Pregnant During Covid

How unresolved trauma, a medical system that only knew how to look for what could go wrong, and a world falling apart shaped my pregnancy as a highly sensitive woman.

This story follows on from the previous one, which described my fertility struggles and ectopic pregnancy.

Why Am I Still Not Pregnant?

After those unhappy and unsuccessful times, I was waiting for my body to come back to normal after surgery. It took a while for my period to return, and then I had half the chances of getting pregnant as before. After all that time already waiting, it was awful. The previous experience had been so traumatizing that I felt broken about my chances. And then it took around half a year more.

One weekend after the new year, I had a terrible headache. The kind where my vision was affected and I had to lie down in the dark to survive. At that time there was no clinic or specialist I was seeing for holistic methods, but I remembered shiatsu.

Shiatsu

Shiatsu is a Japanese form of body therapy that uses finger pressure to stimulate specific points on the body, known as acupressure points, with the aim of supporting physical, emotional and spiritual well-being. It is based on the concept of energy pathways, called meridians, and its goal is to balance the flow of energy in the body, remove blockages and support the body’s natural healing abilities. It takes into account the whole person, not only physical symptoms but also emotional and mental aspects of health. From my own perspective, shiatsu is very similar to acupressure, except that my experience with shiatsu was always full body, while acupressure was focused only on the upper part of my back.

I had enjoyed shiatsu in the past and it had always made my life more pleasant. This was the method I was looking for to help me with my migraine. I searched locally and was lucky enough to find a practitioner with a free spot the very next day. At our first visit I also told her about my difficulties getting pregnant. Not only did my headache subside, but I felt so energetically wonderful that I got pregnant in the hours that followed.

That evening I had dinner with my girlfriends. It was a nice atmosphere, we talked and laughed a lot and it helped me to forget about my problems at least for the evening. I was in such a good mood when I came home to my partner that that evening I got pregnant.

So after all the difficult times, it finally happened and it happened naturally.

When my period was late and I took the test, you can imagine how scared I was that the ectopic pregnancy would happen again on my right side, which would have left my natural conception chances at zero. Very soon I visited my gynecologist asking for confirmation that the pregnancy was where it should be. She confirmed it but said it was still very early.

When I was walking that day, I felt the child inside telling me everything was alright, and that gave me a sense that it actually was going to be. At that time I was sure it was going to be a boy.

Fear Over Fear

The first weeks of my pregnancy were okay, even though full of fear, and the more pregnant I became, the more sick I felt. Around the same time I was no longer able to go to work daily, covid came and I was afraid to be around people. It was fear over fear, with all day sickness and no food that I actually enjoyed. Even brushing my teeth made me sick. Frightening information was coming from all around the world, everything was suddenly closing, everything was dangerous, and for a finally pregnant woman this was a deeply unstable situation. I remember crying on the phone to my parents that I had never imagined I would finally be pregnant during a plague.

During this time full of fear and sickness we had to figure out how to safely attend doctor’s visits. Every time I was so scared she would tell me something was wrong that I almost could not make myself go. And every time I was scared I would catch covid there, when no one had any idea how it could affect my baby. Working from home became so physically difficult for me that my employer slowly distributed my responsibilities within the team and I went on maternity leave as soon as it was possible. My partner and I were mostly alone, with no visits from family or friends, and a real fear about food when the shops were suddenly not stocked well enough. All this while constantly feeling sick. I spent a lot of time on the balcony just to be outside, and to this day a specific bird singing reminds me of those months.

Finally, A Good Time

After five months the sickness slowly disappeared, summer was coming, covid restrictions were loosening, and I actually started to have a really nice time. My belly was growing slowly but even when it was very big it was never an obstacle for me. I did not experience any heaviness, bloating, difficulty moving or anything that women in higher stages of pregnancy usually describe. Even though I gained a lot of weight, I did not see it or feel it. I just had a belly. I was doing pilates for pregnant women, I was often in nature, walking daily, and it was actually a great time of my life, finally. I was planning and preparing my home, resting a lot, and even though I was alone a great deal of the time, it felt good.

The Fear That Came Back

While my best friend back in my hometown was a great inspiration for me with her homebirth, at that time I was not yet sure enough about my body and my daughter’s, so I planned a standard hospital labor. Near the end of my pregnancy the fear came back strongly, when I developed a panic fear of having a stillborn baby. Those of you who read my fertility article will know what inspired that. One day I had an actual sense of no movement from my baby. I was so overwhelmed with fear that we went to the emergency room, where they confirmed everything was alright.

Doctors made everything more difficult with their calculations about my due date. Even though I knew exactly the day I got pregnant, they decided I should deliver two weeks earlier than my own sense of timing.

That was the reason my baby suddenly seemed too small during a regular check up, leading to another ultrasound and more anxious waiting.

That was also the reason I had not told them my belly had been getting hard from time to time for some weeks already. I did not want them to make another fuss about it.

And that was the reason they were unhappy I was still not delivering and told me I had to come in for induced labor at a certain date. Because that would be already 2 weeks past their calculated due date. I did not want that.

My labor started exactly when it was supposed to, naturally, but not in the way I had been told to expect.

The Birth

My contractions started on Sunday night into Monday during the fall. According to everything I had read and everyone I had spoken to, they were not contractions — very irregular, stopping completely for a few hours at a time. I was even able to bring them on myself with certain movements. But in the morning we went to the clinic just to be safe because I was lightly bleeding. They said I was not yet in labor and that if I did not deliver sooner I should come in for induction. That was a terrible scenario for me. Nobody took my own feelings into consideration and it only sent me deeper into fear about what was actually happening.

The next night looked more promising, pain every half hour or so, but still irregular, passing again for hours at a time. It drove me completely crazy. I preferred having the pain to no changes at all. I even felt like I was faking it. I cried hysterically at home several times asking why nothing was happening.

The following night it was hurting more and I had to find positions to breathe through it. Around 1 in the morning I gave up and we went to the hospital, because it was simply hurting a lot by then and I did not want to go in for that induction. They said it was only the beginning but that they would keep me. We waited a long time for a doctor because they had an urgent cesarean. In that phase I could only manage each contraction standing, breathing, tucking my pelvis under with each exhale and leaning against the wall. My partner was sent home.

From about 4 in the morning I was there with one other woman, and I could do nothing but stand and wait. The contractions were still around every 6 minutes. Nobody came to check on us the whole time. Gradually the pain was turning into something more like pressure. I thought I would be there like this for another day, maybe two. It was terrible. Oh and did I mention that it was my third sleepless night in a row? The pains were so enormous that I silently agreed to any kind of help, even what I had originally not wanted.

Then I rang for the nurse and told her about the pressure. And at that moment a new midwife appeared. A complete angel. Simply one positive, extremely kind, encouraging woman, who examined me and announced that I was beautifully in labor, already 7 centimeters dilated, that I should pack up and call my partner and I was going to the delivery room. I was barely able to get there in those pains even though it was only a few meters. I told her I had not wanted an epidural but that now I wanted anything. And she told me it seemed so beautiful how I was laboring already, that we could try just the gas and air first. I agreed.

My partner arrived. I started breathing the gas and air and I was smiling at him, already in that animal mode where I barely knew myself. Then suddenly I was asked to try not to push, to wait for the doctor to arrive. Like I could influence that!

When the time came I pushed once or twice, yelling, but I could still hear them telling me to focus the effort into pushing, which I had studied in advance. I have no idea where or how I pushed and the doctor just lifted out my daughter. She was perfectly healthy.

We were completely overwhelmed. Our daughter was on my chest where she belonged. We were greeting her, looking at this little big miracle. They left us for almost two hours in the dim light, alone as a family. It was raining outside and I still wanted to cry happy tears.

I am forever grateful that my daughter was born when she was actually ready, in the most natural way that was possible in that hospital, and we were both immediately with her from the very beginning.

What Came Next

What followed after those two hours was the hardest experience of my adult life. It did not concern my daughter. Only me. I will tell that story in full in the next post, including what happened one month after the birth, what I had to survive, and how it ultimately became the reason I found my own path to healing.

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A Letter From The Woman I Needed

Below you will find what I was missing during my entire pregnancy and birth. Not medical advice. Not a protocol. A voice. The voice of an older, wiser woman who had walked this path before me, who knew my sensitivity, who believed in my body completely, and who would have told me the truth with love. I did not have her then. I am writing her now, for myself and for anyone who may need her too.

My darling,

I have been watching you carry this pregnancy and I want you to know something first, before anything else: you have done nothing wrong. Not one thing.

You came into this already carrying so much. A body that had been through surgery, a heart that had already grieved, a nervous system that had been on high alert for longer than anyone around you understood. And then the world fell apart around you at the exact moment you finally, finally got what you had been waiting for. You were not being dramatic. You were not overreacting. You were a highly sensitive woman, already tender from everything that came before, suddenly asked to grow a life in the middle of a plague. Of course it was terrifying. Of course the fear lived in your body every single day.

I want to talk to you about your body, because I do not think anyone ever truly has.

Your body is not like other bodies. Not because something is wrong with it. Because it is extraordinary. You feel more, you process more, you carry more. Your nervous system takes in the world at a depth that most people will never know. This means that when your body speaks, it speaks in a language more precise and more honest than any chart or calculation a doctor can produce.

When you felt your baby telling you everything was alright on that walk, that was real. When you knew the exact day you got pregnant, that was real. When you knew your body was in labor before anyone in that clinic would believe you, that was real. You were not confused. You were not wrong. You were simply operating from a knowing that the medical system had no tools to measure.

And about those contractions, those three days of irregular, stopping, starting, maddening waves that no one would acknowledge as labor: your body was doing exactly what it needed to do. Slowly, carefully, at its own pace. You are highly sensitive. Of course your labor felt different from the descriptions in the books. Of course it moved differently from anyone else’s. That was not a malfunction. That was your body’s wisdom, taking its time, doing things right. The fact that you cried hysterically, that you felt like you were faking it, that you doubted yourself completely: none of that meant anything was wrong. It meant you were a sensitive woman in pain with no one around her saying the right things. That is not your failure. That is theirs.

The mathematics of due dates have nothing to do with you. You always do everything exactly when you are meant to. You knew when you conceived. You knew when she was ready. Your body has never been late for anything that truly mattered. No one else on this earth has any right to make you doubt that.

And when the labor finally moved fast, when the staff were surprised, I want you to understand something. They were seeing only a few hours. You had been in labor for three days. Three nights without sleep, you who struggle for several days if you sleep even few hours less than you need. Three days of your extraordinary sensitive body working, preparing, opening, doing everything right while everyone around you dismissed it. They never came back and acknowledged that. But I am acknowledging it now.

You delivered a healthy, beautiful baby on three days of labor and three nights without sleep, in the middle of a global pandemic, carrying unresolved trauma in your body, with no professional psychological support. That is not ordinary. That is not something most bodies could do. That is the strength of the most sensitive woman in the room, the one everyone underestimates, the one who feels everything and keeps going anyway.

Your baby is going to be small. She will be small throughout her whole childhood. And she will be perfectly healthy. Trust that. Your body knew exactly what size she needed to be.

I am sorry that no one was talking to you about you. About your history, your sensitivity, your mental state, your fears. That it was all left on you to carry alone. You deserved so much more than that. Your safe partner couldn’t do it all. You deserved a room full of women who knew what you had already survived, who would have held your history with care and built your confidence instead of adding to your fear.

I am sorry that your body and your daughter did not always receive what they deserved from you either, because you did not yet have the knowledge or the support to give it. That is not something to carry as guilt. It is something to carry as understanding. You did not know then what you know now. And that is exactly why you are writing this.

You are the strongest sensitive woman. You carry deep wisdom in a body that the world has consistently underestimated. And one day your daughter will know that her mother felt everything, survived everything, and chose to understand herself rather than harden.

That is the greatest thing you will ever give her.

With all my love and all my knowing,

The woman you needed then

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Inside Sensitive Enough Movement, I write for highly sensitive women who are looking for better understanding of their body and mind patterns, more fitting healing approaches, and a space where sensitivity is taken seriously instead of dismissed.

Among the pieces that resonated most with readers are: my story of healing an “incurable” skin condition through lifestyle change, working with deeply attuned holistic specialists to avoid surgery, the importance of psychosomatics, and a very personal sneak peek into what happens in the psychotherapy room.

All written through a highly sensitive lens.