Reaping what you sow

I figured my first post should be introducing myself. I am new to blogging and truly do not expect anyone to read this, but I am using this as my outlet to handle all the demands of my job, my master’s degree, and my family. My name is Larkyn, I am an Agriculture Education Teacher in Oklahoma and I am pursuing my Master’s Degree in Agricultural Education, I have been married since 2024, and have a beautiful daughter who is 8 months old. I am trying to find the delicate balance between being a new mom, a good wife, and a good teacher.

I want to go back to where I started my pregnancy journey. I found out I was pregnant on December 23, 2024. I always thought when I found out I was going to be so excited and find some cute way to tell my husband, but that didn’t happen. I was literally shaking when that positive came up on the test. I told my husband I needed him to come to the bathroom and he thought there was a spider he needed to kill, but instead there was a pregnancy test on the counter that said “Pregnant” and all he said was “Okay”. Okay?? Like are you happy, excited, or scared? Because I truly didn’t know how I was feeling and I needed validation that whatever it was I was feeling was okay.

We didn’t tell our families until we had our first doctor’s appointment because I was so scared something wouldn’t be right and I wanted to make sure everything was okay before we got everyone’s hopes up. Well, in that first appointment we did the ultrasound, there was a heartbeat, one deep breath. Then they uttered the words “high risk” and I think my heart stopped. Turns out I had high blood pressure and had to go on blood pressure medication, then they said “because of your BMI…” and I had to take a glucose test at 8 weeks pregnant. Guess what? I failed it. I had to do the 3 hour glucose test and I failed that one too. So I had to monitor my blood sugar (they were always normal). I didn’t think that the baby would make it, I just knew with all the things they said I would lose the baby. But my husband was so excited that I didn’t want him to know how scared I was. We told our families that night after we both got home and they were all so excited. As excited as I was, I was so scared and I just prayed like I never had before.

I kept putting things off, like building my registry, and buying stuff for the baby because I didn’t want to get excited and something happen. But we hit the 12 week mark and I finally started to let myself get excited. The genetic testing came back normal and we found out it was a girl! My husband was so excited and I was in complete shock because I was convinced she was a boy. Between regular doctors appointments, appointments with the dietician, and appointments with the high risk doctors I was over it. The regular doctor’s appointments they always freaked me out, the dietician kept saying “well your sugars are fine, I think your body just freaked out”, and the high risk doctors said everything looked fine. At about 24 weeks, my blood pressure elevated so they upped my meds, no big deal, thats what they kept telling me.

Starting at 30 weeks I had to start getting ultrasounds every week before I went to the doctor. At one of these scans the amniotic fluid was low and they made me do an NST and everything looked good there so the doctor told me, “well drink more water and it’ll be fine” so thats what I did. The next week my fluid was better, but my blood pressure had skyrocketed. I was admitted to the hospital until they could get it under control. They had to double my blood pressure medicine and it was still high. Then I had to do one of those horrid 24 hour urine tests. Let me just say, it was not good. I had to go into the doctor 3 times that week and on the final time the doctor said “I talked to the high risk doctors and they said they would recommend keeping you in house so we can monitor you and the baby, but we have no room, and they have no room” and I am sitting in the room at the doctor crying because I felt like I had done something wrong. So he found a hospital that would take me and I went home, and told my husband that he needed to take me and I didn’t know how long I would be there and I didn’t know what was going on. So off we went, a little over 33 weeks pregnant headed to the hospital with no idea how long I was going to stay.

When we got there I learned more in the first 10 minutes than I did with my doctor through the entirety of my pregnancy. Turns out I had Pre-eclampsia. We knew from the beginning I was not going to make it to 40 weeks, and we expected a delivery at 38 weeks. That was the plan, this was not part of the plan. I was so scared and convinced we were going to lose our daughter because of this, or that my husband and family were going to lose me. But at the hospital they said the goal was to make it to 34 weeks. That was Tuesday, it was Friday. What the staff didn’t tell me is none of them thought I was going to make it that long. But with both of our families there, bed rest, and a lot of prayer, we made it. Monday night they started the induction process. They hooked me up to magnesium, they started the Pitocin, and there was no turning back. Then, the next day at 12:15 pm, our daughter entered this world and hearing her cry was the deepest breath I had taken in 4 days.

My daughter was taken to the NICU, and I still had to be hooked up to the magnesium for 24 hours. At that point though the magnesium had me so out of it all I know is I told my husband to go with her and I drifted in and out of sleep and only woke up when a nurse came in my room. They were able to take me off the magnesium a little early because I was doing so well, but coming off of it wasn’t so great. I couldn’t get up to go to the bathroom without getting dizzy and light headed and feeling like I was going to pass out so I couldn’t go see my daughter in the NICU. So besides the first 10 minutes after she was born, I didn’t get to see my daughter for over 24 hours. It was absolutely horrible and I think that is where my postpartum depression started.

I cried every single day I was in the hospital. Probably multiple times a day if I am being really honest. When I was discharged from the hospital but my daughter was still in the NICU I usually cried on the way to the hospital, and on the way home. Part of it was hormones and part of it was postpartum depression for sure. I just didn’t recognize it at that point.

I struggled with postpartum depression really bad. I know a lot of women do, but why is it so hard to talk about? Here I am 8 months later still struggling and trying to be the best I cam be. This is why I am starting my blog. Maybe getting my thoughts out there might help.