When bad things happen to you at Disney…

This one might be a little sensitive for some of you. I want to talk about a thing that happened to me two Disney trips ago. But first I want to take a little time and talk about my most favorite person in the whole wide world. The bravest, smartest and most resilient little person that I have ever known…My son.

My son was born at 25 weeks 5 days. My waters broke on Halloween night in 2017 and I was 21 weeks pregnant. I then spent almost 5 of the worst weeks of my life on bed rest in and out of a hospital. In those weeks I experienced the most stress and most fear that I had ever experienced in my life up until then . I never knew when he was going to come. I was back and forth to labor and delivery, on and off medications and checked constantly. They eventually had to do a c-section when it was no longer safe for him to stay inside me. (Bed rest Mom’s can we talk about recovery from that c-section…the most pain I have ever been in in my life)

My beautiful baby boy spent 129 days in the NICU. Within the first two weeks the neurologist (while talking over my son) told me to stop fighting for him. That he would have no quality of life. So many ups and downs. I was there EVERY SINGLE DAY. I saw everything that that little life went through and thankfully he will not remember any of those things.

This child continues to have a few issues but nothing that impacts his quality of life. I wish I could parade him in front of the neurologist so he can see just how wrong he was. He is thriving and learning and is so funny and smart. And HE LOVES DISNEY. He loves everything Disney and I’m sure he has gotten a lot of that from me. I hear all the time from people “You went to Disney AGAIN?” Yes! I took my son to our favorite place and we had so much fun! I’ll take him as often as we can afford it! We always have so much fun. Even when the worst things are happening. This leads me to the whole point of this blog.

We never planned to have more children. We went through so much with our son. More would have been a blessing but I wasn’t prepared to put myself through that mentally or physically. BUT in February of this year I started to feel tired and just a little off. Turns out I was pregnant. I was so scared but after a few weeks I embraced it and decided I was going to be happy and try not to worry the entire pregnancy. I had a Disney trip scheduled for April for my birthday with my son and my parents. I started researching the rides I could and couldn’t go on. I was tired but excited.

On the drive down to Disney in April I started to not feel so great. I started to bleed a little (which happened plenty in the first pregnancy) but I tried to brush it off. We stopped for the night and I asked my mom to take me to the ER. This is where they confirmed the worst was happening. I was showing the signs of a miscarriage and would probably miscarry within the week.

The next morning we got up and headed to Disney. I know that may seem hard for some people to grasp but my Dad hadn’t been to Disney in probably 20 years. I know my parents were looking forward to it and it was going to be extra special for my son being there with Grandma and Grandpa. Usually I prefer to go alone with my son but I’m so glad my parents were there to help with him…and me.

Most of the days I managed ok. I walked 15-20,000 steps like a usual Disney trip but probably a little slower. The rides were fun but I definitely noticed more bumps that I would not have usually felt. I visited the restroom way more times than usual and my son (who shared a stall with me) found out way more about the female anatomy than he was probably ready to learn about. Most of that week I basically just had very very bad menstrual cramps.

Enjoying a margarita on my Birthday at San Angel Inn restaurant in the Mexico Pavilion

The Birthday Squad (my son wasn’t feeling the pictures)

Friday was most definetly the worst day of the week. We went to Magic Kingdom in the morning. It was crowded and I was tired. I sent the rest of the group to Mickey’s PhilharMagic while we waited for our DAS (for my dad) return time for Seven Dwarf’s Mine train. I was going to get some coffee and a snack to help me feel better. While I was alone I started to feel pain. Like pain I have never experienced. They met back up with me and I told them we needed to leave. It was too crowded and I was having problems walking. We took the Monorail over to the Polynesian. I just needed to get away from the crowds and just relax a bit. At this point I needed to lean on my son’s stroller for support to walk. We got on the elevator to ride down to Captain Cooks for lunch and that’s when it happened. I won’t go in to any of the specifics. If you have experienced a miscarriage you probably know.

We went for lunch afterwards and then walked over to the Grand Floridian. You just have to carry on. I could have just gone to my hotel room to be sad and dwell on what just happened but I didn’t. I love Disney and I wanted to continue to love Disney so I just continued on. We made more good memories on that trip and I just tried my best to put what was happening to the back of my mind. There was plenty of time to deal with that when I got home.

I’m still trying to get past that miscarriage. We went to Disney a few weeks ago. We stayed at Shades of Green so I was in the Polynesian daily and I’m thankful that I still see it the way I did before. I’d still love to be able to afford to stay at a bungalow and hope to be able to grab an O’hana reservation now that he characters have returned.

If you have read this far then thank you for hanging in there. I know this one wasn’t the lightest read and it’s hard to think of subjects that are this hard and Disney at the same time. I’m hoping one take away from my experience is that people go through tough stuff everyday. Even when they are visiting Disney. So try to be nice.