My Tumultuous Pregnancy Story – Sydney Allan

My Tumultuous Pregnancy Story – Sydney Allan

This Is My Story

My name is Sydney, and I am a first-time mama to our sweet rainbow baby Franklin Ezra, who was born in December 2019. When I reflect on my pregnancy with Frankie, I can’t help but think he is as close to a miracle as I have ever seen. After miscarrying my first pregnancy at 10 weeks, Frankie was conceived just 2 weeks later. After a pretty traumatic miscarriage I took a solo trip to California and hours after I stepped off the plane, I saw those two little lines. Even before taking the test, I knew he was in there. I expected to feel overwhelmed and anxious since I had just lost my previous baby, but I was completely at peace.

When Things Took A Turn…

At 6 weeks along was when things took a turn for the worst and I started bleeding. I went into the ER and in my heart, I thought I had lost him. I remember thinking to myself “What is wrong with me? Another miscarriage just a few weeks later?”. To my absolute shock the ultrasound tech showed me his little flickering heartbeat on the screen, and I had never felt such relief in my life.

However, what followed was the hardest 9 months of my life. Without the support of my husband and incredible midwives I don’t think I could have done it.

What started out as a subchorionic hemorrhage (fairly common) turned into a placental abruption (where the placenta pulls off the uterine wall) and caused me to bleed every day from week 6 to 30. I lived in constant anxiety and felt a wave of fear every time I pulled down my underwear. I had little hope that this baby would make it, but I had never wanted something so bad in my life.

If you followed Chrissy Teigen’s story, which unfortunately didn’t end the way mine did, it was almost identical to my journey.

I was on and off bedrest for months and most doctors told me there was no way this baby would live. Every week or so I would wake up to pools of blood and was convinced this was the time, this time I was losing him for sure. But every ER visit and every ultrasound they told me he was still not only fighting but growing perfectly.

At one point around 18-20 weeks the doctor said the placenta was “barely holding on” and it didn’t look hopeful. At 30 weeks I had another ultrasound and the bleeding had completely gone. While I felt relief, I still lived every day in fear that it would happen again. Skip forward to 39 weeks and Frankie was born vaginally and completely healthy. Here we are 15 months later, and he is a thriving, funny, kind, and beautiful toddler. Bringing Franklin into this world is my greatest accomplishment and a lot of therapy later I know he was meant to be mine.

My Breastfeeding Journey

Our breastfeeding journey was pretty tough on me, but I worked hard, and Frankie was successfully exclusively breastfed, and our journey is still going strong at 15 months. He had a pretty bad tongue tie that required numerous cuts because it kept reattaching even after doing all the exercises. The tie was very painful on my nipples and I was constantly cracked and bleeding.

It wasn’t until 5 months that things were going totally smoothly but I am so grateful things worked out. Breastfeeding is very important to me and it’s still such a beautiful bonding time for us.  We never did formula with Frankie, but I do have both an electric pump and hand pump. He took a bottle from the beginning which was helpful because my husband would do one bottle a night so I could have a bigger stretch of sleep. Frankie has always been a bad sleeper so I took any break I could get!

Something that surprised me about breastfeeding was that sometimes you need to put in the work in order to work out the kinks. Even though it was tough, I would always choose to keep working at it.

My advice to other breastfeeding parents would be to not be so hard on yourself. Things can be terrible, and it’ll never get better, but I promise if you remain calm and stick with it, of course asking for help from lactations consultants and midwives, things can get better, and you can have a successful long-term journey.

Prenatal Ease Nursing Vitamins Helped Me So Much

Before breastfeeding I had no clue how much it takes a toll on your body to feed a baby 8-10 times a day. At 15 months old we are still nursing constantly so I needed a little extra assistance to make sure I feel well and keep my energy up. Yes! I am so happy that taking Prenatal Ease Nursing Vitamins helps both me and Franklin, and I already have more energy. Before becoming a mum, I had no clue you needed to take supplements while nursing. That’s why a product like this, that combines tons of vitamins in one, is easy for mums who already feel overwhelmed with a new baby. I would recommend it to every new mom!

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