(The 4th in my series about my very personal, unpleasant pregnancy experience. Please read the previous posts before reading this one, otherwise it’ll all be out of context. WARNING: These are NOT cheery posts. They are a real, authentic, warts and all account of my quite horrible pregnancy experience, while managing CFS and the Electrosensitivity that developed during the pregnancy. Read Part 1 to see why I now believe this occurred. Please be cautious when reading these posts. What happened to me is very unlikely to happen to you. What happened to me is VERY unusual, but I need to tell the story in case it helps even one other person!)
Loneliness and Despair
As I write this I’m hit by the memory of just how many family members and friends were there for me during my pregnancy and after. Most were “there” but from a distance, due to living further away or work commitments, and the loneliness I felt at not being able to call or email them made it more difficult.
One of my aunties found a way to transcend this by writing me a postcard each day of my pregnancy for about the last 6 months. She lived overseas and travelled a lot, so I received handwritten postcards in the mail every day from all over the world. I will never forget that generosity. Never!
Yet despite all these beautiful gestures and the love and support of my family and friends both near and far, I had never felt more alone or lonely than during my pregnancy. It was a multi-faceted loneliness. Nobody I knew, or had even heard of, had the bizarre electrosensitivity I had (I only discovered the term electrosensitivity much later – also known as electrohypersensitivity) As far as I knew, at that time, what I had didn’t even have a name. Everyone tried so hard to understand, but they simply couldn’t. I mean I couldn’t understand it and I was experiencing it!
I tried so hard to explain the pain, partly to make sense of the bizarre reality I found myself in, and partly, I guess, to convince people it was real. (NB: ‘Describing’ pain of any sort is nigh on impossible!) And on the flip side I was conscious of not talking about it too much so as not to drive people away.
[As a side note, something I haven’t mentioned is that during these 9 months and beyond, we tried many, many weird and wonderful treatments that were either purported to help people with electrical sensitivities or that we hoped may do so. In this process we found some amazing, compassionate people, with incredible healing skills. Unfortunately none of them were able to have any impact on the electrosensitivity pain I was experiencing. Neither did the various necklaces and other devices we bought that claimed to protect a person from electro-magnetic radiation. It seems my sensitivity is beyond the scope of these devices’ healing or protective qualities. This, naturally, made me feel even more of the “odd one out”!]
I don’t remember taking out my frustrations and other emotions on David or others around me, but in my attempt to deal with my grief at having lost my world as I knew it, I’m sure I was quieter than usual and quite withdrawn. It’s basic Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. My basic health was not there, so relationships, being on a higher level on the hierarchy, were not as much of a priority as they once were. I simply was not physically or mentally capable of relating at a high level.
The loneliness also came from feeling I didn’t belong in the ever-increasing technological world we lived in. I felt almost like a reject of the 21st century and wondered if I could ever find my place in the world again.
My babe continues to grow despite it all …
And while all this was going on, a beautiful baby girl was continuing to grow inside me. It was so strange, but I never blamed her or became resentful toward her for what her creation was doing to me. I always saw her as an innocent in the whole situation, even more than her Dad and I. When it became clear I could never go through pregnancy again I just prayed and hoped with all my heart that she would come out safe and healthy (always praying she had her father’s genes, not mine! Turned out my prayers were answered on that one as she looks the spitting image of him! 🙂
Feeling our “Bubba” kicking and moving inside me was an amazing thing, albeit sometimes uncomfortable. Sometimes I thought she might put her foot right through my groin area, the pain was so great (having occasionally slept with her as a young child that kicking has definitely continued! Maybe she’s destined to be a footballer!)
The idea of having an only child confronted me incredibly. I grew up with 3 younger siblings and had strong negative views on having an only child. (Once again I learned when you strongly resist something, you often end up having it thrown squarely in your face, so you’re forced to deal with your fears or judgements).
So among all the other grief and sadness, I also grieved for the other children I would never have, and the sisters and brothers my daughter would miss out on. It seemed the hits just kept on coming (Note: All that grief and Sophie now has a step sister and half-brother via her Dad and step-Mum. My picture of how it should look just wasn’t imaginative enough!)
Please, just let this nightmare end …
Nearing the end of the pregnancy I just wanted it over with, but then it started to dawn on me what “over with” meant! In a short time I’d have a real baby to look after, when I was finding it hard enough looking after myself. Suddenly I was not so keen to start that journey. But I think every new Mum must experience this fear. And once a baby is inside you it has to come out! 🙂
A New Life Enters Our World …But My Nightmare Continues
Eventually the day came for our baby girl to be born. My labour was about 24 hours from the first small contradictions, but I’d really say it was about 10 hours full on. It was quite a straightforward labor and birth overall. My main concern about going into hospital was being surrounded by EMF’s (electro-magnetic fields), but it was a case of needs must, so I did. I just put up with the headaches – something I’ve since become a master at now! A false alarm a few days earlier was most frustrating – a night in the electro-filled hossy and no baby forthcoming! The cosmic joke continued!
The labour was aptly named. Painful? Yes. Tiring? Yes. But I ended up having an epidural after needing a drip to help my cervix dilatation, so after a few hours in agony, I ended up barely feeling anything as I gave birth to my beautiful blue-eyed baby girl at 9:o3pm on 17 Aug 2003. I often say I’d go through labour again any day. It wasn’t fun. It was painful and tiring. But it was over in a day NOT 9 months. 🙂
When I held my girl the day after (when I’d had a night’s sleep to revive), I experienced a few moments of pure love like I’d never felt before. I knew then it had been worth it, though that overwhelmingly positive feeling was short-lived and was tested many times in the challenging months and years to come. Unconditional love always stayed though.
I expected my heartburn and general discomfort of pregnancy to go away straight away. It didn’t. Nothing like me to be a bit different! The heartburn/nausea lasted another 12 months or so, which didn’t help my headspace much at all. It’s hard to think clearly, let alone positively, when you feel sick all the time. Add to that the fact the electrosensitivity didn’t leave either and I was not in a good way for quite some time. I’ve written elsewhere about life with electrosensitivity and how I adapted to it (here, here, here), so I won’t repeat myself. Suffice to say it was tough.
Early Days of Parenthood
The early days of motherhood were a mix of emotions for me, as with all new Mums. I was happy to have a healthy baby girl (can you believe my unhealthy body produced an 8 lb 3 oz baby?! 🙂
But because I was so ill myself I couldn’t feel the same joy my husband did as he raced around the hospital ward excitedly telling anyone who’d listen that we had a baby girl. (After all we’d been through it was lovely to be able to give him that “gift” and see the joy in his eyes). But I did adore my daughter immediately. She was and still is the sunshine of my life.
I breast-fed for about 3 weeks, but my milk was low and Sophie wasn’t putting on enough weight, so she went on the bottle after that. We’d been topping her up right from the start with goats milk formula anyway, so it wasn’t a big leap for her.
The day the maternal health nurse visited and told me that, because Sophie wasn’t putting on enough weight I’d have to try breast feeding her every 2 hours, was the turning point. I knew I couldn’t possibly do it. Feeding her already took so much out of me that I got a terrible headache when she fed (I have a compendium of headache types!). A feed took about 1 hour, so only having on hour’s break … no way! I was fragile, but I still knew when to say ‘no’ in order to look after myself. I know a lot of very healthy adults and children who were bottle fed. Now my daughter is another! 🙂
The rollercoaster of emotions is there for any new Mum. I just had a bit more going on than usual!
We installed a wood fire into the house (after 3 weeks when it became obvious the electrosensitivity wasn’t just a pregnancy thing. They were a very cold 3 weeks mid-winter in Ballarat!). The fire helped the physical comfort levels a bit, but psychologically I was still not good.
Family Support
My Mum stayed down with us for the first 2 weeks, which was a great comfort to me. My husband had a casual position that involved 2 different roles. Although he worked the same 40 hours a week and had done for years, he wasn’t officially permanent so any time he took off was unpaid. Hence he could only take a couple of days off after I had Sophie, and so Mum being around made a huge difference to both of us.
She cooked, cleaned, washed and did anything she could for me and Soph. She was also conscious of not getting in the road, so she headed home over the weekends to give D and I time to adjust to new parenthood.
Later on she would come down most Friday nights after work and stay the night, feeding Sophie through the night and giving me a spell. She also cooked up lots of food to fill my freezer before she left on Saturday to go back to her home 1 1/2 hours north of here. The love and gratitude I feel toward my Mum because of all this (and much more) will never be forgotten.
Some of my memory of this period is blurry. I think it’s a self-preservation thing. I remember that after giving up breast feeding (and some associated tears and grief), I could finally go to my doctor and get some serious medication for the electro-headaches (though nothing really helped the pain, so I only ever took something at night to help get me to sleep). Despite my valiant attempts to stay headache-free, it would only take a quick phone call, doctor’s visit (computers, fluoro lights etc) or other outing to leave me with it for the day.
Only sleep helped and a good night’s sleep usually fixed (or at least substantially eased) the headaches/earache. Valium was the only medication that helped get me to sleep, which subsequently helped the headache (the sleep, not the valium). Other codeine-based painkillers/sleep-inducers constipated me, and morphine caused me to hallucinate. I only took small doses of Valium, and despite it being a “drug of dependence”, I have only ever taken that small dose. I was no more dependent on it than I am on food and it gave me quality sleep, which therefore helped with quality of life. Of course I couldn’t take a full dose most nights unless D was off work the next day and was able to feed Sophie – or other relatives could do that job if they were staying.
Some Humourous Moments
The first night Sophie was home she cried a lot and didn’t settle. In my absolute exhaustion I ended up laying propped up on the coach with her on my chest. Totally against all the “rules” but we both managed a few hours sleep and that was more important to me than rules. D took the shift the night after, and in a conversation a few days after that he sheepishly admitted to doing similar to what I had done the first night. I hadn’t told him either because I felt somehow “a bad Mum” for “putting my baby in danger”.
We had a good laugh over the fact we’d both done the same thing and were both feeling like we were ‘bad parents’! We were both so scared of stuffing up as parents, and naturally didn’t want our baby harmed in any way, but exhaustion sometimes sends all the medical research and “guru” baby advice out the window in the interests of the Holy Grail of new parenthood – Sleep!
In a way, I think the heartburn of pregnancy did me a favour because, despite it leading to me feeling horribly tired most of the time due to not being able to sleep in the day, when Sophie came along and I was getting low levels of sleep I knew how to handle it a bit better. Not much better, but a bit.
Resting When My Baby Did … Old Advice, But Good Advice
As time went on and the heartburn and nausea eased (after about 12 months) I found a huge bonus was that I could rest when Sophie did. More importantly, I was able to “train” her sleep in the afternoon to coincide with my own afternoon sleep.
In the years to come this became an advantage because Sophie would happily go to bed in the afternoon because she knew I was going too, and she wasn’t missing out on anything! I kept that routine until she was about 3 1/2. I still gave her a little bit of bottle before her afternoon sleep and bed at night, which was her cue that bedtime had arrived.
I started to worry that “they” say to wean babies off the bottle much earlier than 3, so ‘Santa’ took the bottles away that year. Almost immediately Soph dropped that afternoon sleep and I regretted not going with my own motherly instincts. She had 100mls of soy milk (my choice not to put her on dairy), she drank it immediately on the couch, never walked around with it in her mouth and never took it to bed with her (two arguments against a bottle due to tooth decay). Basically it was no different in my view than having a glass of milk before bed, and when the bottles stopped she rarely drank more than a few sips of milk at a time, and she stopped her sleep, which left a much grumpier child and a Mum who needed a sleep. Lesson: Listen to you instincts rather than what “they” say.
Luckily Sophie was always a very placid, “easy” baby (although I always point out to others who comment on parents with “easy” babies that they still need feeding, changing, etc, cry for all sorts of mysterious reasons, don’t always sleep, and are still constant and demanding – ie don’t assume a mother is coping well even if they seem to have an “easy” baby).
I thought there was finally some justice after my miserable pregnancy! I do wonder how I’d have coped with a difficult baby, but I know I would have because I realise now that we tend to manage whatever we are dealt in life – somehow, someway!
Read Part 5 of CFS, Pregnancy & Electrosensitivity: My Story (the final blog post in the series) …
Read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 …
PS. Related links: “Allergic To Electricity”: My Story With Electrosensitivity, Trapped In My Body: CFS, Pregnancy and Electrosensitivity, The Dilemma of Pain: An Unusual Choice, CFS and Pain: A Silent War On An Internal Battlefield