"How Did You Get Through It?"

That was what my very pregnant friend, Maija, asked me the other day.

It was when Madelyn went into the neonatal intensive care unit, or NICU, after she was born.

It came up because Maija is recently home from a nearly three week stay in the hospital, where she and the doctors successfully stopped her twin daughters from arriving two months early.  Now home and just under four weeks away from her due date (and less than two from when the doctors would be happy for them to arrive), emotions float just under the surface.

"How did you get through it?  I don't know how I could do it.  How could I leave them at the hospital and just walk away?  I don't think I could.  I mean, how did you?"

As I listened to Maija, my immediate response was, "I was very strong.  I did what I had to do.  You will, too."

But as she spoke I remembered wanting answers to those questions.  Over four years later, I remember them like yesterday.  That line of questioning is, plain and simple, unnecessary self-abuse.  It's as if the very act of leaving the hospital without your child is the first act of bad parenting you are carrying out.  Abandonment at the very outset of this mommy and me relationship.


What kind of mother does that?  I asked myself that question a lot before I walked out of the hospital without Madelyn.


Oh, I was terribly hard on myself.  Pretty sure I'm not the only one who has felt that way.  Of course we know that it is healthier for some babies to stay in the hospital, in those damned plastic boxes.

Beyond the questions about how to get over that incredibly high hurdle, there was the matter of getting through every minute between birth and going home.

When it came to actually answering Maija's question, I gave her the truth as I now see it.

I handled it like a crazy person.  I did.  I smiled and nodded every time the nurse came to let me know that, no, Madelyn still wasn't stabilized, but they'd let me know as soon as she was.

"No, spending some time on oxygen didn't quite work like we'd hoped.  The neonatalogist will be in to speak with you and your husband soon.  We might be able to let you see her and hold her in the nursery before she is transferred to NICU."

"Here's a photo I just took of your daughter (covered in wires and tape and little gold heart shaped stickers).  She's beautiful.  I don't say that to everyone.  Sometimes I just say, "Whoa, hey, it's a baby!"  Hopefully we'll get you over to see her soon.  You won't be able to hold her, but you might be able to touch her foot.  Hopefully."

The crazy person in me came out smiling and full of energy and trying to act like everything was fine.  It was fine and I was fine and I could do it my own self, thank you very much.

What did I do after 36 hours of labor, including more than three at 8+ centimeters, and delivering an 8 pound 3 ounce broad-shouldered baby?  I walked from Labor and Delivery to my new room in Maternity.  Carrying some of the rather obnoxious quantities of personal belongings we'd schlepped to the hospital.

Other nurses protested as my nurse and I passed their station.  If I could have worn a top hat and tap shoes, I would have jazz handed my way from one department to the next.

"She should be in a wheelchair!  Why is she carrying her things?"

And there I was, smiling and waving, even laughing a little at them, "I feel great.  It's okay.  I can  do this."

And clearly, I could.  Some of why I could had to do with giving birth naturally and all the amazing things a body does for a woman whose just given birth.  But a lot of it was just me literally putting one foot in front of the other.  Getting through this minute while I tried to come up with a plan for the next one.

Away from the nurses and doctors, I let my true feelings out.  Breaking down on the phone to my aunt in Wisconsin because no one else was available.

Tom was with Madelyn, where he belonged.

My mom and Corey had gone to her house to sleep off the all-nighter they'd just pulled with me.  They left before we knew how serious the problem was.

Nancy, who left the same all night labor along with Mom and Corey, went and picked up her husband and took him on what turned out to be his last trip sailing until his ashes were buried at sea the following year.

Honestly, it has only just occurred to me that I could have used that energy to go be with my daughter and husband.  Isn't it strange how the brain works?  Why didn't I get that?

The other thing about having this experience with Madelyn is that it never goes fully away.  No, I don't sit around silently weeping about it.  I don't wake up in the middle of the night catching my breath.  I don't even think about it often.

But if I read or hear a story about someone going through a similar situation (or worse... and we got off comparatively easy, so the stories are worse), the memories come and tears will probably flow.  The feelings of that time are right there.

Back when my water had broken with Fynn and Tom pulled our car up to the hospital, my mood made a sudden shift from giddy to somber.


This was the place where we left our first daughter.

Apparently I am not alone in carrying these thoughts and emotions.  Maija recently witnessed something that brought back the equally traumatic experience of the birth of her first daughter.  She and her husband contained themselves because that's what people do, and because their young daughters were with them.  And also because the father was standing next to them in the hall as his wife was raced down the hall for an emergency C-section, and who wants to be the jackass who falls apart in front of him?

Having read hundreds of birth stories with happy and sad endings, I am fully aware that four days in NICU is hardly anything at all.  And coming home isn't guaranteed.  I'm sure Maija knows that emergency C-sections happen all the time, and that they don't always end with a beautiful child to raise.

We get it.

All the same, it's pretty safe to say that the births of our first daughters were some of the most difficult times of our lives.  I am amazed at how emotionally tied to that experience I am more than four years later.  I probably will always be.

Slacker

I was reading a little Anti-Supermom tonight where she declared herself a slacker for "only" having birthed three babies thus far and being a happily married woman.  It brought to mind what made me feel like that with Madelyn.


Because of how things went when I was laboring with Corey, I decided to make a few changes in my approach to pregnancy with Madelyn.  For one thing, I walked everywhere the second time.  Took the stairs at work unless I was toting something too heavy or awkward to be reasonably safe.  If I was off on the day of a doctor's appointment, Corey and I walked the 2.5 miles there and back.  Since the hospital was only two blocks away, I figured we'd walk over when I was in labor, too.


Labor started slowly on a Thursday night.  By 4:00 the next morning I was counting contractions, but insisting Tom should go to work.  After shuttling Corey out the door to school unaware, I canceled my chiropractic appointment and lunch with Nancy.  Corey returned sometime after noon and I told him we'd likely be meeting his Bruster* by the end of the weekend.  Then we walked around the neighborhood for about 90 minutes.  His job was to time the contractions.


Bruster was the name Corey gave for the baby because we didn't know if he was getting a brother or a sister.


After 60 minutes of walking, I called Tom and told him not to resolve everything before coming home just because he'd be gone for a few weeks.   And to stop and get snacks for himself because that was on my to-do list for the day.  Oh, and to pick up dinner for himself and Corey and wonton soup for me.  That's right, I had him multi-tasking on his way home to witness the birth of his first child.  But it was some time after 3:00 and I didn't want Corey whining about being hungry or Tom feeling faint because he hadn't eaten.


Once Tom made it home we ate (hardly anything) and assembled all of the crap we were taking with us to the hospital.  Rolling suitcase full of clothes for me, Tom and the baby.  Bag with shower stuff.  CD player/alarm clock (we're old school like that).  Video camera.  Two extra fluffy pillows.  Backpack with snacks for Corey and Tom.  Oh, and a game, 'cuz I just knew we were going to be playing Boxers or Briefs at some point.  Corey was pulling or carrying everything but the pillows.


By the time we finally left it was almost 6:00.  At the halfway point my contractions were sometimes only a minute apart and hard enough that I would stop to lean on Tom.  Tom commented, "Phew!  Next time we should put the pillows into a carrying case.  This is a lot of work!"


Corey retorted, "You're doing a lot of work?  I'm carrying everything!  And I don't even want to hear about NEXT TIME until we get through this one!"


At this point I could breathe again and laughingly pointed out that neither one of them was doing the most work.


Those two blocks took roughly 30-45 minutes.


I must admit I felt pretty damned cool about walking to the hospital while in labor.


What was it?... three days later when I heard the story on the news about a teenage girl in Long Beach who gave birth on her own at home without waking anyone up and then ran with the baby to the hospital before her placenta had been delivered.


Yeah, I'm not that cool.