How the COVID Vaccine got me pregnant

I decided to write this blog post because so many of you sent me private messages after I wrote that Facebook post in February. I had no idea how many women had been keeping track of that post. The post shared that I had gotten the vaccine, that my period was late, and that I had had some negative pregnancy tests, and I just wanted to hear from other women about their own stories.

So here's the rest of my story.

Before I had put up that post, I had taken three pregnancy tests after my period was late (my period is never late). The first one, just a few days after my missed period. The second and third ones, a week, then a week and a half late. Negative, negative, negative. And these were early detection pregnancy tests.

How could this be?

A timeline, for those of you who want some more data:

I had my first COVID vaccine--the Pfizer vaccine--on January 14th. My period came, as predicted, on January 16th. All seemed fine. Then I received the second vaccine dose on February 4th. My period was expected to come on February 10th (exactly 27 days after the last one--been that way for years and years).

It didn't come, and neither did any reaction to (either dose of) the vaccine. I kept waiting for the dreaded fevers, exhaustion, body aches ... nothing. It wasn't until the morning after celebrating my 8 year anniversary of meeting my husband that I started to feel nauseous. That was February 24th. Still no period. But now began the nausea, the revulsion towards anything other than fruit and vegetables ... and the extreme fatigue. I had assumed it was all a delayed reaction to the vaccine. That weekend, in fact, I had some body aches and slight fevers, as I found myself wanting to lay in bed all day long. I was falling asleep and even snoring at random times. Completely not my normal self. As these symptoms lumbered on for days and even weeks, I started to desperately worry.

When I saw my acupuncturist, he told me that my liver had basically shut down. "This can happen when people get vaccines," he said. I got confirmation that this is true from two other practitioners. In fact, parents often opt out of giving their children vaccines for this same reason--they don't want to overload their little one's small, new liver. It doesn't happen to all of us ... but my liver is definitely a place where stress arrives when it comes. Some people have heart issues, lung issues, skin issues--mine has always seemed to be a liver thing.

So I was not only nauseous, but I had this really terrible liver shut down that I knew very well, from being sick with chronic fatigue in my early 30's. It's sort of a feeling of just not wanting to move, of being stuck, of being depressed, and not wanting to eat anything other than quick sugars, like the fruit and veggies, because you just don't feel like you have the energy to digest anything. All of this, in the context of thinking I was not pregnant, and hearing more and more stories of women with delayed periods after not only COVID itself, but after the vaccine, too.

I waited another week, and after I still felt nauseous, awful, and utterly lethargic, I decided to take just one more test. It was lunchtime--my husband Lucas had gotten me another box of tests while I taught yoga in the backyard that morning. After class I walked into the house and into the bathroom. I peed casually on the stick while I talked to Lucas, who was in the doorway. He was also chatting with our babysitter and our daughter, who were playing in the next room.

The test immediately showed the + sign.

"Uhhhhh, babe?" I said.

He looked at me. I pointed at the stick. He looked at the stick.

"Holy shit! What???"

We immediately got in the car, telling our babysitter we were going to the grocery store. We proceeded to talk about all of it.

At this point, I was already almost 2 months pregnant. I had basically just suffered through more than half of the first trimester without even knowing it.

I immediately felt relieved, because I now had a story that could explain, in more detail, what the hell was going on with me. It wasn't just some super weird vaccine reaction--I was pregnant! This was obviously a huge mixture of symptoms that came from both situations!

And so, of course, I started going back in time, trying to track how the hell this had happened.

My husband and I only use the good old rhythm method in very small windows--2 or 3 days before an expected period, at most. So I am led to believe that the first dose of the vaccine delayed my ovulation by at least a week, maybe more, and that we had one session of unprotected sex a day or two before my next expected period--and bam, there it was.

We learned a few weeks later, after doing a genetic test, that the baby is a boy. If the science I have read about, casually, is true, then this means that the sex happened during ovulation--because male sperm live for a short time, and just sort of burst forth into the egg and do their thing, while female sperm tend to hang out and linger, sinking themselves into the egg days after the intercourse (presumably what happened with our daughter--also a big surprise).

I also looked up some stats on the likelihood of getting pregnant at my age--40. The stats tell us that amongst 40 year old women who are actively trying to get pregnant--that is, making sure to have sex in the fertile window--the odds are a mere 1 out of 20.

And then there's the weird, delayed reaction of the vaccine--why did I get a fever and body ache over two weeks after I got the second shot? Was my body holding back these symptoms to protect the baby? Also, why did I have three negative pregnancy tests so long after I had missed my period? Some of these questions, of course, will never get answered.

So here we are--not trying, no plan of this at all--and I can only conclude that the COVID vaccine had a huge part to play in this super surprise pregnancy.

We are on board and excited at this point--especially knowing we will have a boy to accompany his big sister, our daughter--but man, it is an understatement to say that we were shocked.

I am sharing this story for those of you who may want a warning. If you use natural methods of birth control like the rhythm method, do not trust them at all if you've been recently vaccinated. At this point I have received several articles from some of you about this very issue--but it's not quite "documented science" yet. So, here's my story, just to add to the mix.

I am also sharing it for women who, like me, like to have some awareness of their hormonal ebbs and flows. So many people in our culture write off the female cycle as just "this annoying thing" that happens every month. PMS gets mocked and downplayed. And so many doctors tell us to go get IUDs and birth control--"they won't have that big an impact" (I could write a whole other article about how an IUD fucked up my life for the three weeks it was in my body, after my doc said "You'll be totally fine"). It is important for us to go against the grain when it comes to following the intuitions of our own bodies. The hormonal cycle is very real--there are times in the month when we will have more energy, times when we will grieve, times when we will need to rest more. None of this is taught to us in any systemized way by the culture we live in. And any vaccine can have an impact on all of it, so we should be aware of that.

I also just want to add that it saddens me to see how polarized the issue of vaccination has become. Please, if you know someone who has chosen not to get the vaccine, try to respect their decision. I am confident that some of the symptoms I was experiencing had nothing to do with my pregnancy, and I am not totally sure that I would have gotten the vaccine if I had known what a crappy ride it would have taken my liver on (I still might have, but even just being prepared for that could have helped). Yes, I got the vaccine "for the world," but sometimes a personal choice needs to be honored, too. If someone is afraid of the effects the vaccine could have on their hormones, on their liver, or some other issue, please try to listen. Some of us have worked very hard for our hormonal balance (and therefore our mental health). If someone chooses not to get vaccinated, for now (perhaps waiting to see what the long term effects are, since we literally don't even know yet??), maybe we try not to write them off. If they are masking up, socially distancing, and taking other precautions to keep themselves and others safe, perhaps we could just give them some time.

Some of us liberal thinkers have gotten so embedded in our way of thinking that we are turning a bit fundamentalist. I am not even sure what my opinion is, ultimately, on the issue of the vaccine, but I do know that I wish people would just slow down and pause, listening to personal stories, before coming to such quick conclusions and shoving people into categories like "pro and anti vaxers" without taking a moment to reflect. Perhaps we have gotten too attached to our opinions, and we've forgotten how to just listen to the person in front of us.

That is all for now.

Baby boy is due October 14th. I think I will name him Vax (just kidding). But--not kidding--I am hoping to have my little boy nurse on my teet while I'm in headstand like this badass in the pic.

xoxo

Hollie