March 13, 2018 was my second day of work after returning from spring break. I had just had a nice week of rest during which I could spend time with my friends and family. That morning, I felt rotten. Nausea, fatigue, etc. I got myself prepared like every morning before going to work. Nothing different that morning, except I decided to take a pregnancy test. Without any expectation, only to see. My boyfriend and I had just started trying to have a baby a few months before. We were waiting patiently. Then, I glanced at this little stick... On that specific day, we learned that I had a life in my belly. Such a small human being -only four weeks old - hung on. We had dreamed of this so much and we were already in love with our baby. As a primary school teacher, I wasn’t immunized against Fifth Disease, an infectious disease that affects children and which is quite harmless to the mother, but which can be very dangerous for the fetus until the twentieth week of pregnancy. For that reason, I was on leave from work for the first weeks of my pregnancy. Rest at home, take walks, build a patio, and summer already arrived.

At my eighth week of pregnancy, we had our first follow-up at the high-risk pregnancy clinic of CHU Sainte-Justine to get an idea of how my first pregnancy was going to progress. Before I got pregnant, we had a meeting at CHU Sainte-Justine to see if I should be followed at that place because of my ileostomy condition. As my situation has been well controlled for several years, I was told I could be followed in any hospital near my home. However, I was followed in the gastroenterology department at CHU Sainte-Justine as a child, so it was reassuring for me to be followed in that familiar and trustworthy hospital. Subsequently, everything went smoothly and I had a nice pregnancy with few symptoms. From ultrasound scans to pregnancy follow-ups and the moments we could hear our baby's little heart, I loved every step.

My ostomy never was a problem. The shape of it adapted to my growing baby bump. I didn’t even have to change my ostomy equipment, which I really appreciated because I could go on using the same until the end.

November 15, 2018, around 9:00 pm, I had my first contractions. Slowly but surely, every contraction brought us a little closer to seeing our little miracle. Then on Saturday, November 17, at 11:10 am, our beautiful daughter was born in a burst of love and happiness. It was a long delivery, but everything went well.

Now, let's talk about poop a little. Many women already know that pooping while giving birth is highly possible. It's not glamorous, but it's natural and biological. Often, I joked with my friends that it wouldn’t happen to me since I no longer have an anus because of my permanent ileostomy. Nevertheless, I’ll give you some advice: make sure to empty your bag before giving birth... I promise it’ll fill up!

Becoming a mom and being pregnant had always been one of my dreams, with or without an ostomy. If it's one of yours too, don’t stop yourself from making it come true, go for it and live it to the fullest. At some points, it's harder, but taken as a whole, pregnancy is beautiful, magic and unique.

 Elisabeth

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