The Curse of the Twenties

The Curse and Me

The Curse and Me

Ah, so you thought my story with Dale was The Curse taking its place? No... that was simply my back story and how it came into play with my character and personality for when it did take place. I was merely a teenager when Dale and I happened. Never again.

At the end of high school I met my partner. He’s amazing. I had a hard time trusting guys, as you can imagine but there was just something about my partner that made me think ‘maybe I can trust him’. Let’s call my partner...  James.

Well, James and I, we clicked like there’s no tomorrow. I felt like time was rushing past so quickly and we were moving forward so quickly because by the time I was studying in university I fell pregnant. It wasn’t the ideal time, but it was a blessing and even though I was scared, I was thrilled. Maybe not so thrilled to tell my parents though... Things happened and I ended up losing the baby half way through my first trimester and I was distraught. I called James to pick me up from my house and bring me to the hospital and we went through the miscarriage by ourselves... no one knew.

“We’ll try again. If you want a baby, I promise we’ll try again” He whispered to me as I cried in his car. I should’ve taken it as a sign that I lost the baby, that I wasn’t ready in life to have one just yet. But I was too distraught because I had grown to love that little bean in my womb. And to top it off, my blood test results read that I could’ve had twins.

A month later I fell pregnant again and I was happy again. Guess how old I was? Early twenties. Can you see where I’m going with this?

James and I were so happy that I was pregnant and yet I didn’t realise the consequences of what we had done. I dropped out of university, something I never wanted to do, because I was stressing so much I was beginning to fail my subjects. Against my parents’ wishes I moved out of home and moved in with James because let’s face it... I was too chicken to tell them while living with them.

We told his parents first, who cried but were supportive, then my parents... who took it worse than I expected. My mom cried, and stressed that she warned us not to do anything while my dad stopped talking to me for a month. After that I lived in a bubble with James and my little bean and thought things would go smoothly after that.

Does it ever?

I was working at night when I began to bleed out and I was rushed to hospital. Am I losing my baby again?! I shouted in my head. I hated myself for not being able to take care of something that was inside me. Luckily we were safe. I bled out twice during my pregnancy but after that it settled down. During this whole time I had isolated myself so much that I didn’t talk to any of my friends except for one girl. None of my friends knew I was pregnant and I didn’t own any social media profile to chat with them either. I was so alone and worked every day as well as James that I was just becoming mildly depressed.

By the time of my second trimester my family was supportive and, although some topics were fragile, I could talk to my parents and feel more secure in myself. By the third trimester I had begun to have problems again. My blood pressure was sky rocketing and the doctors and midwife were scared for me and the baby. So I was scheduled to have the baby at thirty-seven weeks because I wasn’t getting any bigger and my placenta had stopped working and growing. But nothing is ever that simple... The day of my baby shower, a week before my scheduled birth, my water broke. The party was cancelled and I was rushed to hospital despite not being anywhere close to my contractions being five minutes apart.

Now, I’m no masochist... I hate pain. I loathe it with a burning passion and mid way through my labour I was screaming for a caesarean section while practically breaking the fingers of my mom and James. My mom knows about this curse, we spoke about it once and I stared at her during my contractions with fear in my eyes.

I don’t want to die.

That was running through my mind with every stab of pain at wracked my entire body. “Mom...!” I cried before squeezing my eyes and screaming for everything I was worth. I passed out, apparently my heart beat dropped really low, only momentarily though. I woke up to my midwife and she then asked me if I wanted to hold my baby girl.

She was perfect. But so small and not an ounce of fat on her. I stayed at the hospital for three days before I was discharged but my daughter stayed for a month. James and I visited her everyday and I stayed for hours sitting by her side and taking care of her. It wasn’t how I envisioned having my first baby, not being able to take her home. But the day finally came when she was to be discharged, my twenty-first birthday, but had to have a full check up first.

She had a hole in her heart.

What comes next happens over a course of a year so I’ll skip over the details.

After several visits to a cardiologist she needed to have the hole closed. So before Christmas we opted for a less invasive operation. James and I stayed at the hospital for hours and hours before we received news on how she went... it didn’t work. The hole was too big for them to fix it that way and she needed to have open wound surgery, but it couldn’t be today. It would have to be in the New Year.

Boy, did I cry.

I lasted until we were out of the cardiologist’s office and I broke down. It was never ending; for me and my family.

Her second heart surgery took place two weeks before her first birthday. It was a success! My first sight of her after her surgery was her sleeping and she had drips of pain killers, epidural and IV drips in her back, both her arms and her leg. And she needed to stay at the hospital to recover for a few days... only fever took her and turned out she was allergic to her antibiotics. She stayed in hospital for a week, and I held her in my arms for twenty hours in a day because that was the only way she wouldn’t cry. I held her for every procedure, blood test, x-ray, and every needle that came close to her.

Having her go through this was the worse way The Curse could’ve taken me. I would’ve rather died than have my daughter to go through this.

There is a happy ending, or a happy continuation anyway. My family is supportive of me and my own little family is healthy and happy too. My daughter is growing and no one would ever know that she went through two heart surgeries unless they saw the scars.