A 'High-Risk' Pandemic Pregnancy

Trigger warning: pregnancy loss, high risk pregnancy, hyperemesis.

It was the morning that I would find out I was pregnant with my son. My partner was still in bed, sleeping post night shift and I was pacing the cold tiles in the bathroom deliberating whether I should take a test now or wait until he was awake. I felt pretty certain that this time it was going to happen. I had even spotted some possible implantation bleeding a few days prior. Through the hushed silence in the apartment all I could hear was the voice in my head telling me just do the test. So without a second thought, I peeled open 2 of the cheap strip pregnancy tests. Then before I knew it, I was then ripping open the toughened plastic on the digital test to confirm that this was not a drill people!

Pregnant

1 – 2

After the initial buzz, elation and happy tears had passed, came the nauseating onset of anxiety, worry and mild panic. Not only was I pregnant during a global pandemic when I was a frontline nurse, but I also had another element to deal with.

***

In 2017, shortly after I started seeing my now fiancé, I got pregnant. I found out a couple of days after my bestie had thrown a psychic-tarot-reading party (highly recommended by the way) which involved eating copious amounts of cheese. In hindsight maybe I should have known that very night, as during my reading I pulled not one but three cards which symbolised a pregnancy.

“Oh don’t worry, that can just mean a new beginning…” the fortune teller reassured me as he averted his gaze.

So anyway a few days after, I was feeling pretty rubbish and I figured it couldn’t still be that cheese hangover I had woken up with 3 days prior. Two pregnancy tests later and my suspicions were confirmed. Not to mention the fact that it was a very new relationship, it was also terrible timing. I was only half way through my nursing degree which I had returned to university to undertake and it left me with an impossible decision to make.

***

3 weeks later, I found myself sitting in the back of an ambulance, cupping a mesh bowl in my hands trying desperately not to vomit. The paramedic sitting opposite me smiled “Righto Jess” he was Australian, “just shout if you have any bad pain and we’ll hit the blue lights for ya”. Righto.

When we arrived at the hospital I was taken to the early pregnancy unit for a scan. The healthcare assistant who called my name, led me down the hallway to a small sterile clinic room where a sonographer was patiently waiting. Next thing I know, I was naked from the waist down with only a small towel to preserve my dignity, legs spread wide, pelvis tilted up and the transvaginal ultrasound probe pushed several inches inside me. Confusion was in the air however and one by one, additional opinions were sought on my “special case”. When a conclusion was finally reached in this now cramped and overcrowded room, with me there were two consultant obstetricians, one registrar, one junior doctor, one sonographer, one health care assistant and one student nurse. Seven people all fully clothed, discussing my uterus while I lay there with my vagina out. Wonderful. After much confusion and several opinions later, one of the consultants finally told me the diagnosis. “You appear to have a unicornuate uterus, with a non-communicating rudimentary horn…” I have a what in a what now? “…we estimate a risk of approximately 80% maternal death if you choose to continue with this pregnancy”… maternal…death?

After some anatomical delineating, I was prepped for laparoscopic surgery the following morning. The last time I had been ‘put under’ with a general anaesthetic was about 15 years prior and between my nerves and general pregnancy sickness I was feeling rather constipated. While being rolled through to the theatre I pretty mortifyingly announced to the tanned and somewhat handsome anaesthetist “I’m really sorry if I poo when you put me under”. To my utter embarrassment, the last thing I remember was his hearty chuckle as he patted my arm, while sending me off to a deep sleep. Mortified. I’m relieved to say I never saw him again.

When I woke up, I was a girl with half a uterus, one fallopian tube, and about a 25% reduction in the odds of falling pregnant again (or so I was told anyway). On a more positive note though, I did have two kidneys. Apparently having only one kidney is a common co-occurrence of a unicornuate uterus. Lucky me!

***

So four years later, when we managed to get pregnant again, it meant a very different pregnancy to the one I would have hoped for: my first scan at 6 weeks no heartbeat, too early; the agonising two week wait to confirm viability; the fortnightly scans from week 12 checking my cervix was competent; ending up in A&E more times than I care to remember for IV fluids and anti-emetics; grey cannulas; blown veins; body in ketosis; the exhaustion; “is it your first?” Yes…well actually no…; running to the bathroom to vomit in between patients; weighing less than I have done in almost a decade at 16 weeks pregnant; “have you tried ginger?” Yes; “Oh you’ll feel better after the first trimester” I’m 20 weeks; late miscarriage fears; national lockdown; global pandemic; queueing for Lidl; “Don’t sleep on your back”; joint pain; palpitations every morning; heart scans and high blood pressure; “I think we need to send you to the day unit” Christ, not again; attending maternity appointments alone; so many appointments, what must work think?; preterm labour worries; a planned c-section; isolation; covid tests; what happens if we test positive?; the possibility of being alone in birth; stillbirth rate. What if I die on the table?

The last one might seem extreme but honestly after such a long pregnancy with so many ‘problems’ I really felt as though anything could happen. I was excited and happy, but miserably unwell and full of anxiety at the same time. I didn’t have the relief at 12, 16, 20, or even 37 weeks that I guess a lot of mums may feel. Google became my best friend and my enemy. I was engulfed with a legitimate fear of still birth because of my uterus (the statistics are pretty scary), compounded with the fear of catching covid as the pregnancy progressed. Living in lockdown, in a different country to both of our families and the panic that I may even end up alone in birth if we failed the pre-clerking PCR test. I think the first real sigh of relief I took in those 9 months was after hearing my son cry in the delivery room.

My partner and I the morning of my caesarean

When I see pregnant women now, I think I miss it, and for a second I really do. I loved watching my bump grow and feeling the bubbles turn into little kicks and jabs. I loved that part. The anxiety I have however, surrounding any potential future pregnancies (if we are lucky enough to do it all again) is formidable.

And then I look at my son, I still can’t believe my half-sized uterus carried him all the way to full term. He’s perfect and he’s amazing and when I look at him I feel like the trauma of pregnancy and birth is slowly dissolving away.

Time I guess is what’s needed most to heal. Much like my scar, which has evolved from an angry, red, bumpy train track, to a pinky-purple-hued stroke across my bikini line. I haven’t fully healed yet and I’m not sure I will ever be the old ‘me’ again. But I guess it’s the lumps and bumps of life that shape us into the people we are.

Jess x