Before We Knew She Had Gastroschisis
I found out I was pregnant around the 4th week. I was scared but also ecstatic as this was a moment I could only imagine ever since I was a little girl. Finally I was going to start my own family. Even though it wasn't planned I knew God had a plan for us and I trusted that the timing was right. Who REALLY plans to have a baby? Is there ever a "right" time?
I started taking my prenatal/ multi vitamins right away and eating as healthy as I could for the baby. I did not stop taking my anti-depressants also called 'Citalopram'. I had been taking these for almost 4 years and stopping them all of a sudden could have caused a lot of issues as my body is so dependent on this drug that keeps me happy and afloat.
As time went by, the normal pregnancy symptoms started to occur.. Nausea, indigestion, exhaustion, being very hormonal and crying often, feeling faint at times, feeling repulsed by foods that I used to love and other smaller and less significant symptoms such as breakouts. The picture above was taken after I was brought to the hospital from work after getting sick and feeling faint. It was a simple and easy fix as they gave me the fluids I needed to hydrate and help with my nausea. I was told this was very common in early pregnancy as your body is trying to adjust to the many changes that your body is undergoing.
I did stop taking my prenatal vitamins as they made my nausea unbearable and I was trying hard to get through my summer work term as normally as possible. Instead of taking the multi vitamin, I ate from various food groups and still took my folic acid which I knew played an important role in avoiding neural-tube-defects. I also took it upon myself to cut my anti-depressant dosage in half.. This was not recommended but I did it because I had read studies where babies had withdrawals after being born and it could cause the child to be sad and not adapt to their immediate surrounding quite as well. Again, I am not sure if this is the case for everyone, but either way I cut down my dosage from 40mg to 20mg a day.
After the 14th week of pregnancy, my symptoms decreased significantly and I waited impatiently on finding out the gender of our baby at our mid-pregnancy ultrasound. That is when things changed for us, and for the arrival of our baby.