Over the course of the next four months, I had to have twenty-seven ultrasounds. I was teaching English at a high school at the time, and missed over forty days that school year, due to the numerous trips to the doctors in Oklahoma City, Tulsa, and Muskogee. My administrators were very understanding and miraculously, I did not lose my job. My students were also exceptionally good that year.
Not only were all of the doctors concerned about my unborn baby and her heart condition, they were also very concerned about me, due to the fact that we had just discovered that I had Lupus. Apparently, Lupus and pregnancy do not mix. Pregnancy is stressful on the body in a "normal" pregnancy. In a woman with Lupus, pregnancy wreaks havoc on the body. Lupus is an autoimmune disorder, meaning the antibodies that normally attack bad cells, bacteria, etc., work overtime, and also attack the good cells, bacteria, and sometimes one or more organs, especially, the kidneys, therefore, lowering your immune system. A person with Lupus is more suceptible to acquiring infections, i.e., colds, flu, various other illnesses that most people can fight off easily. It is not good to get any of these illnesses during pregnancy, because there are very few medication one can take to alleviate the symptoms. This in turn, adds stress to the unborn baby. I couldn't take any medications for the Lupus while pregnant. It seemed like every time I went to the doctor, I got more bad news. I rarely had an appointment where one of the doctors said, "Oh, everything is going great, everything looks good". Didn't happen. Every time I went, there was a new and worse development. More tests, more bloodwork, more ultrasounds, more echocardiograms, more of everything. Those last four months were extremely rough, with multiple complications.
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