The biggest thing that has changed me in terms of motherhood is just realizing how much I wasn’t really showing up in my own life. Especially after surviving having twins and all the complications. So I just honestly felt so lucky to get through it.
I just realized in a lot of my life, maybe I’d been playing it smaller. Just being afraid of judgment or the unknown again, maybe not having been encouraged from childhood to try different things.
I think motherhood is just… what you go through is just so incredible. And if any of us, even the ones that don’t have complications, just surviving it, you realize that it’s almost like a superpower, that you’re like, okay, if I can do that, then I just find that I’m not as fearful of trying really anything at this point.
My childhood is definitely a unique one. My parents got divorced when… it’s all to me, like, my moment of consciousness, right? So as someone who’s a clinician, I know that memories sort of really start to kind of form and store at like between age four to five, really more so five. And so to me, it felt like when I woke up as a person, when I could remember memories, I woke up to not having mom or dad there. It was more my grandma. I remember knowing that that’s where I was going to be, who I was going to be living with.
Of course, I didn’t understand the reasons why, but something just told me that this was home. And she was a very strong, amazing woman who was an entrepreneur. She owned schools, and actually we went to her school. That was kind of another reason it felt safe to do so. All right, I know I’m different because when I went to school, you’d see kids with, like, mom and dad and didn’t really understand why I was so different. But you just feel different. You always feel different as a kid for so many other reasons. But for me, I really felt different. I just knew that there [were] other things going on.
But we would have visits from my mom, and the memories weren’t as strong. I could remember (probably me of all my siblings), could remember more about her. And so it was just confusing that we couldn’t necessarily be with her or live with her, and she visits and would bring us really cool treats and stuff. So that also was odd growing up because I didn’t, again, fully understand, and I can understand [now] why we were protected from that, because, one, I maybe may not have understood, but also just the times, right?
I think at the time when I grew up, kids were meant to be just sheltered and seen, and you’re not necessarily involved in any adult discussion, especially my culture as an African. Growing up was interesting and just navigating that and knowing that I wasn’t like every other kid, but I was safe, I was cared for. We knew we were loved. There was just something missing, different. Right? So I’ve always had a lot of “what ifs?”
Like, oh, I wonder what life would be if a dad was there, a mom. And so I think as a child, I just always was, like, very daydreamy. And I think that’s why creativity is really important to me. I always use creativity as this sort of escape. For me, there are parts about my life that I didn’t necessarily like that I would have loved to have, whether that’s the mom or dad thing. And so creativity for me was this, like, escape, and I would use it. I think that’s how I coped with my situation.
My grandma created a very beautiful childhood for us. We grew up on a beautiful house and had farms and gardens and plants, and we were very well taken care of. I had nannies. But as a child, I think you still kind of know when it’s not a typical childhood. I think that was what my parents were trying to do, was just shelter us. It just was this continuous sort of questions, right, of why. I think for me, it was maybe realizing that some of the moments that I did spend with my mom, maybe noticing some behavior that I thought was odd, maybe some of the stuff she said or asked, I go, “okay, that is odd”…right. And I couldn’t place it and what was going on.
And it wasn’t honestly until much, much later that I realized that, okay, so she does act different from other people and stuff she says and does, and just started realizing that maybe that was why our situation was the way it was based on. I think even as a child, I knew that it would unlock a lot of opportunities for us and for me. So I think to me, because again, I never really fit in, even in my own culture, because again, I was so different, right? It was not every day you met another child that didn’t live with parents and was in boarding school and all that.
I think when we were told that we were going to be moving to America, I think that was when I was like, “oh, I think this is awesome.” Because I think this is the opportunity I’ve been waiting for, the change, the adventure… when we moved and lived with my aunt, I think this has to do with culture. I think in a lot of cultures, not just African, children are not meant to be privy to certain details, just meant to be protective of that. You just don’t expose children to those things.
Even though I noticed that my mom may have been different in some ways, honestly, I don’t know that I had the courage to ask as a child, because I would have been afraid of retaliation. I think instinctively, as an African child, I just knew that you don’t go there to ask those questions would be sort of seen as rude. And to me, I thought maybe even insulting, right?
To say, my grandmother, who is clearly sacrificing to take care of us. So I don’t know that I ever asked, but did someone try to sort of tell me? I think so. Did I register it or connect the dots? No, I really didn’t. I think my dad would have tried to say more so that it was a divorce. The divorce was not a foreign word. It was just like things didn’t work and this was a situation. And for me, growing up, it was just- it didn’t work out. There was a divorce for whatever reason.
Maybe she was a little weird and the marriage didn’t work. My dad obviously being a busy doctor and my grandma being a more stable figure. And in Africa, it’s not uncommon to go to a boarding school. That was the path. I’m a clinician. I see mental health stuff. But even then, right, because I didn’t grow up with my mother, I just still just thought, “yes, she has odd behaviors (maybe that someone else might find to be more like anxiety or maybe even paranoid in some ways)… But she had a job.”
She was on the surface like any other woman. I don’t know that you would have really known. And because I didn’t live with her, I don’t think it ever registered as anything more than just when your mom just says that odd stuff, you’re like, okay. And so I think that’s why it took me longer to really even understand what was going on now as she aged. And I know that could tell her health worsened, not just mentally.
I tried to keep up with bits and pieces from her extended family, but I think when I started connecting the dots a little better, [it] was definitely through my training, then losing Liz, and then connecting that to also when I became a mother and had my complications.
And I think it just felt like all of a sudden, there’s just this opening of the media also talking more and more about mental health issues in pregnancy. I think, honestly, that was what started helping me. Even in med school, you know about pregnancy, but not so much like what goes wrong, like that we know more-so what goes wrong physically, not mentally. I feel like social media is really what probably helped me connect the dot the most.
I like to consume podcasts and Ted Talks, and I like to read a lot. And so just hearing these stories after stories of researchers or people talk with authority on this topic, that’s when I started going, that’s interesting… so this isn’t just how she was. And then I kind of started asking questions to her family members of- “tell me about my mom and how she was and what was she before [and] after she had me. And would you say that there was a change?” As I asked more questions, I started realizing family members would say, “oh, yeah, actually, after my sister, she was different and she didn’t want us around.” So that’s when I kind of started piecing the puzzle together, like, oh, my gosh, this worsened with every pregnancy that she had. But I don’t know that anyone really attributed it fully to that.
I think they just thought it was just something that happened to her, that was her wish, not to have people around her or to push people away. “Oh, well, I guess that’s what she wants. Well, then we’ll stay away. We don’t understand this, but it’s scary.” And I’m grateful that I didn’t have declining mental health issue[s].
I definitely had moments where I knew my thoughts were irrational, so that for sure I had, and if that’s half even a sliver of how I felt during my motherhood, I’d hate to imagine when that’s, like, your full reality, right? When so much more of your brain is consumed with irrational thoughts or behavior, anxiety or paranoia. Because it was definitely there for me on a small level, but I knew that mine was worsened by no sleep. When I didn’t get sleep, it was horrible. I just felt like my mind was, like, fracturing, and your reality is just the lines.
Everything’s so blurred, and you don’t know what’s real, what’s not. And then it’s like you’re living this existence. And I would always feel like it continued in my dreams. My dreams would be so scary because it was creating these odd realities that I knew weren’t true, but would scare me when I was awake. That’s what told me how powerful the brain can be and how affected it can be by the hormonal changes.
I knew I always wanted to be a mom, and I think part of that was just having grown up without one. A lot of my childhood is funny. Like I told you, I definitely was someone who was always creative and always daydreaming and I loved stories and I would dream up these movies in my head, alternate realities of my life, where there was a mom and a dad and the perfect sort of family. And so I knew that I wanted that for myself or at least just a chance to do that. But obviously you can’t do it by yourself. You have to find someone.
And I think this is where I start to talk about how my upbringing may have informed what I even thought a relationship was, or a good relationship, right? I think mine was definitely found more in movies. Because I never saw a mother and a father interact, at least not continuously. Mine was based literally in the stories and the movies that I watched or heard and I would just continue on my own. And so I didn’t know the dynamics of fighting. And [so] to me, fighting is like bad, that’s the bad things are going to go wrong and end. Right?
So I didn’t have any good blueprint. I’m open about this and that’s why I think my first marital relationship was not successful. I ended up divorced because I know that I went into that really having no clue even that I didn’t know what I wanted, let alone how to sustain a relationship. And so it was just something that I was like I just knew I wanted to achieve it. It was more of like an achievement. Like, okay, everyone around me is getting married and it’s my turn and I’ve done the things now that I was supposed to do. I finished school, I have a job, right? And in some ways of my culture, I was [a] joke.
That was now when I was given permission to date because before that I wasn’t allowed to talk to boys or anything. Here I am like a grad student. I’m like, okay, so what is all this stuff about? Right? Like total nerd and dork definitely in terms of a relationship.
But then I also encountered some issues with my health where I had fibroids and I knew that that could affect my chances, and also PCOS. And when I found my husband now, which was a blessing because again, we all know how hard it is. Luckily I met him pre-Covid, so at least my chances are a little bit better and we met online. But yeah, I can’t say that I’ve learned everything there is.
I think in a lot of ways I’m still and always will be someone who needs to learn and build the skills that it takes for a strong and stable relationship. Just because I think I always like to joke. I was held back in that class because I didn’t see that stuff. But fortunately we both knew we were ready to at least try. One, I was older and two, I think we just were like, “oh, it’s going to take a while with my health”. And we thought, “oh, we have all this time.”
And so I had the potential to be a good mom. I really just wanted a chance to do that. When I met my husband, and I knew that was something he wanted to do. It just felt right. And I felt like, “yeah, he would be a great dad.” And I was like, “all right, let’s do this!”
The year before, I was like, okay, well, I know we want to have kids. So I had a great OB who had shared all my [history with]. I was like, all right, I know I have PCOS, I know I’ve got these fibroids, and I know right now, in this state, there’s no way I’m getting pregnant. So she kind of just came up with a plan and she was like, “okay, well, you’re going to have to have surgery. We need to take care of these fibroids. They’re too big.” And I survived that.
But then also I started having a thyroid autoimmune thyroid issue called Graves. And so that just came up out of nowhere. It was sort of a shock, really, to me, because all of a sudden I had these heart rate issues. So, yeah, so I just felt like I had all this stuff against me to where she was like, “we need a year of not being successful and then we’ll start IVF.” So I was dead set that IVF was going to be in my future. I was like, ‘all right, I know so many friends and colleagues that have had to do it.’ And I was like, ‘okay, I’m not that special. This is probably going to be our journey too.’ So we just were like, well, let’s get on the one year train, right? And so that way we can say we’ve done that. We had a thyroid surgery, had my fibroids out, all in that same year. So it was a very fun year. And so it was just like, okay, we’ll do the one year thing so that we can then jump on the IVF train and see how long that takes us.
God had other plans. I like to say a well placed cruise where I just happened to be ovulating and obviously had the least amount of stress I’ve ever had in my life on this cruise. Yeah. So I definitely was just not feeling great when we got back from this cruise after a few weeks, just being really tired. It was just this tiredness that I just thought- oh, no.
But I was used to this for the past year with my thyroid levels dipping really low, and I was like, “oh, it’s my thyroid. I need to get my meds checked and my levels checked.” And so I was just very confident that that was it. But then I started having all these other weird symptoms, like some nausea and headaches, and I was like, okay, I don’t know what’s going on.
And something just told me. I have not had a period. All of a sudden, I kind of thought back to that. I was in the bathroom, and I decided to pee on a stick. And I was like I was just, like, literally dropped, because just to see that positive sign. And no, I didn’t run out to tell David. I was like, whoa. I just needed to make sense of it, because it just felt unreal. And then I think part of me, too, was like, okay, I can surprise him, because we actually had a cute little photo shoot planned in that week.
So I started googling all these ways to surprise your spouse that you’re pregnant. Yeah, so I was like, okay, yes, I can run out, and I can tell them. Or I was like, I thought it would be really fun to do it at the shoot. And so, yeah, I saved it, which is so hard to do because, oh, my gosh, the nausea and the symptoms, and he would try to feed me all the stuff that was revolting to me, and he’s like, “what’s wrong with you? Why are you acting weird?” So, yeah, keeping it a secret was definitely really hard.
So then you have to obviously wait a certain amount of weeks, right, to be able to got the ultrasound scheduled, and yeah, so obviously, I surprised David at the shoot with it. And so he was like but he was like, what do you think you’re having? And I was like, oh, I know I’m having dreams already. It’s a boy. I just know it’s a boy. And I go, “a mother just knows”, like, really stupidly confident about this.
She’s doing the ultrasound. Obviously, I’ve done my fair share of ultrasounds of women in emergency room and told people they’ve been pregnant before. And so I had my eyes fixated on the ultrasound, and I saw it, and I was like, “oh, my.” I said there’s two sacs. And it freaks out the tech. She also was so shocked because I don’t think she was expecting to see twins.
It turned out it’d been, like, ten years or so since they’ve had twins in this practice. So she was like, “Hang on. Don’t look at it. I need to run out and call the doctor.” So she runs, and I’m just like there’s tears doing on my face. I’m like, oh, my God. So I’m literally hyperventilating, and I’m sweating, and it’s also the pre-Covid time, so I’m by myself, because then, of course, everything floods your head.
Because of course, my doctor walks in and is like, of course we just had your surgery. I thought for sure you would give me a year. Of course you would go and then have twins. Right? Because then all the fears of like, oh, my gosh, you just had surgery on your uterus. This would be risky, right? All that stuff.
We had this small, small apartment. And I remember when we found out we were pregnant, I was like, “oh, that’s okay. I’m going to Google and YouTube all the cute, chic New York apartments. We can make this work. We’re having one baby.” And I started even looking up pictures of where you put the crib in the closet and all that stuff.
Let’s just say that after that twin appointment, I went straight to my apartment leasing office. I’m going to need a second bedroom.
Honestly, I feel like I had a great pregnancy, at least until it was over. The only thing that made it scarier than it really should have was Covid. A friend of mine was getting married in Puerto Rico at that time in March, and so it was like, all right, this is going to be the baby moon, right? I knew that that would probably be the last time.
And you started hearing stuff about this virus, but no one’s really taking it seriously. But I took it seriously because I was the only one on the plane wearing a mask. I was like, okay, all right, I know I’m pregnant, so whatever virus this is, because we didn’t know how big a deal it was. I’m wearing my mask. And we have an amazing time, this wedding in Puerto Rico, that we were kind of making our baby moon as well, because with twins, you know that your uterus is going to get a lot bigger, quicker.
Usually 20 weeks for twin pregnancy is like 30 weeks already. So that would have been too late to be flying. I was like, okay, well, the first trimester, let’s have fun. As I was kind of showing, even then, it was kind of impressive how big I got so quickly. I think that’s what’s so weird with twins. Like, you’re just like so big.
14 weeks feels like you’re at 24 weeks is strange. Yeah. So then, honestly, when we’re at Puerto Rico and I was like, hey, okay, we’re about to get on this plane, I really would like to have some Purell on hand, right? Just to clean. I’m still nervous about this virus. I want to make sure I wear my mask. And we go to the store in Puerto Rico, and that’s when it hit us that something was happening, because obviously we’re looking at the news, we’re watching something, but the entire cleaning area was wiped clean. Looked like someone had robbed the store, right?
It was so odd in this big department store [would] have no Clorox, no anything, no hand sanitizer. And so we go and we’re like, what’s going on? And she’s like, oh, haven’t you heard? There is none. There’s a shortage. And literally, because there’s a few of us all flying back from the wedding, we all were like, okay, well, let’s get this Purell for the flight, because we started hearing things about this virus, and that’s when we were like, this isn’t good. And then we also heard some cruise ships that were coming into Puerto Rico were being not allowed to get off. And so we’re like we’re like, okay, well, let’s get out of here. We don’t want to be stuck in Puerto Rico.
So we fly back. And it felt like as soon as we got back from Puerto Rico, everything shut down. Like, the world shut down. Well, it was protected in some ways for me because thankfully, my job was sort of a mixed clinical and administrative role. And so especially since I was pregnant and I was administrative, I was able to do a lot of my work from home. And so that was actually really fortunate.
Covid was just this oddly… there was a silver lining for us because we just stayed at home and started preparing for these girls and just order[ed] things through Amazon. Our friends really blessed us with everything we wanted through our registry. I had this really protected pregnancy where pre Covid, I would have been all over the place to where maybe I wouldn’t have even made it as far as I actually did because I would have had more stress on me.
But with Covid I just had to be home. It was just this routine of going to appointments by myself, right, because I had to see a specialist as well because of my age and having all the other complications and stuff. So it was a lot of appointments. But, yeah, it was just this routine of, okay, they’re good. They’re growing. They’re this, they’re that. And at some point, as I was in the 30 week [range] you know, started saying that, “twin B is not growing as quickly, so we got to watch that. But still, everything’s on track.”
So I remember that 32 week appointment where it was like, okay, we’ll see you in a week. We may not let you go more than two more weeks. So it was like, you’re 32 because of your surgery. I think at the most, 34 for you. So I already had this plan of like, all right, I’ll see you in two weeks. So feeling very confident that, like, okay, I’ll see you in two weeks. We’ll have a C section, it’ll all be scheduled. But that wasn’t the case.
I was cooking some curry at home and just on a very normal, boring post appointment day. And my husband, he was barbecuing. And all of a sudden, it was just this gush of fluid. At first, I was like, did I pee on myself? I usually can feel it. And I go to get to the bathroom on time, and I looked down and it kind of looked a little bloody, and I was like, of course I knew. And I was like, oh, well, this isn’t good. So, yeah, I screamed for him because he was in the patio, and of course he gave me this like, “what? Why are you screaming?”
I was like, Is he really going to make me scream in the courtyard for our apartment that my water broke? And so over here now he runs over, and when I tell him and I was like, we have to go, and he was like, oh, my God. He sprinted over. I’m sure we left whatever was barbecuing out there, but we had been ready.
So with twins, you have to be ready at, like 24 weeks, because again, 24 weeks, you’re technically 34 weeks high. Tilted. I thought maybe like, oh, it’ll be fine. It looks like I just have to probably be on bed rest in the hospital. I thought that was, okay, well, I’m going to have to spend two more weeks in the hospital. But no.
My doctor was like, you did great to get them to here, but your babies are coming right now. I knew it were in that operating room. She delivered them in under, like, two minutes. Yeah. I think for me, as a clinician, it was just I wanted to hear the scream, right? Because I delivered a few babies, and you want to hear that baby crying as soon as it comes out. And I told David, hey, just stay on the girls, because I have this fear of babies being kidnapped and very irrational fears. Make sure no one switches them or mixes them up.
And yeah, it was quick. The only thing that probably just felt different was just, I think, how alone I ended up feeling- because David went with the girls, which is what I wanted him to do. And I think also we didn’t realize how early that was for them, right? 32 [weeks] was still early for them. I think we were just sort of in denial about the whole thing. So seeing them in the NICU is definitely jarring, but also once everyone was focused on the babies and it was just me, I think, waiting in this recovery area by myself, that felt weird and felt like a very long time because I think they were waiting on a bed or something.
It was just this really long period of where I was like, “gosh, I’d been at so many [births], and usually there’s like, so many people in the room, and with you.” And so that felt really sad and lonely that it was just me just by myself [with] no babies to hold. An incredibly long time.
I think that’s when we realized, like, oh, we were now in phase two, which is the NICU phase. They came at, like, 8 p.m. [and] I want to say it was like two or three in the morning. It was just really late, and I was like, “Can I see them?”
They showed them to me in the room, and then that was it. They had to be whisked [away], but I didn’t know why because I heard them cry. They needed to be on breathing support. I was also post operations by C section, and so finally got wheeled over there. And obviously it’s COVID time now too, right? So the hospitals are probably a bit more short staffed because everything just seemed to take longer.
Finding someone to actually wheel you up to go see a baby felt like it took longer. And so, yeah, it wasn’t until we got there and we saw all the tubes and just the whole NICU theater. I mean, I’d been in the NICU before, but I don’t know that I’d really appreciated just all what went on in there. When it was just to see two of my babies and I couldn’t touch them, and they’re behind glass and it set in- and I’m sure also postpartum setting in.
The feelings that came up was, did I do this? What did I do? Did I do something that they had to be in the NICU? Or was there something I could have done?
{Is there anything you wish you had done differently during that time?}
Maybe taking it easier, right? Like, trying to be everything and still do everything. Setting up their nursery and organizing. And I definitely wasn’t resting. That was actually a really nice, glorious time, which was [after the] C section, you get to stay in a little bit longer. So I think I was there like, two or three days. Again, no issues. What was really nice was I had this unlimited access to my babies, right?
So it was like, just wheel me to them as many times as you can. I started doing my own research of like, okay, they’re NICU. But I think also we didn’t realize is this like a week thing? Is this a few days? I don’t know that we really were prepared for it at all, honestly.
And so I keep saying I would have slept on the floor if they would have let me. Just felt so unnatural to be without them all the time. And because they were hooked up to all these machines. Yeah. And I think that was when it dawned on me to the twin thing, right? Having to split my energy. But again, I was in the hospital, so there was no difference. I could see them as much as I wanted, I could hold them as much as I wanted. Now they kind of showed us how to put your hand through the incubator, because at that point, they were in the incubator and so you couldn’t take them out of it. But at least I was shown how to put my hands in and care for them. Change their diaper, that stuff.
I think that’s when reality really set [in], because that was a whole lot of feelings. Because leaving them in that hospital and coming home to an empty apartment is a feeling- that unless you’ve been through that, I don’t know that you could ever [comprehend]- because your brain is telling you you just had this baby. It should literally not leave your sight for more than a few minutes of self care. Right? And so to be leaving them was something… that feeling was not something I was prepared for.
And then also when we come back, I’m thinking, all right, I can come back to this hospital as much as I want. These are my babies, right? And that’s when we’re met with the new rules- the Covid rules. And all of it was just shocking because it was like, okay, I’m sorry, but you have twins. And so in an effort to protect them in an abundance of caution, we don’t want to spread germs from one to the other. So you can only see one on this day, and then you can see one.
Whereas when I was in the hospital, that was not the case. To be met with all these new rules, and that once you were in the hospital, you couldn’t leave the hospital. So that was tough. That was rough. My husband and I decided okay, well, they need to see someone every day. We’re not going to not see a baby. Also, we couldn’t even go in together. It has to be one at a time.
So he would come like in the first half of the day, and then I would take the second shift. So we had two shifts going, so that way both babies at least got a parent each day. And that was for me, it was 10 hours. It was a ten hour shift. It felt like 2 hours, honestly, to my brain, because what felt long was when I was home without them. It was like a shell. It was like an empty shell.
I felt like I had no meaning or purpose in life until when I was in there next to them, just right by them, and, “okay, put me to work.” And the nurses, of course, they loved me because I could just teach me all this stuff and I could help take care of them because, again, short staffed [because of] Covid, so they could kind of [be] hands off, and they knew that I would follow all the rules and washing and taking care. Yeah, but it was just emotionally traumatic.
Honestly, I don’t know that I called it that then, but it was just this emotional trauma of one seeing my other baby right there, but knowing that I couldn’t touch them or even if they were crying. I’d have to go get the nurse’s attention. This is happening. And honestly, because you weren’t the only one. I had another twin mom in that ward with me, and she couldn’t even be there nearly a quarter of the time we were there because she had a child [at home]. She had to get home to everyone. You just did it because it was just such a crazy time, right?
And so even though the rules felt draconian and so ridiculous, you knew it was for protection, right? But of course, my postpartum brain was just like, this is the worst thing you could be doing to me as a mother. And so I just would have these breakdowns.
I think the nurses got so used to me breaking down and crying all the time around them, and bless their hearts, some of them (not going to get them in trouble or anything) but some of them would let me at least touch. In some ways, one or two would let me break the rules. Please wash your hands, and all that stuff. But then there are a lot that were very strict, and it was heartbreaking for the super strict ones that were like, I honestly don’t feel a need to sleep. I don’t feel a need to eat, and I don’t really even feel the need to hydrate, to be honest.
I think it was just sort of like, okay, maybe even David kind of reminding me to do these things, which probably was postpartum blues setting in. Everything was just around- how quickly can I get there and how long can I stay? I had a C section scar, so I just found it hard to move. But other than that, I was acting like I had not had a surgery at all.
It was just what seemed like a routine day of getting back from the NICU, and I told my husband, I don’t feel well. I feel like I either need to go to sleep or I just feel like there’s a heaviness in my chest and I feel really tired. And so, thankfully, I knew better than to go to sleep. I was like, all right, let’s get some vitals on me. I have machines and stuff at home. So he got the blood pressure machine and the heart rate machine. And that’s when I knew something was wrong.
My blood pressure was a bit high and my heart rate was low, which, as a thyroid patient is actually very unusual for me. I’m usually of a high heart rate. It was very low and it explained why I felt like sleeping. I felt like if I slept, my heart might stop or something like that. This is that sensation of just my heart feeling very slow. So I was like, oh, that’s not good. I got to go to the ER.
David dropped me off (again, Covid times). And I’m walking by myself into that ER. I really didn’t get a diagnosis. What I got was like, we don’t know what’s going on with you, but there’s a bunch of stuff happening here. Your labs are weird. And, yeah, I think what was just odd about the visit was literally being told, like, oh, you just had babies. I think it’s all kind of in your mind. But I knew better.
And long story short, I did have to really advocate for myself and I needed to get help advocating for myself with a friend and my sister because I wanted to go. I want to say, this is time away from my girls. I want to leave. And so my friend, who’s a doctor, was like, you can’t leave until they do this work up. And thankfully, they did that work up and it showed just a bunch of things. So some of my lab work, like, for my kidneys, my liver again, my blood pressure and my heart function, which would say that my heart was not doing well, like- it was failing- is kind of what the picture was showing.
And so it bought me an admission. I needed to be admitted to figure out what else was going on. So, honestly, they didn’t really have a diagnosis for me. It was just, okay, well, you bought yourself an admission. Hope you’re happy.
The silver lining for being in the hospital, was that I was in the hospital again, so I got to go see the girls as much as I could. But, yeah, the doctors are just like, yeah, we don’t really know what’s going on because everyone thought, you’ve had your baby, you should be okay. The complications that tend to happen are usually during [delivery]. And once the baby is born.
So I just ended up being told, like, okay, you have this odd hypertensive stuff and blood pressure stuff, but thankfully, they did a full workup and we’re just going to repeat all the other labs and hope that all those functions come. And thankfully, nothing bigger happened. And so, again, I was there a few days and was put on blood pressure medication and yeah, still to have sort of a postpartum hypertensive thing, which now I know it was like a preeclampsia, but after postpartum.
After getting these babies home, that started what I call the post NICU phase. I think in some ways life in our apartment was a NICU because those babies were sent home, they were still pretty small, even though to us they were so big. Because we had seen them so small, I didn’t realize how small they are until people around us who could see them through the window and stuff where it would show them were like, oh my God, they’re so tiny. And I’m like, you should have seen them when they were born.
My babies went home 5 and 4 pounds. And not only that, they had horrible reflux. I still had to be monitoring them and I had to wake up every 15 minutes at night because someone was choking in their sleep. In all of that- surviving that- obviously that’s when I went through my own sort of postpartum thing. But we were so blessed.
My mother in law did come and stay with us for those four months, and that’s, I think, what was the most supportive thing ever. Because that’s how I survived that period. I think when I started to think about just my experiences as a patient and my kids, I was just like, gosh, that was interesting. And I just needed to make sense of all of it.
One- what was going on mentally for me. And I’ve always journaled off and on throughout my life. I think I’ve always just liked to write. I’ve always told stories. Like I said in my childhood, I’d always write movies in my head and write like movie scenes and write books. And funny, I’d actually share with my friends in boarding school and they’d be like, “oh, when are you going to continue the story? I really like that story!”
But I never thought anything of it. It was just this thing I like to do, which is just write stories. So I thought, okay, let’s write. So writing really helped me because I just would write literally every crazy thought I was having and just what happened? Did that happen? Why did these things happen? It made me think about our friend Liz and what the heck happened with [her]- did that almost happen to me?
I started feeling just so grateful to be alive. Seriously, I thought, I think I was about to not be here. I think I was about to be another black mom that lost their lives. So all these realities, I just felt like I needed to make sense of it all. So I started just writing. And that’s when I just realized, like, wow, I need an outlet. And honestly, the first thing that came to mind- it’s funny, even though I write, I’ve never once thought about writing a book. That’s never been a thing for me. I don’t know why. It’s just like, no, that’s what people like Steven Spielberg do in my head. But for me, I just knew I needed to be creative in some way.
And by now, the twins are probably like 6-7-8 months. So I would have these journals and I’m writing and storytelling, and I thought, I want to do a blog. That was kind of my first thought. But then I was like, blogs. There’s a lot of writing. Like, I don’t have time to write. And that’s when the idea of a podcast came to me. I was like, oh, this is great. I can just talk. I can definitely talk these stories out. I didn’t have a creative outlet, and it was because of the stories of what I went through that I was like, wow.
I just felt like these stories need to be shared and that it could help someone and it could reduce someone else’s suffering. But I didn’t want to take tell in a gloomy way. I wanted to tell my stories with humor because my husband and I, we did laugh a lot. Like, a lot of funny things happened to us in the NICU. Like, really funny things. Like, we had moments where we laughed and we had moments where we cried and we had moments where we felt very lucky.
And honestly, I don’t think the clarity came with what happened with my mom until I lost her, sadly, last year, because I was writing all through that. And I think that was when I then was like, oh, gosh. Then speaking to one of her sisters I was close to, she proceeded to tell me about her mom as well, who had passed away giving birth.
And I think that was when it hit me. I was like, oh, my gosh. So she didn’t grow up with her mom, and I didn’t grow up with my mom. Literally my biggest fear to this day, right? And I know we never know when our time is, but my gosh, they probably almost had the same thing happen very early on, right? I think that’s when it just hit me. I was like, wow, I’m really hoping I can share this.
Because I knew I needed to learn how to take better care of myself so that this doesn’t become a generational thing that it already is. I wanted to be not just aware of it, but to make sure that at least did my part right. So that even if anything happens, I know I did my part of myself better.
I’m expressing myself in the way that I want to. And then most of all, I’m sharing this. There’s something about motherhood that you’re like, okay, I need more out of my life. Like, I want more for not just yourself. You want more for your children, for your family. And I think that was also part of it.
I want to be transparent and say that I don’t know that my initial vision was only to help people. It was to help myself. It was to help my family. I want more for my daughters as well, for their families. So I think that was where I come in, and that okay, if I can also help build a community and help others along the way, then that’s great. I decided to write a book that allows women to not just understand their risk of the terrible things that could happen during pregnancy, but I really wanted them to have hope and more control and to realize that there’s an incredible body of information out there.
Seriously, I don’t even think I’ve scratched the surface in just my education and researching. And also, I think that’s what’s really beautiful about creativity. I think there’s all these synchronicities that start to come up in your life, and you all of a sudden you’re sitting next to this person who has this cool story, and then you’re like, oh, that’s interesting. Or someone is like, oh, have you heard about this blog?
So to this day, literally, I feel like that’s sort of what this has been so cool about, this journey. It just opened up the world to where I decided to write this. That just means a lot to me. I needed people to have stories because I realized, wow, I had a lot of really powerful stories that I thought needed to be shared. And then I wanted to just hopefully have people connect the dots much faster than I did, because that took me, like, 40 years to connect these dots.
I want a mom to read this book and connect it much faster so that she can save herself a little bit faster or at least improve her outcomes, hopefully. Honestly, I think there are two readers that I’d love for my book, the main one, obviously being that person who knows they want to be a mom. But if you know you want to have children, I think you need to at least have a better understanding of the risk, because I think what was really unique for me about pregnancy was even though I knew everyone I knew around me had had kids, I felt very late to the game, actually, right, as a 40 year old.
And so it was funny, though, that even knowing that, I still never prepared for it in any significant way until I heard the words, you’re having twins. And it felt like such a late time to do it because everything is happening so fast. There’s just not enough time to read all the books, and it’s so overwhelming. And so I always felt like, why do we do this so late? I knew I want to be a mom.
Then the other reader is, honestly, it can be a man, it can be a woman, it can be anyone that has a vested interest in understanding what the heck is going on with all of this stuff. It seems like every time on the news there’s a woman, a woman of color especially, dying- just trying to make sense of all of it. What is it about pregnancy that some of us it looks so effortless and others it doesn’t?
So now I realize it’s an ecosystem, and we all have a role to play, to support each other. So the more we know, the more we can help each other. So those are the people that I think could benefit from reading it.
I really like to empower women as a life coach, to really go on to create the impact that they were meant to in this world, and that is helping them become unstuck and overcome obstacles that, frankly, some of us have put in our way. But what I love about my approach is I don’t come at it as an expert in any way. Actually, I come at it as more as someone who’s your guide, who’s your partner, who’s going to strategize with you, and the reason being that I am not perfect. There’s actually things that I really learn from my own clients all the time, because none of us is a master of anything. We have these strengths. And even though I have all this experience of being creative and having an outlet, and a lot of people look at me like, wow, you’re so brave, and you did this thing with the weddings, and you writing this book- I’m not.
Because there’s a second part of creativity that has actually I didn’t realize until writing this book has been a huge Achilles for me, which is sharing my work, being so terrifying for me. And I’ve been experiencing only half the beauty of creativity. And I think now that writing this book in a big way, I’m already reaping that benefit, which is the beauty of sharing your creativity and your work.
People get to see this more authentic side of you, because creativity is saying to someone: This is a piece of me. This is a piece- accept me as I am. I hope it inspires you in whatever way it’s meant to. Maybe it helps you. Great. And this is my superpower. Now, this is what I think. Motherhood helps us be more creative because that’s how we care for our offspring. Better creativity in a bigger way. To, again, not just help me, my family, but to help others. And to help my community.
Photo credit @mariboscardinphotography
Ivy has written a book that is a comprehensive guide to understanding your risk of maternal mortality. Please see the link below.
Johns Hopkins has an overview of PCOS.
The Mayo Clinic talks about Graves Disease symptoms and causes.
The March of Dimes describes the NICU. To read about it, Click Here.
All content and information on this blog is for informational and educational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice. Always consult your doctor for advice on your particular medical situation.