CLICK HERE FOR PART ONE
How it all began…
An unexpected WhatsApp message led to a call and the realisation that someone close to me was also pregnant. She was also my age, was also expecting around the same time as I, was also having a really rough time with her symptoms, and was also having a whole war with her husband about the “situation”!
We talked for hours that day and I think it was God helping both of us to have a mirror reflection and know that we weren’t as alone as we thought. Someone else understood, someone else was living one of my worst experiences and someone else was suffering in silence. To be honest, I felt like we saved each other that day.
A few days later the phone rang, and it was another friend. “Girllllll, you know the other day when I bounced you up by the pharmacy and I telling you I feeling so sick – is pregnant I pregnant! “.
Me in my mind “Buh, is something in the water???”. Again, a woman my age and expecting the same time as me. This time I didn’t say anything about my being in the same bracket because I was just in shock and listening to her depressingly talk about everything, she was experiencing threw me for a loop again…
I got my appointment with my private doctor, and he looked at my husband and me cautiously during the appointment. You could cut the tension with a knife between us, and the doctor tries desperately to lighten the mood.
I wasn’t my usual jolly, smiling self – all I felt was tired from the pain in my leg still and annoyed. Then the dreaded phrase that doctors use once you’ve crossed 40 and pregnant: “geriatric pregnancy.”
Steupsssssss. The words cut through me like an 80-something-year-old woman being told it’s time for a hospice and to choose my tombstone. Is this something to be ashamed of?… I swear, it was worse than being in your 20s and pregnant when asked, “Are you married or is the baby’s dad around?”.
In this day and age, is geriatric the best name they can come up with for a pregnancy? The whole visit continued going downhill from there because immediately you’re bombarded with the other vile words like complications, high rate of birth defects, still-birth, down syndrome or Trisomy 21, gestational diabetes, blood clots, Pre-eclampsia…
It’s like I sat there and was ashamed because my body was still able to create life, but that wasn’t considered as being a beautiful miracle anymore because according to medicine once your body is over 35-40, it wasn’t still a new show-room model. Hell, at this point it wasn’t even a foreign use at the Bamboo!
My body was the equivalent of a combination of parts just good for when the man passed on the mic, “buying old iron, buying”. My husband sat there and everything the doctor said reflected off of him as, “I told you so!” and I was crushed. Again.
The doctor does all of the initial scans, blood work, and examinations and everything comes back normal but in the same breath he advises more tests that check the foetal DNA for abnormalities or “reasons to terminate”.
Again, another point of contention for my husband and me because regardless of what some test said God and I already blessed this baby.
Somewhere in between, I broke the news to my sisters since we had other things happening and I needed to just remain calm in order to keep my pressure low and my veins from constantly getting worse. During this time, I questioned God and what exactly was the plan here.
Seven days later than when my results were due back, the doctor called and said, “Go into your email, the results of the Panorama DNA test are back and it’s not what we would have liked. Let’s discuss your options.”
I couldn’t call out to Rody to join the discussion with Doc, I couldn’t speak, I couldn’t even cry. I know I picked up the car keys and drove out of the yard.
I don’t know where I drove to exactly or how long I was driving, but I know I screamed, bawled, and cursed God at that moment for giving me a baby that according to Doc needed to be terminated because I was going to miscarry him within a week or two anyway.
My doctor said basically that there was no hope, and I was destined to have a baby that would not live. This is month 3.