First and Second Trimester
Taking it back to February of 2024 we found out we were pregnant and we were so happy. It took us a while to conceive to the point that we were gearing up to look up fertility doctors and then God said BAM! Lol. The first trimester was just as expected very tired, everything just smells weird, nauseous, eating whatever I could to survive. This was just as normal as being pregnant with my first and every baby book you will find. We found out the gender pretty early with special blood test and we were ecstatic we were having a boy and even more excited to tell our daughter.
The second trimester is usually when you get all your energy, appetite, the famous "glow" and basically your life back but that wasn't the case for me. I notice I was still feeling super tired with no energy or even the will to even get dressed with decent clothes. Being that my job is a full time fashion content creator and YouTuber, I was very excited to dress the bump just like I did with my first. When I was pregnant with my daughter I didn't stop working and I created so many cute pregnancy outfits but that was not the case this time around. My husband and I came to the realization I was close to 40 this time around so my body wasn't going to handle pregnancy the same and also I have a 7 year old (with a very busy social life lol) to take care of. Lots of different factors if we are comparing both pregnancies. All of this was very different this time around and mentally it was killing me. The fact that I didn't have energy to get dressed, energy to work, to generally do things, or be there for my daughter in all her events was very hard for me. Once I announced on social media we were pregnant around April, I never posted on social media again because I was so out of it.
Third trimester
By the end of my second trimester and going into my third, that's when things got even harder for me. I started to get frequent high blood pressure readings and was diagnosed with hypertension. And because I had preeclampsia (towards the end) with my first, my doctor visits became more frequent plus I was also referred to seeing a high risk OB as well because of my age on top of my regular OB. Weekly doctor visits became so draining and week after week I felt like something else was wrong. I ended up having low iron and weird heart palpitations that also got me seeing a cardiologist every 2 weeks. Between the regular OB, high risk OB, and cardiologist, my life was basically seeing doctors. And for a person that was fairly healthy seeing doctors this frequent was all new to me and took a toll on me mentally. By the time September hit I got a bit of happy energy and part of me knew it was because my favorite season was upon us: Fall. I LOVE fall everything and especially Halloween. The start of the fall season gave me that dopamine I needed. I also knew we were getting close to the end of the pregnancy and that made me very happy. Then came a huge problem: my amniotic fluid started getting low! That was monitored very closely, because low fluid meant problems for the baby. And all this time even with all the crazy things happening to me during the pregnancy the baby was doing just fine. Between low fluid and high blood pressure there was numerous emergency room visits at all times of the day. That glorious dopamine I started to feel went out the door.
The Thick of it
The first week in October in one of my high risk OB appointments the fluid was so dangerously low that my doctor said to go immediately to the emergency room and that most likely I will have to stay in the hospital until birth. By then I was a little over a month from my due date (which was the week of Thanksgiving) and I thought she was crazy for saying that. When I went to the ER the doctors were monitoring me very closely and checking the fluid. They told me I had to stay until the fluid reached at least the bare minimum. They had high hopes that it would only be a few days and I also had a positive mind so after 3 days of staying in the hospital by some miracle the fluid levels went up and I was able to go home. I was very excited because I was released just in time to go to a Halloween event my daughter had at her school that week. During this whole pregnancy I felt like I wasn't there for her because this pregnancy consumed me physically, mentally, and spiritually.
By now, I said to myself the remaining of this pregnancy since I only had about a month left I was going to focus on getting the baby's room ready, spending time with daughter, and doing something fun for Halloween because my family loves Halloween and mainly because of me. Little did I know God had another plan for me. The following week one day I felt no fetal movement and it freaked me out. We went directly to the emergency room and they told us the fluid was low again and that's why the baby can barley move in there. My doctors came to the conclusion that staying in the hospital until delivery time will be the best for baby's healthy because they can monitor him 24/7 and if there was any emergency that was the best place to be to take quick action. They even moved my due date to the first week of November. They were trying to get baby to week 37 when he's considered full term. It wasn't until day 3 of moving into the hospital for 30 days that everything hit me. How my daughter was taking being away from me? Her whole routine turned upside down, how I didn't get to celebrate Halloween with her, how I felt the complications of this pregnancy robbed me of having a gender reveal or any type of baby shower. My mental health struggled so much during those 30 days being confined to a hospital room and being out of my normal routine. Eventually I created a routine for myself, watched lots of Tik Toks, read books, and streamed shows. God bless the nurses because they saw me have meltdowns and consoled me. They definitely made my stay 100% better in every way. I will never forget them! God bless my husband as well during this time because he was holding down the fort while I was gone, taking/picking up our daughter to school, making sure he had dinner with her, navigating her feelings of me being confined to a hospital, brining me things I needed to the hospital, listening to all my meltdowns. entertaining me at the hospital. By now we had brought in my mother-in-law to help out with our daughter so my husband would also sleep at the hospital with me, so he did a lot of back and fourth. having him there in the hospital with me helped me so much as well. He even brought our family Halloween costume to the hospital (which I had bought months ago) so we can have some kind of Halloween together. This was the top tier moment for me I will never forget because he knows how much I love Halloween especially with my daughter.
Birth
The week leading up to the scheduled c section I couldn't believe I survived 30 days confined to a hospital. I think that was the hardest thing I ever had to go through mentally. That week we were also given a lot of information by our doctors because our son had a growth restriction due to low fluid so there was a possibility he would go to the NICU and that within itself brought on so many questions and concern for us. Because I had gone through a c section before that was the least of my worry I just wanted to make sure our baby came out ok.
On Wednesday November 5th I signed paper work, had a spinal to numb myself from the waist down and was wheeled into the operating room. The memory I will never forget was at 10:23am when I finally heard that first cry and they pulled the drapes down so I can see him, I immediately had this sense of relief that overcame my entire body (even though I was numb from the waist down lol). I finally felt like we made it. The NICU team was on standby in the delivery room and my doctor dismissed them because Ayden Noel was fine and no need for any NICU time. That also gave me a sense of relief. He was born 4 pounds and 6 ounces. He was on the smaller sided because of the growth restriction but the doctors said most babies born on the small side eventually catch up and do well. And as I'm writing this post and Ayden will turn 6 months in a week I can confirm that that boy is growing, thriving, and hitting his milestones. The c-section recovery this second time around was much harder. I thought it was going to be easier because my body went through it already and knew what to expect but I was also wrong about that. I had lots of scar tissue from the first c-section so the surgery was a little more intense this time making the recovery harder and more painful. The day I left the hospital and step foot outside I couldn't believe I made it through all of that and felt happy and sad at the same time. It was bitter sweet because this was my last baby and couldn't wait to go home and start life as a mom of 2.
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