I’ve always had horrible vision. I started wearing glasses in early elementary school and wore them full time until I got contacts my freshman year of high school. Since then I have worn contacts full time.

Before I got pregnant with Wagon Jr., my prescription was -6 in my left eye and -6.5 in my right, and that had been relatively consistent since college. Pregnancy messes with your body in so many ways, so about a year after his birth, I wasn’t shocked to find out that my eyes had become -7 and -7.5. I updated my contacts and glasses and continued wearing contacts full time.

Then after I had Lil Miss Wagon, my eyes didn’t just take another huge dive in prescription (all the way to -8 and -9!), but they were also looking very red. I wasn’t experiencing much pain or discomfort, and it didn’t seem to make a difference whether I was wearing my contacts or my glasses, so I just ignored it. Then my eyes started becoming very tired, especially at night after a long day of staring at a computer screen at work. I was feeling a lot of pressure behind my eyes, and I knew something was probably wrong when I couldn’t read words on the TV anymore and I started seeing double.

I went to see an opthalmologist who diagnosed me with severe dry eye. I started on a routine of 4 different kinds of eye drops: a steroid drop, a prescription drop called Restaysis to help me produce more tears naturally, a gel drop for nighttime (apparently I sleep with my eyes slightly open!), and artificial tears to instill every hour of the day. All of a sudden I became an eye drop expert (a previously foreign section of the pharmacy I quickly conquered! Holy moly are eye drops expensive.) and my nightstand was totally taken over. In addition to my drops routine, my opthamologist instructed me to start taking fish oil supplements and using hot compresses on my eyes each night. I was determined to fix my eyes and keep them in good health.

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After a month, I revisited the opthalmologist and she was pleased with my progress. I asked her what had caused this… in my decades of full time contact wearing, I had never experienced dry eye. She told me that many moms who breastfeed for an extended period of time experience dry eye because your body chemistry changes so much with all the hormonal changes of pregnancy, postpartum changes and breastfeeding. She also explained that since this was my second time breastfeeding, that could have pushed my eyes over the edge. Another optometrist I met later on in my eye health journey told me that anecdotally, women who have girls tend to get dry eye. She guessed that I had had a girl when I told her about my postpartum dry eye!

(I should also note here that after I had weaned myself off of the steroid drop, my eyes basically went back to square one with a huge rebound reaction. I panicked and then googled and realized it was very common. It was frustrating to have to basically start all over again, but I learned an important lesson about steroids..!)

After my eyes were finally getting to a good place, I tried to wear my contacts to attend a wedding and my eyes did not react well at all. After that, my opthalmologist diagnosed me as contact lens intolerant.

That was surprisingly devastating to me. I hate wearing glasses. I have a flat nose with no bridge, so glasses without nose pads always slide down my face, and glasses with nose pads always gave me headaches. My high prescription always required me to get the thinnest lens possible, making them super expensive and still pretty heavy. I sweat a lot, and dealing with glasses while you’re sweating is no fun at all– the wiping, the steaming up, the slipping off your nose. Plus it’s not fun at all applying makeup with eyes as bad as mine. I’d apply foundation basically blindly, then put on my glasses to see if I had missed any spots. Then take them off to apply blush and bronzer, then put on to check evenness. Then take off to apply eye makeup (with a tiny hand mirror held two centimeters away from my eyes!), then put on to check evenness… and so on. Forget about my best friend, mascara– even a single coat would cause my lashes to hit the lenses. Sob. And, of course, my glasses would get caked with makeup, dirt and sweat throughout the day. Yum.

I decided that this was the time to finally look into LASIK. I waited until my prescription stabilized, more than a year after having LMW. I was so happy when I was told I’d be a candidate at my consultation. Many people are not candidates, or have to get a different procedure called PRK which has the same outcome (and similar cost) but has a longer recovery period (LASIK being a few days, PRK at least a week). My prescription was extreme, but I have unusually thick corneas, so I qualified for LASIK. With my history of dry eye, I’d have to be vigilant about my eye health because the procedure can cause and worsen dry eye.

It’s an expensive, elective procedure that is not covered by insurance, so I put aside the max FSA amount so that half would be pre-tax. I scheduled the procedure for the day after my birthday in February. After more than six months of exclusively wearing glasses, I had my LASIK done and I couldn’t be happier. It was one of the most exciting days of my life and the moment I had been looking forward to happened the next morning: I opened my eyes and, without having to fumble for my glasses, I saw my kids’ beautiful faces clearly.

My LASIK came with a lifetime guarantee, so the next time I will ever wear glasses, they will be reading glasses! The kind you only wear for close-up seeing and you can pick them up at the drugstore for a few bucks. And hopefully that’s at least a little ways off.

Was your eye health affected by pregnancy?