iraq – The Great Pudding Club Hunt

Spring 2007 continued

Finally, two days after discovering I was pregnant, I received my ‘Call Forward’ to fly to a US Military Hospital in Kuwait. By this point, I had made my excuses to colleagues (An Ovarian Cyst that probably needed surgery), eaten just two crackers, hid under my bed from another five rocket attacks, slept a lot, caught up on several episodes of 24 and thoroughly read up on pregnancy and ectopic pregnancies. I was exhausted and feeling weak. I could barely pick up my daypack, body armour and rifle; the bag was packed for only 2 nights – that officially made me pathetically weak.

I waited for my ride to Kuwait in the helicopter departures lounge. I was the only one there waiting. A crew member called my name and asked me to follow him, he took my bag from me (he probably thought I was actually a real medevac patient). My pre-deployment training was running through my head. How to get on and off a helicopter, depending on the type of helicopter, depends on where you can and can’t load/unload. This helicopter, a lynx, had its engine off anyway, so it didn’t matter. There was no chance of getting my head chopped off or sucked into the intakes. The crew member showed me to my seat, he was overly jolly considering it was 0130 AM. It looked like I was getting the helicopter all to myself. The crew member turned out to be the door gunner. The two pilots arrived shortly after and introduced themselves. They were HILARIOUS, typical Army Air Corps pilots. I was given a headset so I could listen in to all their intercom chatter.

As the engines started, I began to feel nervous. Last time I flew into Iraq, we got shot at and rocketed. A nice welcome from the Insurgents. But suddenly my nerves were overtaken by pain. Pain in my shoulder. I read about this in ectopic pregnancies. Just as I started to worry and think the worst, the gunner handed me some night vision goggles. He pointed out the window. I looked through the goggles and I could see the shimmering lights of Basrah City, and the oil fields. It was magical. It was bitter-sweet.

As soon as we crossed the border into Kuwait, the gunner closed the door and removed his body armour, indicating to me I should do the same. The comedy pilots debated where they should land in the US base. Is this not something you would know before taking off??! We flew over at least 25 parked up black hawks. Do we even have this many helicopters in the British Forces?? After a few laps of the base we found somewhere to land. No one was there to greet us. Well it was 0230AM, I wasn’t too surprised at this! Whilst I received a comedy show, one of the pilots managed to call through to the hospital. We were at the wrong helipad. No shit Sherlock! Of course, this base was big enough to have two helipads. We were told to wait there and a nurse would come pick me up. I could have been sleepwalking at this point, the next hour was a blur.

Somehow, I woke up lying down on a hospital bed, trying to answer the doctor’s questions. I was immediately put on an IV drip as I was severely dehydrated. Wow, I felt almost instantly better, but it was temporary. Next was the vaginal ultrasound. The whole reason I was in Kuwait. I had no clue what to expect, no one really explained what was going to happen and that the nurse would be male. The nurse told me I was about 6 weeks pregnant, and he printed out a picture of the ‘blob’. Because that is all it was, I wasn’t really experienced in ultrasound photos at this stage of pregnancy. He reassured me that everything looked just fine. No ectopic pregnancy. Phew!!! So what now?

Well I had a few more hours with the IV drip, and I was ‘quizzed’ by one of the nurses – what was I going to call my baby? Had I thought of names? Would I name the baby after him? Would I email him to let me know how the baby was? He was genuinely excited for me. Bless him, because he seemed to be the only one. I was given a prescription for the nausea (no idea what the drug was called), some folic acid and vitamin D and told I HAD to eat, for the sake of my baby.

I was taken to a temporary bunk where there was one other British female who was recovering from surgery from Appendicitis. She was an Officer so I kept myself to myself. The next day, I was driven to the ‘weekend spa resort’. This is where battle weary soldiers were sent to from Iraq at least once in their 6 month tour to get a break. It had a makeshift Jacuzzi (more like a paddling pool), sunbed loungers, massages, decent internet, volleyball, and computer games. Lots of computer games. Everyone was in civvies (civilian attire), I had not packed any civilian clothes, so I walked around in my pyjama shorts and a T-shirt. I felt free! No, body armour, rifle or rocket attacks. I still felt nauseous so I didn’t even get to enjoy one of the ‘two cans of beer’ we were allowed. I tried to eat, I really wanted to, so I took one of the tablets I was prescribed. That seemed to do the job, and I managed to get half a plate of food down me. The nurse would be proud of me. Despite the ‘spa’ environment, it was lonely and I tried to get on the earliest flight back to Iraq, I missed my squadron, I missed my friends and I knew I was letting them down right now. After one more night in Kuwait and I was back in Iraq, feeling a little better, but the pains were still coming. This sucked.

Back in Basrah, I had an appointment at the medical center to discuss what next. I had a completely different doctor, so had to start my story from the very beginning. I think this doctor was the first to show any compassion. He also told me that I was lucky to get the prescription for the nausea because it was not allowed in the UK, it was up to me if I wanted to keep taking it. To date I still have no idea what this drug was because I threw it in the bin after the British Doctor told me this. Of course the next step was to ‘medevac’ me back to the UK because I was not allowed to be in the theatre of operations anymore, it was too dangerous for my unborn baby.

A total of seven days had passed since I discovered I was pregnant. The only person who knew I was pregnant was my boyfriend (and of course the doctors and nurses I had met). As I sat in the hospital’s morale, welfare and recreational area waiting for my pre-flight checkup, I read many letters from random people wishing our soldiers well. It’s amazing so many people care to take time out of their day to write to ‘unknown soldiers’. Although the letters were clearly not aimed at pregnant female soldiers, their words were comforting. But this comfort slowly turned back to guilt. And the biggest guilt was yet to come. As I boarded the C-17 aircraft to fly home with the other 20 ‘Medevacs’, I sat down amongst people who had broken arms, missing legs, wounds and scars to their face. Then there were the two bed patients, one of whom was in a controlled coma so that he could fly back and be with his family. He was probably not going to live for much longer.

I hadn’t told anyone I was flying back to the UK, I couldn’t; I was shamed, confused and exhausted. I just needed some time on my own to figure out what was going on. My life was never going to be the same again.

On Being Pregnant in a War Zone Pt 1

Spring 2007

I winced as the doctor examined my stomach. The pain was excruciating. As he prodded, he said “feel here…see?” I felt my own stomach where he indicated – it was hard, not squishy like normal. I continued to wince as he poked around my tummy. “This is your poo. You are constipated. We will get you some laxatives and you should be better in a few……”. The piercing alarm sounded. We both looked at each other and quickly dived on to the floor. My body armour and helmet were in the waiting room, no chance of me grabbing hold of it in time. I leopard crawled under the table, it probably wouldn’t offer me much protection. The doctor grabbed his own body armour and helmet just as there was a loud thud and the ground shaked. As he put his body armour on and quickly threw on his helmet, he mumbled “Here we go again!” I wasn’t sure if he was trying to make conversation or if he had genuine grievance by the incoming rockets. The way I was feeling about these rockets I felt it was probably the latter. After a few minutes of what was probably the last rocket (usually 2-3 at a time), the doctor quickly stood up and said, “I’ve got to go, I’m on call for the crash emergency team. Wait here until the all clear, someone will be with you soon.” And he ran out of his office.

As I lay there on the dusty floor waiting for the all clear siren to sound, I felt stupid. I felt stupid and embarrassed that all I had was constipation. I wondered how it had happened. For the last 8 days I had hardly eaten a thing, I felt nauseous and I had horrific stomach pains. These pains were sharp and short, sort of like my IBS pains, but twice as painful as usual. But this didn’t seem like IBS. I promised myself I would go to the doctor after 7 days of feeling like this.

The all clear siren sounded. I got up and left the office to speak to the corporal at the reception desk. I explained what had happened, she told me to take a seat in the waiting room and another Doctor would see me shortly. I waited for half an hour. All I could think about was that someone must have been injured by the rocket attack, otherwise my doctor would be back by now. This made me very sad.

I was called into the very same office I had been in just 30 minutes ago, but this doctor was different. I explained that the previous doctor was just about to prescribe me something for constipation. He asked me to tell him from the beginning what the problem was and the symptoms I was suffering. He wasn’t going to sign anything until he made his own diagnosis.

He asked me all sorts of questions about my IBS, what I had been eating, how often etc…it all made sense to me. New environment, crappy food, stress from rockets. Usually my IBS presents with horrific diarrhea, but now my IBS was giving me constipation. Not uncommon, right? But this doctor asked me (like the other doctor) “Is there a chance you could be pregnant?” I laughed and said “No, very unlikely!”, he said, “Well let’s be sure, I want you to take a pregnancy test before I prescribe you anything”. “Sure….” I said, but muttered to myself “…if you want to waste our time”. The doctor called in the nurse and explained I was to take a pregnancy test. I dutifully peed in the cup and together we sat down and waited for the results. The nurse tried to make small talk about the recent rocket attack. She proceeded to tell me that a lot of girls try to get pregnant on purpose to avoid deploying or wanting to be sent home. But then her words slowly slurred to a halt, she paused and exclaimed with a look of unexpected shock “errrr you are………pregnant! Ummm, congratulations?!?”.

I could feel the blood drain from my face in disbelief. I haven’t had a period in years after my depo provera issues, how was this possible? What is going to happen now? I’m not ready for this. I’m not one of these girls who purposefully gets pregnant just to be sent home. I volunteered to deploy to Iraq! I volunteered to be with the rest of my unit. Despite the shit getting real with the rockets, I wanted to be there, to do my job, to serve my country.

I could hear in the distant background, the nurse asking me all sorts of questions about if this is what I wanted? Was I excited? Did I need anything? But I was in too much shock to answer her questions other than mumble a no.

The doctor who made me take the test called me back into his office and said “Well, now we can explain the constipation and nausea. But this doesn’t explain your pain. We need to make sure you are not having an ectopic pregnancy. Let’s get you to the Emergency Hospital for a checkup by the specialist. I was hurried out of the doctor’s office, into the back of an ambulance to drive the half mile to the emergency hospital. This was the most embarrassing thing of it all. Being driven into the ER entrance. Pregnant. Not shot, wounded or even sick. Just pregnant.

I had no idea what an ectopic pregnancy really meant. I was prodded and poked all over again by several nurses and doctors. They even checked my constipation and try to help it along, but there was nothing in there. There was no poo. After all, I had barely eaten for the last 7 days. I hadn’t pooed in 4 days.

Finally, my boyfriend arrived at the hospital (yes we were deployed together, we got it together during pre-deployment training). He had no idea why I was in the hospital, he had left me at the doctors only 2 hours ago! He looked panicked. I looked at him and tried to get the words out, but I just started crying. It was the first time I cried since finding out my news. Eventually he got it out of me, and we both cried. We cried conspicuously together as we were not really sure how else to do it, this crying thing.

The hospital facilities on our camp did not have a vaginal ultrasound machine. The closest one was in another country – Kuwait at a US Airforce base. They wanted to check if the pregnancy was ectopic as the symptoms matched. I was put on the medevac waiting list and told to go back to my room and rest until I was called to fly.

I went back to my room, cried a lot, read up on ectopic pregnancy, and asked myself a lot of questions. How will I explain this to my unit, to my boss? Will my boss know already? What are the rules on medical confidentiality? Will they send me home? Will I be discharged from the Army? What if I have an ectopic pregnancy? Should I tell my family? When will I be able to eat again? When will this pain go away? So many questions as I lay in my room, sometimes in bed, sometimes on the floor under my bed as the rockets kept coming throughout the day and night. Get some rest? Ha. No rest for me….

TBC.