I was extremely sad. Was I going to lose, or had I already lost the baby I was holding within me? It hit me just how much I wanted him or her. I had my support system with me, all saying that it would be fine. That we’re just there to be certain things were still alright. It still took everything I had not to break down into tears. In the end, they were right. We got to see an actual human shape (and not something closely resembling a blip or peapod) happily bouncing around for the first time on the hospital’s ultrasound machine. Just over a month later, I found out I was having my own baby boy. Was it a sign, seeing the woman carrying her baby boy out of the hospital that night? A reassurance that everything was going to be okay with me as well? I’d like to think so. I really would.
Having NCS and having a baby has been and will continue to be quite the ordeal. I’ve been stuck in bed for 37 weeks now (contrary to what they tell you, pregnancy lasts 40 weeks, not the 9 months I’ve always heard about), and I’m going in to the hospital later tonight so they can take him out nearly 3 weeks early. If I didn’t have NCS I could wait like a normal person. Try to go for a natural delivery when the baby feels he’s ready to join the world. Unfortunately, all my doctors are scared that my heart will give out during labor, and so decided a non-emergency C-section would be the best alternative. While the surgery isn’t scheduled until 3pm tomorrow, I need to go in just after midnight tonight to get hooked up to an IV. Since I’m not allowed to eat or drink from the midnight before surgery, I need a strong saline drip to keep my body hydrated so I don’t faint on them for the 13 hours when I’m not even allowed a sip of water, let alone Gatorade. I’ve come to realize that I treat Gatorade as a safety crutch. I’m like a child with a comfort blanky. If I don’t have a Gatorade or bottle of water on me at all times, I start to hyperventilate for no reason at all. It’s kind of pathetic, really. Of all the things that can make me anxious and scared, going 13 hours without drinking is what terrifies me, more so than the surgery (and it is major surgery), more than the needles, more than the epidural (which is apparently extremely painful), and even the recovery. I think that says something about NCS, and not just that it has turned me into an irrational mess. The first thing you learn with this heart condition is that you must always stay hydrated. One of the causes of NCS, at least for me, is both poor circulation (hence the need for constant hydration- it increases blood flow), and that my body does not retain water. I drink, I pee, I drink, I pee. It’s a never ending cycle of fluids coming in and then exiting before being given the opportunity to provide any real sustenance. So yes, the IV will keep me hydrated, but mentally, and throat-parchingly, it will be insufficient.
While the drinking is not my only worry due to the NCS, it certainly, neurotically, is my main one. Another is obviously the surgery itself. Like any surgery, you bleed. Bleeding leads to a decrease in blood pressure, which would typically lead to me fainting fairly easily. I would really like to be conscious through the C-section, and I would really like it if my heart didn’t stop (something which happens too often when I faint), and then there’s the 2 hour recovery period where, once again, I won’t have my handy dandy Gatorade within my proximity, and I won’t even have the baby to distract me from it all since they use that time to put him through the medical ringer. Then they tell you that you need to walk shortly after the recovery. Me? Walk? I can barely make it from my room to my couch without fainting these days. How the heck am I supposed to “walk” immediately following major surgery, serious anesthesia, and an insane amount of bodily changes with the baby removal? If they think I’m not going to stand up and end up on the floor, they are in for a surprise.
Last, but certainly not least, is the baby himself. He’s coming out nearly 3 weeks earlier than he’s supposed to (although technically after 36 weeks babies are no longer considered premature, but there’s always risk for immature lung development). I’ve also been on all my medications for the entirety of my pregnancy, and while I did get the OK from the perinatal doctor to stay on them all, I can’t imagine it’s entirely healthy for the baby. The doctors have been telling me since the beginning that the baby is small and that I’m carrying small. In fact, I had one Obstetrician measure my stomach and say “where’s the rest of it?”, which was something I never thought I’d ever hear since I’m on the poofy side as far as body shapes go. I did voice my concern to the perinatal doc, and she reassured me that the baby is within the normal limits, and that while yes he is on the smaller side, the baby’s father and I should both look in the mirror, because he takes after us, and we’re both less than giant. But still… I can’t help but wonder if it was my fault… That because of the NCS and the meds that I prevented him from growing as he should, or at least as big as he should. According to all the ultrasounds he’s perfectly healthy and doing wonderfully, but I still feel concerned and a little guilty. I know it’s not really my fault, and that it couldn’t be helped, but it weighs on me. I suppose in the end there is nothing to be done, and hopefully my worry is for naught, and it’s just my natural reaction to being a mother (I have yet to stop worrying since the day I learned I had conceived, and I imagine it’s only going to get worse as time goes on). Once he’s out, and I am reassured everything is going to really, truly be okay, I think I will feel much better about everything. I’ve gone through absolute hell these last 9 months, and even as time passes I have already conveniently forgotten the worst of it. I must be crazier than I already think I am, because if all goes well, and I manage to live through this, I don’t think I’d object to doing it again someday.
Go figure.
Living With Neurocardiogenic Syncope (Vasovagal Syncope) / POTS (Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome) 