My Journey to Pregnancy

The United States is very focused on consumerism, perpetuating the need to have comfort items, to get them quickly without leaving your home, and inciting tons of social media FOMO. I found this especially true during pregnancy. Once my algorithms knew I was pregnant I was immediately sucked into all the tips and tricks and what to buy during pregnancy and became obsessed with researching products to have the BEST for my newborn. While I definitely came across some useful tips, tricks, and products, the constant distraction of social media also made pregnancy feel more overwhelming and daunting. In a way, I became more detached from myself and what was important.

Let me flash back to my journey to pregnancy. While it was not necessarily the most difficult one, it will help explain why I became obsessed with product quality and learning as much as possible about pregnancy, birth, and newborn products.

Part 1: Everything is Normal

When I was around 27 I lived in a cute upper apartment with a beautiful view in Adams Hill, Los Angeles. I had recently broken up with a boyfriend of about 4 years. Emotionally I was happier than ever. I felt care-free, confident, surrounded by friends, my work at Buzzfeed was winding down, and I was eager to explore which direction to steer my career in next. Things in my life were changing, but for the better.

One quiet night I was in my bedroom and had a strong feeling that I would never be able to have kids, that something was wrong with my body and there was no future where it was going to happen. I couldn’t explain why I felt this way, in a calm moment, it just felt like a message my brain was receiving from my body. I felt I knew it to be undoubtedly true, and in that moment I became deeply upset about it. It was then, for the first time, feeling like I knew I couldn’t have kids, that I decided I did want to have kids.

Over the previous few years I’d had some random health episodes that were either easily explained or easily dismissed. My apartment had a water leak from the roof that stained my entire bedroom closet. I started to get a strange red rash around my eyes and sinus pain. I started looking into mold because of the size of the leak, but testing didn’t show anything. Over the past five years I’d had sporadic medical episodes that were seemingly normal. I had an episode of pleurisy that sent me to the hospital, a high resting heart rate, bouts of strong stomach pain beneath my bra strap, and an episode of fainting. One night in my Adams Hill apartment after dinner and a movie with friends I had to lay on my floor because there was so much pain in my upper stomach that I couldn’t breathe comfortably. Luckily, everything was easily explained by loved ones and friendly local general practitioners. It’s all caused by cramping, gas, dehydration, and stress, oh, and my period and my bra is too tight. No worries! I continued on with life.

Three years later I met my now husband. I went on a trip to Zion National Park. I had a cold and soar throat, but continued all the hikes we had planned. When I got back, my cold and sinus pain never went away. Eventually the whites of my eye turned red and my pupil was shaped like a half moon. After being misdiagnosed with “pink eye” and pointlessly put on antibiotics, I was told to go to the emergency room and found out I had “iritis” - an idiopathic condition (like pleurisy) - nothing to worry about, nothing to do about it, just take the treatment.

The word idiopathic comes from idiots not knowing what the cause of something is and I swore to never believe in that infuriating, nonchalant, overused, blasé word again. I’m not an idiot and nothing in my life will be idiopathic any longer. Once my eyesight was under threat I realized it was time to take matters into my own hands. Let the doctors be idiopathetics if that’s what they get paid for, but it was now overtly clear something was wrong and it was time for me to figure out the cause. The iritis was irritating, but I also started to develop intense migraines and vibrating vision.

Part 2: Making Medical Mischief

I lined up many many doctors appointments with specialists. Neurologists told me it was normal, idiopathic to have migraines. MRI results were always normal. Once you have migraines, you have them for life. You have to treat the migraines with pills. Ubrevly. etc. There’s a million pills out there and they are the answer. I smile and nod at the appointments, but nothing sat right. I tried a medication for a few weeks and stopped. It didn’t work and I wasn’t going to take anything anymore that didn’t make sense to me.

Eventually I saw a GI who ordered a blood panel. At my appointment with her, she didn’t tell me she had any clue what I had, just suggested I get screened for colon cancer since younger people are getting it these days all because I had a bleeding hemorrhoid one time. TMI - I know! At the appointment she didn’t tell me she ordered any blood tests or what was in the order. I went for a blood test from my general practitioner three months later. A Celiac Disease test she ordered was buried among that secret blood panel and my results came came back positive. She called and said, “go gluten free, but not really yet, because we need to schedule an endoscopy to confirm, but it’s COVID so no one wants to do a procedure in your mouth, we’re not doing them, but we will soon, so just wait, and then yeah, okay, goodbye.” What the hell is gluten free, really? and you’re an idiot, goodbye.

After a colonoscopy and endoscopy it was confirmed I had damage to my small intestine from Celiac Disease and moderate ulceration and inflammation from Crohn’s Disease throughout my colon. Although, they didn’t tell me this right away. Having my first colonoscopy and endoscopy at just 30 years old was embarrassing enough, but the medical staff sounded like they were having their own party during my procedure. When it was over a nurse came out and to give me my results and said, “we’re sorry” [about the results] but they never told me what the results were and it was infuriating. When I finally talked to the doctor on the phone and she explained my results she said she consulted with Dr. Ha at Cedars Sinai. I took note of that and the following year changed doctors to Dr. Ha at Cedars Sinai. It was time to receive the best care. Patients having emotional, social attachment to doctors is silly weakness that will only be a detriment. At the time I was also having extreme pain in my upper stomach and lungs, that this GI took no interest in. My lungs sounded like rubber bands and I’d have to put a heating pad on to get the pain to subside. Since it was during the pandemic, I took a recording of my lungs through a stethoscope and sent it to my general practitioner who sent it to a pulmonologist who said something was wrong, but it was unusual and “idiopathic.”

Part 3: Answers Lead to Questions

Despite getting the Celiac and Crohns diagnosis the following year I still had extreme fatigue, brain fog, headaches, lots of throbbing and pulsing in my neck, head, and eyes, and still didn’t feel like “myself.” It was time to visit more doctors.

I found a functional GI doctor who was the first to listen to my entire medical history, ask questions, and take the time to explain his thoughts and answer my questions in a way that made sense, even sometimes by drawing graphs on the hygienic paper on the patient bed. His testing showed I did have a mold exposure that was present in my nose. A new neurologist told me I had a pinched nerve in my right shoulder and weak nerves in my elbow from being a camera operator that could also be contributing to my migraines. I also had “sleepy” brainwaves. My functional GI found I had an overload of BPA in my system and SIBO (small intestinal bacterial overgrowth). I took my time treating all these things. My BPA went down as I stayed away from plastics. I started to follow a “healthier” diet of organic foods, but somehow that then resulted in an increase of glyphosate in my body.

I had a feeling something was wrong with my thyroid due to the pulsing sensation in my neck. My GP ordered an ultrasound of it and it looked normal. Everything’s fine. Luckily after seeing a slightly elevated (but within normal range) thyroid blood panel result my general practitioner had ordered, my functional GI guessed and ordered a repeat thyroid and antibody panel. It came back positive. I told my GP and got retested with her and confirmed I clearly had Hashimoto’s Disease.

I went down the path of exploring Lyme Disease after a panel showed traces of antibodies from all the places I’ve enjoyed wandering around through the woods over the years. I learned a lot about multiple systemic infections diseases, how all body systems are related and interact with one another, how chain reactions occur, and how to look at the body as a whole interworking system instead of a bunch of independent organs stitched together like how eastern medicine likes to approach things. I went decently far in my Lyme testing down to getting a ridiculous brain scan that exposed me to unnecessarily radiation, but I got the answers I needed and ultimately decided I didn’t want to take the antibiotics to treat it.

I was starting to feel like enough issues had been uncovered for me to have the knowledge to move forward on my own, and enough issues resolved by my own decisions that I felt confident moving forward with my health. I accepted things won’t always be perfect, but good enough sometimes is good enough.

Part 4: Getting Better

Undiagnosed Celiac Disease causes a high rate of miscarriage and premature birth. Had I not found out I had Celiac Disease and treated it properly, I don’t know if I would have been able to do as well as I have so far in my pregnancy (currently I’m at 37.5 weeks). A lot of information online says you “heal” from Celiac Disease after going gluten free for only 3 months. For me it felt like it took over a year or more.

When I saw a GI at Cedars Sinai a year after my initial diagnosis, a repeat endoscopy and colonoscopy showed a lot of the damage to my intestines had been repaired, like a “miracle,” but a bone density scan revealed I had severe osteopenia (a notch away from osteoporosis) in my hips and lower spine. Despite my intestines healing quickly from these diseases, I realized other parts of my body might have to be slower to catch up.

Despite constant treatment, my eye inflammation did not stop recurring for a full 12 months. It was the catalyst that set off my journey. I harassed many ophthalmologists for answers despite their disinterest in finding the cause. I sent one article about Celiac and Crohn’s disease causing it and a doctor agreed it was possible. It finally went away “for good” 6 months after properly going gluten free. Doctors wanted start me on biologic medication, but I declined just before my eyes finally fully recovered.

My headaches took nearly a year and a half go to away. I made changes to my lifestyle, like elevating my computer to eye level, correcting my posture, and I stopped working as a handheld camera operator.

I never took medication for my Crohn’s disease except for a short month of mesalamine 7 months after I was diagnosed. Somehow everyone had overlooked it and no one suggested I take anything, until they realized later and were shocked I didn’t take anything because of the level of inflammation, and they wanted me to try it.

With Hashimoto’s seeming somewhat unsolvable to me except by medication I started taking my morning thryoid pills. I went through a few brands, until I landed on Tirosint, the only one that didn’t seem to give me any side effects. I also learned about thyroid and pregnancy, I explored studies from other countries on EMF’s and made some changes in our home to avoid pregnancy issues and thyroid function interference. Most people need to increase their thyroid medication during pregnancy. I didn’t.

Ultimately, after learning all I could, and putting in tons of effort to living my life in a way that was “better” for me and my issues - I started to feel “better” - like “as good as I was going to get” and felt I was getting signs it was time to try to have a baby. I felt like I’d never know for sure if I wanted a baby “now”, but I know I wanted one in the future. I might have some bugs in me, my health may not be perfect, but my mind and body were telling me it was time.