Napi Horsemanship

Dedicated to all the mothers who have been diagnosed with cancer

A year ago after a few months of trying I got the birthday gift I had wanted, a pregnancy. Of course this was a blessing but I didn’t realize just how much of a blessing this child was until recently with my cancer diagnosis.

I have one older daughter, seven, that has always wanted a sibling. Growing up as a single sibling I wanted her to have that as well. When I was younger my plan was to have kids around 28 and have them closer in age. Of course life doesn’t work like that though. I had Amelia, my seven year old, at age 21 as a single mother. I have come to appreciate the larger age gap.

I had a great pregnancy with Aria other than the morning sickness. My first trimester consisted of me eating blueberry muffins and fruit. I stayed active and felt good my entire pregnancy. I was able to work up to 37 weeks pregnant as well.

My birth was also what I was hoping for. There’s always some things you want to go back and change during a birth, some more than others. I was just about to 40 weeks, which I was super excited about because my first had been born at 37 weeks and that’s just to soon in my opinion. We spent the day driving around and I’m not gonna lie, I was slightly uncomfortable the entire day but I enjoyed getting out and exploring with my family. It was just another night, until I was putting on my underpants and three drops of fluid hit the floor. The moment after this, when my partner and I locked eyes, is bookmarked in my memories for ever. Denial. We both looked at each other with that “no…..”. Being almost 40 weeks pregnant I didn’t want to jump the gun and I assumed it was more than likely pee. I checked the time and it was 12:30 AM. They say contractions start up 30 minutes after your water breaks and that there would be more fluid leaking. Sure enough all the stars aligned and I was in the hospital around 4 in the morning. Now the only reason I went to the hospital when I did was because of the infection risk when your water breaks. I would have stayed home much longer if my water hadn’t broke. Breathing work before birth was the most beneficial tool I had for my second birth. By the time I got to the hospital I was 6 cm dilated. Unfortunately my nerves and people get in my head and I believe that’s what slowed my progress down. The nurses coming in constantly and checking monitors made me distracted. My doctor was coming back in at around 8 am so I held off on being checked again until she got back. When she got back I was at about 8.5 cm. I was starting to notice some fatigue at this point and we discussed Pitocin. This is the thing I would change if I could, I wished I’d never started that Pitocin. But my logic was I was so close to being where I needed to be to push, I was coming up on that 12 hours after my water broke, and fatigue was starting to set in. It honestly was the best call I’m sure but when I say Pitocin hurts, it hurts! My partner was watching the monitor for my contractions and says that when that drip started up my contracts started to amp way up. My breathing technique went out the door at this point. They call it the transition phase and I choose pushing over transition any day of the week. Once I was given the red light for pushing I had her out in 15 minutes. I was trying to go slow and steady with my pushes but there was one push I was halfway there and I could tell, I bared down and sent it. I did have a second degree tear. We had the birth I was hoping for and I’m still grateful, as the odds of that being my last pregnancy are very high.

The first few weeks were great. I got in a system where I was able to keep up on the house duties and care for a newborn. I was feeling so proud of myself. I was doing cloth diapers and breastfeeding and it was all going so well. Then that mouth pain started and it went down hill from there. Looking back it was around that two month mark that my energy level dropped to pretty much nothing. I remember being so confused because I was doing so good and then all of a sudden I wasn’t anymore.

You know how the story goes from here and if you don’t you can read about it in “My Initiation to Cancer”.

Making the decision to give up breastfeeding has honestly been the most difficult part of my cancer diagnosis so far. I grieved more for the breastfeeding than I did for the fact I had cancer. Everything happened so fast we didn’t have time to bring a pump with us. I ended up having to hand express in Billings in my ER room for some relief. Once I was settled in Billings for the first night, I was brought a pump from the maternity floor. Depending on my medications we were able to keep some but at this point Aria was eating formula.

Remeber the drunken night on the town that lasted all week? Somewhere in that week breastfeeding with chemotherapy was discussed. I do think I could have breastfed in between cycles of chemotherapy. But I made the call for myself mostly and let it go. My body had so much going on already that it didn’t need to worry itself with making milk. My other deductive reasoning led me to believe it would be safer for Aria as well. Chemo is strong shit and I didn’t want to take any chance of her little body coming into contact with any of it.

I have only cried twice since the beginning of the ordeal and one of them was for giving up breastfeeding.

BUT! The good news is my daughter is healthy, happy, and most importantly, fed.

For anyone who has to make the switch from breast to formula, we have found that a comfort formula has worked best for our daughter. If you want a specific brand we found she likes the Enfamil over Similac.

Unfortunately I don’t have much to say about fertility and cancer. I have my two daughters so I didn’t feel the need to do anything drastic to save my eggs. We discussed a way to preserve the eggs but it would put me through symptoms of menopause and I didn’t want to add more on my plate.

I know I am not the only mother who experienced cancer and pregnancy/ postpartum. I really made this post for you. I hope knowing you aren’t the only one who had your newborn stage ripped from you by cancer gives you a little peace. Cancer and pregnancy are hard enough alone, it’s not fair to put the two hand in hand. But it is going to make you the strongest mother. Please feel free to drop a line of communication to me with questions or just an ear to hear your story. You can contact me at anytime.

Live Harder and Love Harder than the day before. Until next time! Thanks for reading.