My Pregnancy Complication

My pregnancy complication was an ovarian torsion.

Maya’s was a planned pregnancy after being married for three years and living apart for just as long. It was planned down to the weekend we conceived her and the blood test days later that confirmed we were expecting. I held my secret for another week until we returned from a wedding in Long Island to surprise my husband with the cliche’ games. He saw a “dirty” diaper in the hallway, a baby bottle strategically placed in the foyer. While he knew we were planning a pregnancy, he was dumbfounded when he saw these things and asked if someone with a child visited me that day and why didn’t she clean up her mess?!? He went into our bedroom to change clothes and saw a new t-shirt on the ironing table that said “Baby Daddy”. He quietly went back downstairs and turned on the TV. When I came into the family room he asked, “Are you pregnant or something?” and it became our secret.

Days later we told my mom by giving her repurposed Nordstrom shopping bag with a baby bottle, pacifier and a positive pregnancy test. The message required no words. In a hushed tone she suddenly showered us with blessings and lots of advice, including not telling anyone, even my siblings. Weeks later my dad and siblings were in on the secret followed by close friends. Each person celebrated this moment for me, for themselves; after all, everyone was getting a new title, a new role in life.

We never quite announced to family and friends what was happening in our little world. It felt good to know something others didn’t know and I was able to hide it well as I was overweight and really didn’t gain weight during my pregnancy (which is healthy for overweight people). We planned on announcing the pregnancy after my 20 week ultrasound.

I then had an ovarian torsion at 19 weeks gestation which is when an ovary twists, cutting its circulation off. We knew we were either miscarrying or had a torsion as I was told at my 15 week ultrasound that this could happen but it was a very small chance. Ironically when a doctor becomes a patient, all common sense goes out the window. It didn’t occur to me my ovaries would leave my pelvis and ascend with my gradually swelling, growing uterus; so couldn’t understand why the pain wasn’t in my pelvis. It was literally the worst pain I’ve ever had in my life. I was crying hysterically while being wheeled into the emergency room where the maternity ER nurses and staff snickered thinking this was another silly girl coming in thinking she’s miscarrying or ready to deliver prematurely. I’ll never forget their reactions the moment the ultrasound report revealed this was truly an emergency. There was silence followed by a sense of true urgency. By this point I was whimpering in pain. By the way, Dilaudid does not help the pain. It only dopes you up.

I was given a vertical incision down the bottom half of my abdomen for my emergency laparotomy where the surgeon, temporarily pulled out my uterus, untwisted my ovary and excised a giant cyst. They opted not to do the surgery laparoscopically as Maya was now the size of a pear and my uterus was bigger. The subcuticular stitches (these make the scar look minimal) my vanity instructed the resident surgeon to place while high on dilaudid were diligently done so but the attending physicians experience told him to add staples. Her experience spoke as Maya and my uterus continued to grow.

Abdominal surgery is no joke and this was followed by a week of excruciating pain and suddenly the whole world knew we were pregnant. It wasn’t our little secret anymore. Word travels fast. We were getting congratulations from all corners. Even though people meant well, I personally felt violated; perhaps because wanted to tell people ourselves, in our own way. Perhaps I felt a complication in pregnancy meant I was not normal? Perhaps this complication tainted the perfect image I wanted to portray to the world? Truth is, complications happen. We are human. No one is perfect. Nothing is perfect. This complication made me stronger, made my story more unique and brought us closer to God.

At this point we decided to minimize this chapter of our life on social media for the time being. We took pregnancy announcement photos in autumn. Kashif carved his pumpkin giving mine a teasing look. I carved mine with little Maya inside me. We had a gray and yellow baby shower with a gender reveal and a godh bharai at the shower but did not share photos on Facebook. We had Maya in the dead of winter, days after a blizzard buried the Delaware Valley in snow and still no photos on Facebook. We enjoyed our little miracle and kept her away from social media until she was one month old and then started to share photos with loved ones online. I suppose it was our way of taking back our privacy.

The end result was a beautiful little girl with sparkling eyes who is resilient, strong willed, independent and brings a smile to every face.

Time flies. She’s now nearly three years old and we are ready to carve our autumn pumpkins once again.