I guess it begins about August of 2012 when I found out I was pregnant with our fifth child. I decided about this time that I was going to make this pregnancy my healthiest one yet. I had been working on Jillian Michael’s “30 Day Shred” and was working on my 6-pack. We had been eating healthy by our standards and had removed processed foods from our diet and only ate all natural things or foods that we had made from scratch. Jeremy was training to run a mile in 5 minutes and was training to run a half marathon and I decided that I wanted to run through all nine months of my pregnancy and run a 5K while pregnant.
Within the next month I would notice some occasional weird pains in my abdomen. The best way I can describe it is that it felt like someone kicked me in the stomach. It hurt enough that I couldn’t exercise as vigorously as I would have liked for a day or two after. Sometimes it felt like I had really bad gas pains that wouldn’t go away after sitting on the toilet. It was odd, but I just attributed the pain to the pregnancy.
Some time in November the pains were worsening to where I had to lay down for an hour or two when the pains came because it was more overwhelming. I had not yet seen an OB because Jeremy’s insurance at the time didn’t cover an OB visit and wouldn’t until January. In my previous pregnancies I had never experienced symptoms such as these and it started to concern me. I told Jeremy that something just doesn’t feel right about this. I need to go to the doctor and see what’s going on. He tried to talk me out of it because he wanted to wait until insurance would cover the visit. But ultimately he left the decision to me and I made an appointment.
At the OB visit I told the doctor about my severe “gas pains” that I was experiencing. I probably didn’t emphasize the severity of the pains and he said to just go easy on foods high in fiber since those would cause gas. In hindsight this is probably some of the worst advice I could have received. But he didn’t seem concerned so I wasn’t either.
About this time Jeremy came close to his goal of running a 5 minute mile. He missed it by only 5 seconds. He then shifted his focus to training for his half marathon. On November 17, 2012 I was about 14 weeks pregnant and I achieved my goal of running a 5K at the annual “Shun the Sun” race in Mesa while Jeremy ran his half marathon in under 2 hours.
The next day was Sunday and Jeremy had his usual Sunday morning meetings and I had just finished getting the kids ready for church and was finishing getting myself ready for church when a terrible pain hit me. I couldn’t finish getting ready. I laid in bed in the fetal position and couldn’t move. I texted Jeremy telling him I needed him to come home and take the kids to church. I kept hoping the pain would go away so I could go to church, but it didn’t let up for a few more hours. I had to rest on the couch for the rest of the day and take it easy the day after because I felt like someone kicked me in the stomach. I had called my older sister and was telling her about the pains I had been having and she told me that I should just take it easy and worry about the pregnancy and myself instead of worrying about achieving my exercise goals. I decided then to stop exercising in order to stop pushing my body so hard.
I had my first ultrasound of the pregnancy the first week of January, as soon as the insurance kicked in. Everything was showing normal until the technician looked at my right ovary. She asked me if I had used fertility drugs. That question surprised me since I had never had a problem getting pregnant. I responded no and then asked why she asked. She mentioned that I had 3 cysts on my right ovary and that can commonly happen with the use of fertility drugs. I went home and researched ovarian cysts and that seemed to explain all of my unusual symptoms that I had been experiencing. There are a few different kinds of ovarian cysts. The one in particular that seemed to fit my symptoms sounded pretty nasty: a dermoid cyst. These cysts have been known to contain bits of hair and teeth. It sounded pretty repulsive.
At my next OB appointment about 3 weeks later I talked with my doctor about the cysts. He mentioned that the cyst would explain the pain as it was 10 cm big. That blew my mind. I had no idea that I had a cyst in there the size of a newborn’s head. He mentioned the possibility of doing a c-section and cystectomy at the same time. My gut response was “no way!” I had had my previous two babies naturally and intended to do the same with this baby. I hated the idea of surgery. But, the more I thought about it the more it made sense. This way I could still nurse my baby after the surgery and I would only have to recover once albeit a longer recovery. He also mentioned that I would have to have more ultrasounds to monitor the growth of the cyst.
Later that day I was explaining to the kids that I had a growth in me that was about the size of a baby’s head that was causing me pain and that it likely had hair and teeth in it. We then started talking about different baby names. Scooby Doo was mentioned as well as Shaggy. The kids were going through a “Scooby Doo” phase and had been watching it a little too much. At one point they suggested to name the baby, “Chucky.” I’m not sure why they thought “Chucky” would be a good baby name but there was no way any baby of mine would be named “Chucky.” Do you remember that horror movie from the 80’s called “Child’s Play” about that crazy red-headed doll that killed everybody? Yes, I told them all about Chucky and showed them a picture of him. They quickly agreed that the baby would not be called “Chucky.” However, it was a fitting name for the nasty, hairy, toothy cyst. From then on we referred to the cyst as “Chucky.”