{"id":144774,"date":"2022-10-04T13:30:38","date_gmt":"2022-10-04T17:30:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mothermag.com\/?p=144774"},"modified":"2023-03-05T07:54:28","modified_gmt":"2023-03-05T12:54:28","slug":"surviving-a-high-risk-pregnancy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mothermag.com\/surviving-a-high-risk-pregnancy\/","title":{"rendered":"Why I Quit My Career After Surviving A High Risk Pregnancy"},"content":{"rendered":"

October marks Pregnancy & Infant Loss Awareness Month and today we’re bringing you the story of a woman who’s made it her mission to help moms-to-be brave a pregnancy after loss. Parijat Deshpande<\/a> is the CEO of a boutique company dedicated to reducing pregnancy complications and ending preterm birth. A pregnancy loss survivor herself, she’s also the author of Pregnancy Brain: A Mind-Body Approach to Stress Management During a High-Risk Pregnancy<\/a>. Below she shares a bit about her story of surviving a high risk pregnancy and why she’s devoted to helping others do the same.<\/em><\/p>\n

After her own experience with high-risk pregnancy, Parijat went from patient to practitioner to help other women beat the statistics\u2014a journey she chronicled in her bestselling book, Pregnancy Brain: A Mind-Body Approach to Stress Management During a High-Risk Pregnancy. Today, she continues to take a trauma-informed, neurobiological approach to reproductive health to help her concierge-level private clients improve pregnancy outcomes after preterm birth or late-term loss. Parijat also consults with medical clinics, NICUs, antepartum and labor and delivery units, training them to optimize patient satisfaction and improve patient outcomes by leveraging trauma-informed patient and family-centered care<\/p>\n

I remember it like it was yesterday. I was stuck at home during the summertime when the weather was beautiful and everyone else I knew was at work or in grad school and busy with their lives. I was alone at home, stuck indoors, on modified activity restrictions because of my high-risk pregnancy.<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t realize then just how much more high-risk my pregnancy would become.<\/p>\n

I wasn\u2019t used to being alone without anything to do. I loved being busy with a calendar full of professional, personal, and social happenings. Now, suddenly, I had everything wiped off of my to-do list and calendar and was forced to be at home and do less. It was all so foreign to me not only because I was used to being busy, but because the distractions of Netflix binges and fiction novels weren\u2019t helping with the very real fear I was living with of losing another child.<\/p>\n

My first pregnancy ended abruptly when I was rushed to the emergency room due to a ruptured ectopic pregnancy. I didn\u2019t know at the time that ruptured ectopic pregnancies are actually one of the most dangerous experiences for women who are trying to conceive and trying to be pregnant. Now, in my second pregnancy after getting pregnant from IVF, I was not only having to reconcile that I had just survived a life-threatening experience, but also live in the reality that I could potentially lose a second child.<\/p>\n

One afternoon, as I sat at home, the light flooding through the floor-to-ceiling windows behind the sofa I was parked on for weeks, I remember thinking I need support. I need help. I was feeling helpless, like I would do anything in the world to help this baby but had no idea what that could be. I felt like my hands were tied and I was angry. I had done everything right: I had taken all the prenatal vitamins, attended all my appointments, ate healthily and exercised (before I was asked to stay home and stay off my feet) regularly. Why was this happening to me, to us?<\/p>\n

I knew I needed help and support but I didn\u2019t know where to turn. As someone who was trained professionally in clinical psychology, I knew what response I would get if I contacted someone like me\u2014a counselor or therapist. I knew what they would say to try to calm my anxiety; they\u2019d try to help me shift my thoughts from fear to positivity, teaching me to cope with my anxiety or validate my feelings without giving me something actionable to do to actually help me stay pregnant. Now that the roles had switched and I was the patient\u2014the mother feeling this fear and the mama-bear instinct to protect this child\u2014I knew that calming down or changing my thoughts wasn\u2019t at all what I wanted or needed.<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t want coping strategies for my anxiety or advice on how to breathe deeply. What I wanted and needed was to learn how to protect my pregnancy from my fear of losing another child. I wanted to know that it was normal and even expected that a person who is pregnant after a loss is going to be scared\u2014and that it was a waste of my energy to try to focus on minimizing the fear.<\/p>\n

I wanted to know: How do I protect my pregnancy, my life, and my baby?<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t know of a single person who was doing that work. I definitely didn\u2019t know anyone who was doing this from a body-based perspective\u2014from the angle or perspective of normalizing the somatic experience while also showing that there is a way to improve your odds of staying pregnant. It was that experience, along with so many more in the months after, like landing in the hospital during the periviable stage and being told to prepare ourselves to lose our child, that led me to the work I do today.<\/p>\n

The Wednesday before our son was born at 24 weeks and 5 days, I made a vow to him and myself that if we both survived, I would change my career. I vowed that I would leave everything behind from my then role as a child and family therapist and undergraduate Psychology Lecturer at UC Berkeley to become that person I needed during my pregnancy. I would be someone who understood and normalized the experience and the fears of being pregnant after loss and also had the science, biology, and research to back up how pregnant people can influence their bodies to help themselves stay pregnant, reduce the risk of complications, and reduce the risk of preterm birth.<\/p>\n

I have done just that. I left everything behind to become the person I needed back then and that so many others navigating pregnancy loss, preterm birth, and high-risk pregnancy need now. In the past few years, I\u2019ve been able to walk alongside and support hundreds of pregnant people to help them stay pregnant, beat medical odds, and reclaim a trust in their bodies that they thought was eroded forever. If there\u2019s one thing I hope you take away as you are going through your pregnancy loss, preterm birth, or high-risk pregnancy, it\u2019s this: this was not your fault. You did nothing wrong to deserve this. And also, there is SO much hope for the future for a different experience next time\u2014hope that\u2019s based in science and neurobiology.<\/p>\n

Are you a mother with\u00a0something to say?\u00a0Send us an email<\/a>\u00a0to be considered for our \u201cMom Talk<\/a>\u201d column.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

October marks Pregnancy & Infant Loss Awareness Month and today we’re bringing you the story of a woman who’s made it her mission to help moms-to-be brave a pregnancy after loss. Parijat Deshpande is the CEO of a boutique company dedicated to reducing pregnancy complications and ending preterm birth. A pregnancy loss survivor herself, she’s…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":144783,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[159,59,138,75],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mothermag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144774"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mothermag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mothermag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mothermag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mothermag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=144774"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.mothermag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144774\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":151699,"href":"https:\/\/www.mothermag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144774\/revisions\/151699"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mothermag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/144783"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mothermag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=144774"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mothermag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=144774"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mothermag.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=144774"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}