Five years ago. It’s been all over the news this week: 5 years since the start of the Iraq War. The memories of the beginning of that war are bright in my mind. I watched the news coverage from a hospital bed in the maternity ward of Norton Suburban Hospital in Louisville, KY. Although,
my thoughts were not focused on the news. I thought of him…my baby boy. I was in labor 5 weeks early. He wasn’t supposed to come yet.
It was Sunday, and I had a million things I was supposed to be doing at church. The day before had been particularly productive, as if my body were anticipating the draining 10 weeks ahead. I’d had an Enrichment Committee meeting, prepared all the display materials for our Super Saturday sign-ups, cleaned the entire house. I felt tired, but satisfied as I climbed into bed and, as always, rubbed a little “good night” on my bulging boy-filled belly.
I slept a little fitfully, but that was normal for this stage of pregnancy; I couldn’t get comfortable. But, then, at about 4 am, a sudden and urgent feeling woke me up. I immediately went to the bathroom, since my ever-more-crowded bladder usually woke me up several times a night. But, this time it was different. Water continued to trickle. I couldn’t make it stop. I feared my water had broken, but I didn’t want to be that crazy, over-reacting, first-time pregnant mother. So, I got cleaned up and went back to the bed. And, to my surprise, Chad was STILL asleep. Every night for my entire pregnancy, when I’d woken and come back to bed he had rolled over and said, “You okay?” Tonight, he decided to sleep. I figured I had no choice but to wake him.
We nervously got in the car, telling ourselves it was all probably just a false alarm. Boy, would we be tired in Church after this little foray into the rainy spring-time night! But, when I told the registration clerk that I thought my water broke, she just smiled and put me in a wheelchair. Again, to my surprise, the triage nurse didn’t tell me I could go home. She prepped me for delivery!
Once we were settled into the delivery room, Chad flipped on the TV. News coverage of the barely-born war filled the room. My nervousness for our country bled into my apprehension about this baby coming early. The butterflies wouldn’t stop their constant fluttering in my heart. And, the look on the nurse’s face did nothing to calm my fears. I tried to focus on the rain: the constant, pounding, streaming rain. It doesn’t fall like that in desert Utah. This kind of flowing-in-sheets rain is one thing I find fascinating about our new home in Kentucky. I’m grateful to be inside, covered; grateful for the beeping of the machines and the buzzing of the lights. This baby was being born into a world of technology. I’m so glad I’m not a pioneer.
The labor wasn’t progressing, so the doctor on call ordered Pitocin to help move things along. Up to this point Chad had been watching the contractions on the screen, telling me when they happened. After the Pitocin, though, I was painfully aware of each squeezing contraction. They suggested I be given Stadol to help take the edge off. I should have known to refuse: I’m very sensitive to drugs. As soon as I got the Stadol, I couldn’t stay awake. So, I was intermittently in a deep sleep, then, with a burst, wide awake in the agony of the contraction. Just as quickly, I’d fall back into my nightmarish dreams.
I was dreaming a memory of when, as a young adult, I went hiking with some of my ward friends, all of us home for the summer. We planned an early morning hike to Adam’s Canyon falls, just above our homes. We’d all hiked it a million times, but it had been a while. I was all game for the adventure, even though I was fresh home from a sleepless week as an EFY counselor. The hardest and steepest part of the climb is right at the beginning. When we reached the top, we stopped to take a water break, and I realized I didn’t have much water---my frozen water bottle hadn’t melted yet. The next thing I remember is being woken by my friends. I’d fainted on the mountain. I felt like I just wanted to climb back in bed and sleep. The Stadol gave me the same feeling: please leave me alone and let me sleep!
The next wicked contraction brought the realization that I was fighting with the nurse, trying to push off an oxygen mask while she tried to keep it on my face. I didn’t want to be here anymore. I wanted to go home. I wanted this baby to stay inside me. He wasn’t ready. I wasn’t ready. I was in my own personal war---a war against my body and the fear the labor was putting in my heart.
Then, escalation: running, yelling, worried looks, talk of too much blood. Chad was ordered out, then ordered in, and suddenly he was at my side in operating room garb. I was strapped to a table. “Is everything okay?” I asked. Or maybe I just wondered it inside my head. No one answered, anyway. The Stadol was still making me woozy. A sheet was hung at my shoulders, but above it was a large, flat light. The angle was such that I could see a vague reflection of what was going on. I saw the tops of surgical caps and the movement of gloved hands. I saw a black abyss. Is that a hole in ME? Then, a small, white body. A baby. I heard one quick, but very real cry and sensed the tension of the dozen or so medical personnel in the room. I turned to Chad and asked him what was going on. And, for the first time in my life I saw fear in his eyes.
Where is my baby?
I gazed again at the reflection in the light. Now I was sure that the big black hole was my open body. I felt the pressure of organs being shoved back into place. I watched the doctor as he moved quickly, adrenaline still jolting through his veins. They moved us into the recovery room and I saw a woman across the way holding her baby.
Where is my baby? Why am I so cold?
I asked for more blankets. And more. Soon I was laden with so many that the weight of it all lulled my shaking, shock-filled body to sleep as I heard Chad making a phone call in the background. “He’s here,” he said, “but we’re not sure how he’s doing.”
In the moment just before awaking I felt a little kick in my abdomen. I reached my hand down to my stomach as I had so many mornings over the past months; reaching to feel the kicks of my unborn baby. But, soon the realization of my situation woke me completely. I was in a hospital. My baby was NOT safe inside me. I didn’t know where he was. I wished, with a kind of hope I’ve never had before, that it was still yesterday; that I could turn back the clock and change the outcome of this horrible experience. When I asked about the baby, no one would tell me how he was doing, only that I could go see him as soon as I could feel my legs enough to get into the wheelchair. I sat up and started patting my legs, up and down. Willing the drugs to wear off. Willing my muscles to move. I needed to see my baby. Why couldn’t I get my body to move?
Finally, I was wheeled down the hall. It seemed like a long way to the NICU. Once inside, everyone looked at me with a compassionate smile; knowing who I was by the baby they’d been caring for. Knowing my heart would soon break at the sight of my cord-and-monitor-covered son. But, it didn’t. I saw him and was in awe.
He is my boy.
My fear was actually, for the moment, gone. He was my boy. Mine. And in that instant, I realized that I was a mother.
Our journey, of course, had just begun. Ten more weeks would pass before I could bring my baby home. Ten weeks of hope and prayer, of miracles and set backs, of joy and of tears. When we loaded our boy in the car to bring him home, I thought we were done. But, as all mothers come to realize, the ending of one stage is merely the beginning of the next.
And, today, as I see my miracle boy turn five,
FIVE!, I’m filled with an overwhelming sense of gratitude for his life. For our lives together. Although the anniversary of a war is grim, the anniversary of this personal battle and the glorious, heaven-sent outcome is intensely joyous. I’m grateful that we are safe and at peace in our own little haven.
Happy Birthday, my boy!
Lemon Shrimp Pasta Salad
