The moment I realized my high-risk pregnancies gave me PTSD, came minutes after my husband and I made the choice to stop having children.
I was walking to the pharmacy, pushing the baby in the stroller with one hand, fumbling with my phone in the other when my world suddenly started spinning and I was instantly in a different hospital, in a familiar waiting room, the one where I used to receive one or more ultrasounds a week.
I had several flashbacks like that one until they eventually petered out. I thought the symptoms were behind me; the feeling of always waiting for the other shoe to drop was gone. And then I had my first non-pregnancy-related OBGYN appointment in years and it hit me again at the sight of three words—ultrasound in progress.
I watched a woman walk in, my sweaty palms white-knuckled the faux leather chair, while others flipped through magazines.
Inside ultrasound rooms, we found a life-long genetic condition, no heartbeat, and then finally the last pregnancy was so complicated it forced me to move away from my family for delivery. One by one, I watched women go in, then quickly out, pictures in hand, smiles on their faces. I exhaled the pent-up anxiety, while simultaneously feeling confused, maybe even jealous, how each woman I saw was happy; no tears, no look of worry on her face.
I realized this: I will always feel the weight of my high-risk pregnancies. They are part of my story—a story where fear and love simultaneously grew inside of me. They are the stories of both loss and gain.
I’m sad that it took me months to talk to family members and friends, I’m sad that instead of planning nurseries, I planned for a fetal surgery, I’m sad that instead of talking about the new baby to my kids, I barely mentioned him, fearing I’d have to explain a loss.
And yet, I’m also grateful. Because new life was birthed, both beautiful children and new parts of myself; a more vulnerable woman and a stronger one, a more empathetic woman and a fiercer one. My pregnancies both cut me deeply and awakened me to a life that I had not yet discovered.
Grief and gratitude will always be intricately intertwined when I think back at how difficult it was for us to bring our children into the world. The mystery of suffering remains, the memories exhaust me, and yet I rise thankfully changed.
- PTSD After a High-Risk Pregnancy
Read about our high-risk pregnancy journey.
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