Here is a letter that I wrote to my family on my dad's side shortly after I found out I was pregnant in 2004. Looking back I'm almost shocked that I gave such personal details, but well, if you can't talk about such things with your family, than who can you talk about it with, lol!
Hi everyone, I have a completely true story to tell you, but even I still find it hard to believe.
For the past couple of months, I have been feeling fine, normal, I thought my diabetes was acting up, and tried to take steps in my eating to control it. So in other words, I’ve been doing well. One day, a Tuesday, the second to last of my connective tissue massage class; I noticed that my pants, which had always been fairly big on me, were really, really tight, so ok, I’m bloated.
For the next week, I tried everything to clear up the two, well three health problems I had. PERSONAL INFO YOU MAY NOT WANNA HEAR ALERT!!! I was constipated, with symptoms of a urinary tract infection, and bloated. I took some supplements, which helped everything but the bloating; it just would not go away!
Perhaps you all have guessed by now what it took me forever to figure out.
I ended up taking a pregnancy test, purely to tell everyone that thought I should, “listen up I’m not pregnant here’s proof!” It was very much to my surprise that it came up positive. This was on Tuesday, 9-7-4, I was so much in disbelief, that I waited until the following morning to take a second test, and was still shocked to find it come up positive!
By this time, however, I was waking up to the fact that there was something moving, Moving in there. So on Wednesday, the second day I had known about this new life to be, I visited the clinic to test with them, and still not 100% percent sure that it would come back positive, I went to the court house to sign up for insurance. The clinic confirmed my at home tests, and since I thought I was having a urinary tract infection, (apparently this is something of a minor emergency while pregnant, as it can cause early labor) I got to go to the doctor later that day.
To me, this is still day one of my pregnancy, but the doctor scared my husband, and I, when he placed his hands on my belly, and announced “You’re term!” Oh my!
It was because of this that I was given an “unofficial” ultrasound about 20 minutes later. According to the ultrasound, I am 32 week, therefore 8 months (!) pregnant!!! Because it was an “unofficial” ultrasound, I don’t yet have baby pictures, or I would send one.
This still doesn’t give me much time, and I’m still panicking, albeit mildly, and I thought you might want to know before baby is born.
The Doctor thinks that it will be a boy, but he (if it is) would not open up his legs so that we could see, and so we are still unsure. I really wanted a girl, but I am acting as if it’s a boy, so I will refer to him as he.
Now that I know, I wonder how I missed it for so long, and I tell you, I was totally clueless! However, I am telling you, now that I know, it’s soooo obvious. I am almost literally 2x more pregnant every 12 hours than I was before. He’s moving constantly, and I feel as if someone severely beat me with the pregnancy stick. All considering, I’m still in disbelief. I feel as if I will wake up and find out that it’s not true, and the idea of labor on or near 11-1-4 (my due date) scares me. I’m supposed to have almost 9 months to prepare for labor, not just 8 weeks. Plus I have a strong sense that I will be early, and that it will happen in the morning, and I’m sure you all know just how much I love mornings. I think the baby likes the morning though, because he wakes me up anytime from 4:30 to 6am even on mornings when I don’t have to get up! I guess they call this getting ready for the lack of sleep I’m about to experience.
You are probably wondering, “Well didn’t you have morning sickness, or any other symptoms?” Nope! Well to be fair, I did have a few, but as I list them, I’ll tell you why I didn’t realize what was happening.
Clue #1 – I did get nauseous after EVETYTHING I ate, however, this has occurred since just before I found out about my diabetes, so I took no notice. It might be better to say the real symptom occurred about 2 months ago when my nausea after meals cleared up, and I started to eat everything in sight, although in small frequent portions, because not much seemed to fit in my tummy at one time.
Clue# 2 – I slept all the time. This was actually pretty weird, because I’m an insomniac normally, however, it was explained to me on my very first day of massage school, in basic relaxation massage class, that massage releases toxins, which can have many effects, such as sleepiness, and even vomiting, should you have really icky habits like smoking, and you don’t take care of yourself.
So I figured that napping after class each day was my body’s toxic reaction to being massaged, and yes we practice on each other in class so each student receives a massage during each massage class. Realize that I also have to take anatomy, business, and other such “hands off” classes, and that they alternate days, so that I don’t receive a massage everyday, only every other.
Clue # 3 – My leg has fallen asleep, and gotten painful if I stand or lay for more than a minute. The only way to prevent this was to keep my leg bent, such as sitting, or walking, but even walking couldn’t prevent it for long, unless I was in constant motion, so not doing things like cooking, or shopping, which requires you to stop every couple of seconds.
This has occurred since before the time I took a pregnancy test in Feb. that was negative (falsely it seems), and can be a symptom of my diabetes, which I did have to a smaller effect before I got pregnant.
Clue # 4 – You may wonder why I didn’t mention this one as clue number 1. I didn’t have a period since Dec., In fact according to my calendar, now that I know to examine it for clues; I had the first day, of my last period on Dec. 17, and conception probably occurred on Dec 26th, because I threw up that night for absolutely no reason, but according to my ultrasound I conceived exactly one month later, so If they are right, my due date is 11-1-4, but if my calendar is right, then it’s 10-1-4, SCARY huh?
Why wasn’t this a clue? Well if you were to examine my calendars for the last 10-12 years that I’ve been menstruating, you’d find that it is nothing for me to miss 4-6 months of periods, and not be pregnant, as evidenced by my (at first) virginity, and then later by my many negative pregnancy tests. So while I make it a policy to take a test if 3 months have passed since my last period, I had never had a positive one, and thought I couldn’t get pregnant. I had even taken one in Feb. just because of that policy, because I had no symptoms of pregnancy.
LO-AND-BEHOLD! Girls, do not be foolish if you are having sex, always use protection, even if you think you can’t get pregnant, unless you want a baby, but I seriously suggest marriage first. Believe me, you will want the daddy right there to help out the entire time, and unmarried men tend to leave when they hear the word baby.
Clues # 5 + 6 +7 – As I already stated, I was constipated, had a yeast infection/uti that WOULD NOT go away for months, and finally bloating, and as you now know, it was that, and the baby kicking, that finally made me take a pregnancy test.
So, it is now Saturday the 11th, at 6 am, baby has already demanded a trip to the bathroom, and some food, and I decided now was a good, quiet time to write, and let you all know what was going on in my life.
Nothing is official, but I tentatively planning my shower for Sunday, October 3rd, I will be sending an invitation for anyone who wants to come, unfortunately, I don’t have a vehicle (ours died, and had to be cremated), I can’t come pick you up, which I would love to do, so if you can come, and I hope you can, please do, you have 3 whole weeks to arrange a ride. Bring stuff for boys, I don’t particularly care whether it’s hand me downs, or the cheapest thing you can find, since I need stuff, anything is better than nothing, and I’m not picky. Please come even if you can’t bring anything, I’d still like to see you.
Realize that as I talk here I am talking to all of you, as I listed in my greeting, however I understand that baby showers are girl things, and maybe only the girls will come. I would even like for Loreen to come.
Anyway, as I said, I hope to see you, and I only have one last request before I end my book here; yes I tend to write a lot….
Can someone write to my gramma Carol, and ask her if there is any genetic or family traits that occur during birth I may want to be aware of. I would write, and ask her myself, but the last time I asked for family background info, she told me that she didn’t consider me to be her grandchild, and only told me the bare minimum. This is fine by me, I don’t want to push a relationship on her, but I would still like to know if I might have inherited any birthing complications from her side, as I have from my mom’s side. Mainly, c-sections, which I wish to avoid. Many thanks if you let me know what she says, and if you think it might help, feel free not to mention me, unless she has changed her mind, and wishes to tell me herself, I would welcome that too.
Love to all,
Roxanne
Oh! P.S. No official baby names yet, but we know it won’t be James. Sorry Jimmy, but there are just too many men named James in my life.
AND here's a letter I wrote after he was born.
Hi everyone !
I know it’s been a while since my last letter, but I’ve been really busy taking care of my baby. (Wow Loreen, however did you do this 4 times?!) Here is all of his birth information.
Gryffin Randy Packard-Bausch was born on 10-13-4 at 12:46 pm. He weighed 5lbs 10oz and was 19 1/2 inches long. He was born early, just as I predicted, but was determined to be a 38 week baby, so not a preemie, and healthy. He had trouble maintaining his temperature at first, but was able to do so on his third day of life.
He is just the cutest thing, mom and I are both way too tempted to hug and squeeze and give him thousands of kisses a day. He is colic prone, and is on medication for his stomach, just as I was at his age. He is really fussy, but he is getting better, and I can almost get a decent amount of sleep.
I’ll briefly sum up my labor experience. I was diagnosed with a during pregnancy only condition called pre-eclampsia, which can be fatal, and made to go to the hospital on 10-12 at about 4pm. I’m serious, my doctor wouldn’t let me leave the clinic after my appointment, he had me wheeled from the clinic to the hospital in their underground tunnel. The labor and delivery staff monitored me to confirm that I had a need to be induced, which I guess I did, so they induced me into labor. JOY. Labor was actually not that bad because I have a really high tolerance for pain, comes from having chronic migraines, so they had to add extra monitors to make sure I was having contractions, because I didn’t look like I was in pain, and I didn’t ask for pain killers. They gave me something to help me sleep at around midnight, and I dilated to 7 fairly quickly, but wouldn’t progress from there. So at noon on 10-13 they told me that I would have a c-section I was not liking this idea, but my blood sugars were getting bad, and my blood pressure was just horrible, they were terrified I’d have a stroke. So I reluctantly agreed to have a c-section, and from there it was all pretty quick. They gave me a spinal tap, and my mom got scrubbed up to be with me. She took a couple of pictures of Gryffin as he was first removed from me. He was purple, and had a cone head. Meanwhile, I’m aware of everything going on, but all I wanted to do was sleep. The baby’s nurse brought him to me so that I could kiss him, then took him off to the nursery along with my mom, it was at this time that my posse got to see him. I however didn’t see him again for quite sometime. I think it was at least 24 hours, and then I only got to see him a little here and there until he could hold his temp. We stayed in the hospital until Sunday because I kept having high blood pressure, and they wanted to monitor me. Finally I was released on Sunday. James was sooo happy, because he had been staying in the hospital with me, and quite frankly, I was handling everything much better than he was. He gets ever so cranky when he hasn’t had a decent amount of sleep. I actually had to send him home a few times to get a nap so that I could maintain my good mood. I would have liked to stay in the hospital longer because things were much easier there. The next week I didn’t eat or drink much at all, I mean I don’t think I would have ate or drank anything if I hadn’t kept telling myself I need to in order to nurse my baby.
Moving on, at baby’s doctors appointment when he was one month, he weighed 7lbs 10oz. I was amazed to hear this because he spits up everything he eats, but apparently he’s getting enough to eat anyway. Currently, I wouldn’t be at all surprised to find that he already weighs 10 lbs. But I won’t find out until his 2-month checkup on 12-14.
I very much want to bring him to meet you all, but I don’t know when I will have the opportunity considering I don’t have a car. James and I are applying to get one through a wonderful program called free-to-be. They give cars to needy families.
Lastly, I am going to go back to school in January, I’m so excited, I really missed it.
So, how are all of you? I haven’t heard from anyone but Kristen. I hope you are all doing well. I’ll write again when I have some pictures to send.
Love
Roxanne
& Gryffin
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