Fainting Through It
How this needlephobe figured out how to navigate all of pregnancy's blood draws
The first time it happened, I was twelve. It was a test for allergies. I hadn't eaten lunch. I felt the tourniquet tighten around my arm, smelled the rubbing alcohol, and the next thing I knew, I felt like my bones were made of noodles and I was floating through space. I woke up on the floor, both the phlebotomist and my mom's faces over me, my body covered in ice-cold sweat.
Since then, needles have been a particular torment, one that I avoided so fervidly that I would avoid going to the doctor altogether rather than have them pressure me about being poked by one of them. The thought of needles reduced me to hysterics, evading them felt as urgent to me as backing away from the edge of a cliff probably feels to a spooked horse.
I fainted when I had to have a tuberculosis test in order to be cleared to work as a CNA in a nursing home. Tuberculosis tests are done with the tiniest needle in the world. They are the size of doll needles, and I couldn't handle it.
Once, before a surgical procedure when I was 25, a nurse had to sit on me in order to insert an IV.
It was not something I could control, even though I tried. I did not enjoy being that afraid of something so routine in medicine. It was embarrassing.
As I entered my thirties, I decided to DIY my own exposure therapy. After I finished a marathon without shitting my pants, I was feeling tough, so I decided that I would challenge my needle phobia by getting a small tattoo. My hope was that if I selected a tattoo artist who was cool enough, I would be so overcome with a desire to not embarrass myself that my pride would defeat my phobia. But when the big day came, I had no problem dealing with the tattoo needle; in fact, I didn't mind it at all. Turned out, my phobia was more specific.
I discovered not long after that I also wasn't paralyzingly afraid of receiving shots. I didn't enjoy it, but it wasn't debilitating, especially since vaccinations were required before going on a trip to a place I'd always wanted to go.
I also wasn't afraid of needles in dental procedures, something I found out when I had my wisdom teeth removed.
Which led me to what my real phobia was: getting blood drawn.
I've looked for a medical term for this fear, and I have been able to find trypanophobia, which means fear of needles in all medical procedures-- but that's not quite right, since my fear isn't all needles, just the needles that want to drain me of blood. There's also hemophobia, or fear of blood, but that's not right, either. Maybe the right word is something like vdéllaphobia, (vdélla is Greek for bloodsucker).
Meanwhile, I continued to get shots, dental work, and tattoos, and declined blood draws at every check-up and never really bothered to get an annual physical. I justified it to myself by saying that if I was really sick, I'd be able to tell-- which I know, objectively, is ridiculous.
I was one of those people who was crushed when it turned out that Elizabeth Holmes was probably a fraud-- not because I had invested in Theranos or idolized her as a #girlboss, but because if the blood testing technology her company was allegedly developing had actually worked, me and all of the other needle exiles would have been off the hook. No more tourniquets, no more veins, no more phlebotomists... what a world that would have been. Silicon Valley had, once again, taken a good idea and ruined it.
On the day of my first prenatal appointment, when I was about 8 weeks along, I saw an ultrasound of a flickering little spot in the tiny thumb-shaped mass that would eventually become my baby's heartbeat in what would eventually become my baby. But I was distracted by the anxiety of how much blood my provider would have to take that day. I was so preoccupied by my fear that my blood pressure was higher than normal when they took my vitals.
That day, the unstoppable force of my phobia ran head-on into the immovable object of pregnancy blood tests. It was agony. At my 8-week appointment, I made the midwife hold my hand and apologized profusely to the woman taking my blood (because of COVID restrictions, my husband wasn't allowed to attend any of the early appointments with me). As I scheduled my next appointment, eyes still wet with humiliating fear-tears, I asked how many more times they'd need to take blood.
"A lot," said the nice woman behind the reception desk. In her eyes, pity and honesty wrestled. "It's a lot."
Okay. The writing was on the wall, and in my medical chart. I wanted to have a healthy pregnancy more than I didn't want to have blood drawn. So I was going to have to figure it out.
The next time, they took five vials of blood.
The time after that, two.
Then one. How much blood could they possibly need? Couldn't they refrigerate it or something?
After a few appointments, I started to notice that my reaction wasn't as dramatic and I wasn't preoccupied with fear in the days leading up to seeing my OB-GYN. The phlebotomist and I figured out a way to make the whole process as easy as possible for both of us. Even without Josh or the midwife or somebody else's hand to crush in my fear-grip, I was able to manage. The world did not end.
The last draw of my pregnancy happened a few weeks ago. They only took one vial. I looked away, but didn't close my eyes. I saw the midwife as I walked out, and she acted surprised by how unbothered I seemed by the whole thing, given my babyish reaction to my first draw, back in March. This might sound like something a child should have mastered-- and it is-- but for somebody like me, it felt like a huge accomplishment.
Having blood drawn isn't something I'll ever enjoy, or probably even be able to experience as a nonstressful situation, but here's how I made it work for me:
Have blood taken from the back of my hand/ back of my wrist. For some reason, having it taken from there doesn't cause the immediate fainting reaction that getting blood taken from the arm does.
Be very hydrated before my appointment, and make sure I've eaten enough that I'm not feeling hungry at all. This way, it's easier for the provider to find a workable vein in my hand and less likely that I'll pass out like I did when my phobia was born.
Lie down or recline as much as possible. I don't think I'll ever be one of those people who can have blood drawn sitting up. Too fainty.
Listen to a podcast on noise-canceling headphones.
Close eyes or look away.
Tense up the middle of my body during the procedure-- shoulders, abs, back muscles. I found this tip on a message board, and it seems to mitigate the vasovagal reaction that sometimes happens involuntarily with blood draws by preventing a sudden drop of blood pressure in the head.
Breathe deeply, but slowly.
Don't get up too quickly at the end.
Yes, it is a whole production, but this is what got me through it.
I wish I would have faced my fear sooner. Being that afraid of something that harmless undermined my concept of who I was and who I wanted to be. I wanted to be fearless, or at least brave, but can a person who feels faint at the smell of rubbing alcohol call themselves anything but a wimp?
My avoidance of blood draws could also have endangered my health. Pregnancy increases a person's blood volume dramatically, and fetal nourishment is filtered through the placenta, a vascular organ. If a person's blood isn't behaving correctly-- due to, say anemia or a clotting disorder-- it can seriously change the course of appropriate care for both mother and baby. By not knowing what my blood was doing before I decided to try having a baby (stupid!), I was flying blind.
It seems silly in retrospect, but phobias aren't logical. They're phobias.
After my last draw, in true adult baby fashion, I took myself out for soft serve ice cream. As I sat in my car in the parking lot and ate it very pregnantly, I thought to myself: That wasn't so bad. Maybe if I do this again one day, I won't need the headphones.
Illustration by Tara Jacoby