On The Day Your Were Born

September 06, 2005 | Category: Mother to the First Power

Soon enough, I will talk about how we went househunting and crunched numbers this weekend. How we celebrated the end of the summer. How a room finally got walls, and how fragile a trust can be. How we continued to wait on pins and needles. But now? Now is for something more important....

Because today is the anniversary of a miracle.

This is the story we tell every year on this day. You may remember it from last year. But of course, the telling changes a little as the years go by....

In fact is, I thought I'd had my period the week before - so on January 12, 2000, when we saw that fateful second line on the test stick, our momentary joy turned ... to a sad, helpless feeling of it already being too late.

I called the doctor on my way to work that morning. His nurse called back and asked me to come in. I got my purse and activated my screen saver. Looking back, I wonder how long it was on. Because I never went back to work....

2 days later - 2 days spent crying, cramping, bleeding, and then it was January 14. We arrived at the radiologist to have the sonogram confirming the lost pregnancy.

But, unbelievably... the technician jumped back a bit when he saw what is hard to detect at 7 weeks pregnant ... a heart was beating within me. CD gripped my hand tightly and we all watched, in giddy shock, the tiny movement on the screen - up. down. up. down.

I was still pregnant! The technician said softly "...a fighter" as we watched the incredibly small peapod clinging to existence. We nodded, reverantly. Our child.

As CD wiped away my tears, I could see it in his eyes. A determination that never faded, never gave up, and never doubted.

Now, it was all about survival. Nothing else mattered.

We went home, I crawled onto a couch, put my feet up, and there I stayed for the next 7 and half months - except a brief respite during the second trimester when things went really well for a few weeks.

I spent hours bargaining with God. Pleading for a miracle when every trip to the bathroom would trigger cramps and contractions.

Each year on this day, we wake up and celebrated. This story is a happy one...

Once upon a time....

There was a wedding (No, Bear - you weren't there. Because you weren't born yet...) and then pictures of sonograms (look! my feet!) and my belly.

And then, after 120 days of bedrest, we went in for a second Level 2 sonogram. 30 days earlier, we'd discovered you were a boy and that you were not thriving quite the way all those nice people in white coats would have liked.

The same technician again, measuring and computing. Finally, we asked "How is he?" She told us you were "Perfect. And very adorable." (well, of course! )

"How are his lungs and his weight?" I wanted to know. Your lungs were hard to measure, but your weight was about 1lb, 13 oz.

"Is that good?" we asked.

The technician smiled and told us that you were now in the 53rd percentile - 3% larger than the average fetus of your gestational age. She was telling us that you had come from behind to the middle of the pack.

She could have told us you also had won a special congressional medal of honor for kicking so good and we wouldn't have been happier.

At 128 days of bedrest, we were back in the emergency room. They triaged me pretty quickly - after all, we were frequent fliers - and did a fast sonogram. Your heart rate was fine.

It was me. I had a virus, and like everything else - moving, eating, filing my nails - it had set off a spike of high blood pressure and contractions.

Another visit to Labor and Delivery. We were really scared this time, because they started saying that it might be time to let you finish your great escape.

How would you ever survive?

Your dad and I sat in silence, and Bear - we prayed. We prayed so awfully hard.

And they dripped me full of stuff, and after a few days your dad sprung us - you still safe and sound in your mommy-shaped home.

By 226 days of bedrest (5 days before the official due date), the nice people in the white coats decided that it was time, really time, for you to be born.

So we called everyone, packed up the car, and headed to Babytown.

Where we…. Filled out a lot of paperwork. And got poked and prodded by medical students until I said, loudly and clearly, to STOP and GO AWAY. (As and aside, to the man who jammed the speculum in me so badly that it made me bleed – YOU SHOULD LOOK INTO A CAREER IN ACCOUNTING.)

Finally, induced at 5PM and from then it was a ride on the Pitocin rollercoaster of never-relenting contractions.

By 9PM, the gang was in place - your dad was excited, your Nana arrived from Boston, your Aunt Dee was there, and even El. They were cheering, I was huffing through the pain and walking in circles, and you were tucked in for the long haul.

At 1AM, we took a long hot shower. It didn't help. But it was worth it to see your Daddy looking silly in wet clothes.

At 3AM, I was given a mild painkiller and it knocked me out. Daddy and Aunt Dee would giggle as I would wake up and shout "ow ow ow" with each contraction and then fall back asleep.

At 9AM, 16 hours after the start of the Pitocin I surrendered my hopes for avoiding an epidural. I turned human again just as it was time to push.

At 11AM, I was told I was pushing wrong.

At 11:15AM the doctor told us your head was turned the wrong way to be born and manually worked you around to the right position. Your dad was able to see the head the next time I pushed.

At 1PM the doctor said "great pushing but Bear's shoulder was well and truly stuck."

2PM, and you were jammed in my pelvis. In case you've forgotten, let me remind you: Neither of us liked you there.

At 3PM, the emergency C-section began. It took 52 more minutes to free you. The doctor had to push you back UP the canal so you could be born and you thought this was a profoundly bad idea.

(This is the part of the story we gloss over)…

Meanwhile, Mommy's epidural? What happened to that? I would slurringly announce things like "Gee that knife is sharp. Could you stop cutting me?"

The man in the mask behind my head starting talking urgently to the other doctors, about my heart and my blood pressure and all sorts of things like on a television show, and alarms and beeping got loud and the operating room got tense and scary and CD gripped me tightly and sent me reassuring smiles that I knew were fake.

And then, in a flash, you were born and they knocked me out.

(This is where Daddy picks up the story)…

As they took you out of Mommy's tummy by your feet, you stretched out into the world. The doctor turned you right side up and you surprised her by lifting your head. Then you reached out and grabbed her around the neck. (Yes, Bear, like a hug) She had your handprint there for hours.

Daddy cut your cord and they harvested your stem cells to be donated for someone who needed them - because you didn't anymore. Yes, from the extra part of your belly button. (You see? From the very start, your birth was a blessing.)

The people in white coats rubbed you, measured you, and wrapped you cozy in a blanket. Then Daddy grabbed you up and held you by Mommy’s face.

The hovering white coats, eager to finish their protocols, just had to wait until Mommy was stable before Daddy consented to leave Mommy's side. (Because, I was never about to leave yours.)

(Then I start telling about that first moment I saw him....)

It was hours later, when I woke up in Recovery, Daddy brought you to me again and we really met.

I smelled you and touched you and memorized your face. You had red hair! And blue eyes! We stared at each other and you reached out your hand against my mouth. Something wild enveloped us, an imprinting that was primal, instinct, necessary. For a long, long time the three of us rested on that bed together quietly, the way we still do so often, as a family.

It was the beginning.

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