This post will be a little bit different. A little more personal too. Despite all the social media and blog posts, I haven’t shared much about my children. Perhaps that will change now that you’re all asking for more in the Motherhood category! And my son, Bastian, has a unique story that I want to share because it contains some important reminders, I think.
So here it goes. Bastian’s birth story begins very early in my pregnancy, before he ever showed up on ultrasound, when doctors believed I had cancer instead of a baby.
This is the story of a mother who knew she was carrying life, had to fight for that life, had to trust life above all else.
“We should always listen to mothers,” said my midwife Eva. “They just know things.”
I was around 7 weeks pregnant when she said this to me, and it had been a crazy week.
The trouble all began one normal Thursday as I was leaving the office. It was very windy outside, and cold too. Dust was flying everywhere. Stockholm was whirling with traffic and construction noise. Suddenly I felt something gush between my legs, something warm. It turned out to be exactly what I feared – blood.
Any pregnant woman who’s been through this understands the tragedy. Especially since my partner and I had just spent 10 months trying to get pregnant with a couple of miscarriages along the way, and I was nearing 40 years of age and had been told by a gynecologist who checked my egg reserve that I’d be “very lucky” to get pregnant naturally again.
The joy at seeing those double lines – and the sense of optimism I’d felt about the pregnancy – crushed by the feeling of blood soaking through my clothes.
I called Eva, my midwife, who scheduled an ultrasound and warned me to prepare for more bleeding in case a miscarriage was nigh. From then on, every trip to the bathroom was wrought with anxiety. Would there be more blood?
But by Monday morning, there‘d been no more blood. I walked to my ultrasound appointment with cautious hope.
Unfortunately the ultrasound showed an empty fetal sac. And there was another small mass in my uterus that the doctor was frowning at. She said it was still very early in the pregnancy, so we should give it another week and then do another ultrasound. “Maybe we will see a fetus then,” she said, “or maybe you have something called molar pregnancy. She wrote mola gravid on a sticky note. “Go home and read about it. And welcome back when you’re really pregnant.”
Molar pregnancy?
I thought I knew everything that could go wrong in a pregnancy but I’d never heard of this.
To put it simply: instead of getting a baby, you get a cancerous mole. It’s caused by a blank egg being fertilized. The mole would grow, taking over my uterus and potentially spreading cancer around my body if I didn’t have it removed. After emptying the uterus, there would be 6 months of chemotherapy, maybe more. And once all risk of cancer was gone, I would have to wait an entire year to even try to get pregnant again – which, in my case, meant there’d probably never be another chance.
Devastated, I called Eva. She’d been my midwife in my first pregnancy, and I trusted her. I sobbed as she gently told me there was no hope for a healthy baby, yet hoped by some miracle there’d be no cancer.
Still, I hoped for a healthy baby. I couldn’t stop myself. I tried to rationalize it away, but deep down I was holding on to what might happen in the next week.
But the very next morning, I got a call from a doctor at Södersjukjuset (SÖS) who got my case and wanted to do another ultrasound asap.
So I met her at SÖS for an ultrasound that revealed the exact same scenario – it had been only 24 hours after all. This doctor also said we should give it a week since it was still too early in the pregnancy to know anything for sure. She ordered blood tests, checking my HCG levels for pregnancy hormones. A very low number would mean not pregnant, while a very high number could confirm molar pregnancy.
HCG results came back perfect. Exactly what they should be at my stage of pregnancy. I also did some research, never finding anything that made molar pregnancy seem inevitable. I read stories of many women who never “saw” a fetus on ultrasound until week 7 or 8, yet went on to have normal pregnancies.
While trying to convince myself there was no hope, I couldn’t let it go completely. Something deep inside told me there was a chance.
Well the very next day, another doctor from SÖS called and said they wanted to perform a dilation and curettage (abortion procedure). Based on the ultrasound and my HCG levels, he felt it was critical to sweep out my uterus completely and immediately. I tried to argue with him but got nowhere. He spoke to me as if I were a child.
Cancer, cancer, cancer, he kept repeating.
Life, life, life, I kept feeling.
I wanted some time. Why wouldn’t they give me that one week?
My oldest child had just come down with chickenpox, so I was able to use that as an excuse. “I need to be home with my son,” I told the doctor, and ignored his phone calls.
Even my husband was uneasy by this point. Cancer is very scary — we know from experience. “You have a sixth sense about things,” he said, “but…” his voice was shaky. I could see how worried he was. His eyes pled for me to pick up the phone, schedule that abortion.
The only person who didn’t make me feel like a crazy person was my own mother. She encouraged me to trust my gut and not feel rushed into a decision that felt wrong. This gave me the strength to hold out another few days, while the doctors at SÖS continued to call me multiple times per day until I finally agreed to come in for the dilation & curettage procedure.
7 weeks pregnant now. At SÖS, they put me in a hospital gown and hooked me up to a drip machine so I could continue fasting until a surgical room was available.
As I waited, I insisted on another ultrasound. I needed one last look for peace of mind. But each time I asked, a different doctor came to tell me No in their own way. Made me feel as if I was wasting their time. Funny how much time they spent trying to get me there, and how little time they had for me now.
But I was not going into that surgical room without one more look.
Finally an intern doctor came and, out of pity, agreed to an ultrasound. I don’t think he’d ever done one before. Couldn’t get the machine into me without my help and then hardly knew what he was looking at on the screen. But we were looking at something — something new in the fetal sac.
“What is that?” I cried. He called in the doctor, whose jaw literally dropped when he saw the screen. Soon several other doctors were in the room.
They called in a specialist and took me to a more sophisticated ultrasound machine. That’s when we saw it , as clear as day – that wild pulsing – a beating heart.
Finally we could see what I had felt all along!
Flutterings of life.
The specialist confirmed that the fetus was just as it should be, and the heartbeat was strong. As for that other mass in the uterus, it was not a cancerous mole but only some hemorrhaging. It made my pregnancy more high risk, but there was a good chance my body could deal with the hemorrhaging. “You can still go on to have a healthy pregnancy.”
And I did. The hemorrhaging was completely gone by my 20 week ultrasound. My baby grew, and I went on to carry him for 42 weeks. He was born peacefully at home and is absolutely perfect in every way.
I look at him and literally cannot breathe when I think about losing him. And I know I would feel that loss if I hadn’t insisted on that final ultrasound. Even if they’d removed that tiny beating heart and never told me about it, I think I’d know deep down what a precious thing I’d lost. And to never have that loss acknowledged would have probably made it even more unbearable.
I don’t tell this story to criticize doctors, because I know they save more lives than they harm. This is not some sort of anti-medical post. I’m extremely grateful to have access to doctors when needed!
I tell this story to remind us that life is bigger than our charts and timetables. That sometimes we rely too much on one sense (sight) and not enough on all the other senses that give us knowledge. And that sometimes life is beyond our logic, if only we could trust it.
I tell this story to remind women to please find a way back to your deep knowledge and instincts. That is our power, what we bring to the table, to the world, and it’s been almost totally conditioned out of us by western thinking and systems. Why must we trust a machine more than our own heart? What are we losing by trying to control every aspect of life? By avoiding every potential risk to the point where we forget who we are and what life actually feels like? And yes I ask these questions even in coronavirus times – especially in coronavirus times.
“We should always listen to mothers,” Eva said when I called to tell her the news that day. Perhaps we really do know things. In a profoundly primal way. Many times while raising my babies I’ve gotten advice that didn’t sit well with me and had to trust my gut instead. The reasons always became clear later even if they seemed rather insensible at the time. Some mothers do need professional guidance, but most of us just need some support in finding and trusting our inner guide (more on that in our previous post).
Surely this experience early in my pregnancy was another reason why I ended up birthing at home. I’m just realizing it now. I always thought it was because of coronavirus and the state of hospitals, but when the opportunity for a home birth presented itself, I did not hesitate.
I’m fortunate to have a friend who is not only a midwife, but also a really amazing person, and she orchestrated all of the details, calling upon one of her colleagues, Ann Petrén, who is one of Sweden’s most experienced home birth midwives. All I had to do was say yes, and when the time came, call Ann and Lina instead of calling the hospital.
However, Ann had some trips planned in the weeks around Bastian’s due date, so it wasn’t certain that she would even be in town when I went into labor. “Trust life,” she told me.
Bastian was born late, at 42 weeks, but in between Ann’s travels, so in good timing. I’d been in early labor for days, but by 1:00 AM on the 7th of August, the contractions woke me up and told me he was coming soon. I got through a couple of hours of labor on my own and then woke up my husband around 3:00. “Who are we calling?” he asked, reminding me that we still had a hospital bag packed and ready if I wanted to go. But nothing in me wanted to go.
The thought of getting up and getting dressed, calling a babysitter (we have no family here), sitting in a taxi while the contractions were intensifying, and then hospital checks, cervical checks, bright lights, machines, people I’d never met and would never meet again… No, no, no. I wanted to stay home. How nice it was to simply call Ann and hear her voice. “I think it’s time. I’ll be on my way.” And then to call Lina, a trusted friend who felt like the closest thing we have to family here. By 4:00 they were both with us at home.
Ann is a big believer in trusting and following the body rather than constant cervical checks and fear-driven interventions (the unnecessary ones, I mean). She never stopped my labor to check how dilated I was. Obviously they knew where I was in the process but left every decision, even the pushing, totally up to me. “This is your body and your baby,” they said. “You know how to birth best.” But they were with me too, their hands on my body, their voices reassuring me.
As my labor progressed, I figured out how to control the intensity of the contractions by leaning my body in various ways. The midwives allowed for this discovery. They allowed me to decide when it was time to start pushing. They allowed me to enter motherhood feeling empowered and in tune – surely an important piece of mothering during those pivotal early days, weeks, years.
Around 7 AM, in the midst of my family and friends, my baby came so simply and naturally into the world.
He cried for half a second, then laid calmly on my chest. Soon after, all of those animal instincts urged him to suck his hands and search for my breast. It was truly amazing to witness the unfolding of such a basic, primitive event. So fine-tuned on its own.
Bastian Nanook, I feel like I’ve known you my whole life. Somehow I knew you were coming yet I’ll never take you for granted. I have been your protector, and you have been mine.
There are other details of your story I look forward to telling you. Like that cold, gray November day when I first had an inkling that I was pregnant. I was sitting on the sofa by the window. Lifting my sweater, I placed my hand on my belly, and suddenly a small ray of light broke through the steel gray sky and landed right on my belly. It was too crazy, I never told anyone, but it was then I knew. Or hoped? I’m not sure.
The first 2 pregnancy tests came back negative. I ordered 2 more and finally got a positive about a week later than expected. Which perhaps explains why you didn’t show up on ultrasound until a week or so after the doctors expected. And why you were born at 42 weeks with no signs of being overdue. Still wet and gloopy, covered in dark fur from head to toe. Like a baby bear.
I decided your middle name would be Nanook (which means polar bear in Native American languages. In Inuit mythology, Nanook is a very special bear 🙂 And like us, Inuit tribes settled in the Arctic region.
As for your first name, Bastian was not even on our list. We resisted it for weeks, but it wouldn’t go away. It was as if the name chose you. I’m not yet sure why. Maybe time will tell.
I’m honored to be your mama. You are so loved.
[Featured image at top is artwork by Fanny Schultz @schulverket – one to follow for sure!]
