Molar Pregnancy

Several people have asked me about molar pregnancies lately, so I thought I would describe my experience. That way, maybe you will be smarter than me and clue into the symptoms a little sooner. However, the chances of it happening to any of you is HIGHLY UNLIKELY because it is so rare.

It all started when I went off birth control back in July or somewhere around then. I was keeping pretty close track of my period as we all do when we are hoping to be pregnant. Unless you're my mom--then you don't "worry" about those kinds of things. Apparently. That's what she says anyway. But I do "worry" about those kinds of things, so when I had a period when I wasn't supposed to--I took notice. I have been regular, every 28 days, since I was 10. I knew you wanted to know that about me. So it was a little weird, but I thought it was just my body adjusting to being off the pill.

Then the period stopped after three days. Again, weird--my periods last 5 days when on the pill and 8 when off. Again, I knew you wanted to know that. My period stopped and then one week later it started again. Very strange. But I didn't think that much of it because my body is pretty much destroyed after having my kids, so I thought it was just being weird in a harmless way.

Then I started getting exhausted. Not just, wow I'm overtired, or even first trimester tired, it was seriously like I could not keep my eyes open for more than two hours in a row. I started putting the kids down for their naps really early (I lock them in--don't report me), and taking long naps. I never nap unless I'm pregnant or sick. I actually dislike naps as a general rule because it takes so long to relax and stop thinking about what I could/should be doing that twenty minutes later I'm barely starting to "unwind." Or, I sleep too long and wake up with that hung-over headache feeling.

So, I started taking long naps and feeling incredibly exhausted and having a period every few days that would last one or two days and then stop. So weird, but nothing I could pinpoint enough to consult a doctor.

But then the moodiness hit. This was by far the worst part and I cringe when I remember my behavior. If I could undo anything in my life it would be the week that I felt insane. Seriously. I was not in control. I would be screaming at Miriam (I have a temper, but I don't normally scream) about nothing and my brain would be telling me that I was acting like a lunatic and to stop, but there was this horrible disconnect from my brain to the rest of my body. One really bad day I called Mom and told her that I needed help, that I was afraid I was really going to hurt Miriam. She didn't get it. She thought I was exaggerating, or it wasn't that bad, or something. When I hung up the phone I felt . . . desperate. I ended up locking the kids in their rooms for most of that day just so I wouldn't do anything to them. It was, without a doubt, the worst week of my life.

Then morning sickness hit. It is beyond bizarre to be throwing up with morning sickness--and morning sickness is different than any other kind of sick, so I didn't think I had the flu or anything else--while having a period. It is bizarre and wrong. Wrong enough that I made an appointment with my ob.

Dr. Swift is an angel--I love my ob. On the first visit he could feel that something was wrong and from the symptoms I confusedly stated (I'm not good with communicating ailments, especially weird ones, and I didn't want to admit that I was insane so I merely alluded to it) and thought I had a cyst. He told me to go back onto birth control and wait a few months before going off again.

I took one pill and was so sick the next day I couldn't move more than a few inches from the toilet. I called Dr. Swift's office and told his nurse that something was really wrong. She gave me this little lecture about how birth control can give you morning sickness type symptoms. I told her I had three children, had been on and off birth control for years, and would she give Dr. Swift my message ASAP. I wasn't very patient at that point, I'm afraid. I felt worse after because this nurse had never heard of a molar pregnancy so we had a few phone confrontations because she had no clue what was going on. Not her fault, I realized in retrospect when I was more normal.

She gave Dr. Swift the message and he called me back to tell me to take a pregnancy test. I told him that I was currently bleeding, but he was not put off. I was to take the pregnancy test and call him back that day. So I did--and the test was positive.

You know how when you take a pregnancy test and you're hoping for a positive, so you take the first recommended day, first thing in the morning to get the best result and it is still only a pale, barely there, pink line? This was the opposite of that. The line was almost fuschia. It was at that point that I admitted to myself that something was probably really wrong. Dr. Swift seemed to agree. When I told him the result he had me come in that day for a blood test. (I spent a lot of time at the Dr.'s office while Dr. Swift was figuring this thing out--like I said, it is very rare.)

I had to wait for the next day for my results. I was impatient and called the nurse and she said, "Congratulations, it looks like you are a healthy 14 weeks pregnant." First of all, that was impossible because it was only a few weeks after I went off birth control, and second of all, I was bleeding every two to three days. Confused, I waited for Dr. Swift to call. He called not much later and said he had twisted a bunch of arms and made an ultrasound appointment for me that day in the ultrasound department of the hospital, not in his office, and I WOULD NOT MISS IT. Dr. Swift is never . . . emphatic. I've only heard him stress something twice--once about not missing the ultrasound, and once when he told me with Emeline (I had placenta previa) that I was a ticking time bomb and if I felt even a twinge of labor I was to get to the hospital IMMEDIATELY! So you can understand why I felt nervous when he repeated himself three times and made me promise.

I went to the ultrasound and being me, chattered uncontrollably throughout her exam. I always chatter when I am nervous. During my c-section I don't think I stopped talking the entire hour. I knew it was bad when the radiologist turned the screen away from me and didn't say much. I asked her what she saw and she said she couldn't tell me--she could only talk to my doctor. It was Dr. Swift's day off but he had given the tech his cell number and she called him and told him the results while I was dressing. Then he called me on the hospital phone in the ultrasound room. It was a molar pregnancy and he had already scheduled a D&C for me for the next day.

I asked him what that was and he told me a little, but then he said to read about it online and he'd answer any questions I had the next day before surgery. I didn't mind--I didn't want to cry on the phone.

I went home and started arranging for babysitters, and I called Tim's work and found out that he was at a client so I had to sound lame and say it was an emergency and get the cell phone of one of the people he was working with so that he could get the next day off and take me to and from surgery.

Once everything was arranged I got online and started reading about molar pregnancies. I don't recommend doing medical research online--there is a lot of scary stuff. Basically, with a molar pregnancy, the egg doesn't have a nucleus so instead of growing a baby, you grow a mass of cells not unlike cancer, called a mole. Some moles grow faster than others. Some people spontaneously abort their moles, others, like me, end up with D&Cs. If the moles grow back, then you have uterine cancer (because it is an aggressive growth) and get treatments like any other cancer. Although, it isn't the scariest cancer because worst case scenario is a radical hysterectomy. Nobody dies from it. Although, at that point, a radical hysterectomy wasn't top on my list of favorite options. Also bad is you have to get your blood checked weekly for months, up to a year, to make sure the mole isn't growing back.

Then the worst part--I wasn't supposed to get pregnant for a year after the D&C. I read that and started crying and at that point it started to be a little too real.

That is basically the whole story. The next day I had the D&C and it went really well. With me, anytime surgery or childbirth occurs the big concern is bleeding. I don't stop bleeding on my own. But this surgery went really well, at least that is what they told me. My first D&C, after a miscarriage, didn't hurt at all. I wasn't sore. I was weak as a kitten because I lost so much blood, but I didn't feel any pain. The molar pregnancy D&C wasn't like that. I was very sore for about a week before I started to feel okay again.

But I didn't mind that as much because as the hormone levels started to drop I started to feel more in control of myself again. Basically, I had gone through 12 weeks of pregnancy hormones in 2 weeks. That is why I was crazy. There is really no way to explain what that feels like to someone who hasn't felt it. Just trust me when I say you do not want to try it because when you are crazy you do a lot of things that you really, really, really regret. (I'm so sorry, Miriam!)

As the hormones stabilized I felt better and better. I went in weekly for blood checks, but unlike the scary info on the internet, my laid-back ob only had me come in every week for the first month because my hormones stabilized pretty quickly. Then I went back in a few times over the course of several weeks before he gave me the okay to get pregnant. Although the internet said I would need to wait a year before getting pregnant again, Dr. Swift okayed me after about 4 months. We waited longer though because I was . . . scared, quite frankly. And then after we started trying it took longer than it ever has for us (meaning longer than two weeks), so I got a few extra months in because of that.

Despite being pregnant during allergies (I hate that), and being uncomfortably likely to deliver on Christmas, I am so grateful this is a healthy pregnancy--at least so far.

And that, in a lengthy nutshell, is a molar pregnancy.