Special Delivery: Early Edition

People who know me know that the first step I take in facing my emotions is usually writing about them, and about the experience that led to them.  I wrote about my mother's death almost immediately, and about my three miscarriages the weeks they occurred.  But sometimes, life gets in the way and I'm left with little ability to write but lots of time to process.

Like that time I had an emergency c-section a month before my due date.

Yes - if you're a family or friend, you probably already know that little Ronen has already arrived, throwing our whole life into a tizzy quite some time before we were ready to be thrown into said tizzy.  I don't think it's necessary for me to rehash every graphic detail about the arrival of my child, but lots of folks seem to want a bit more of a backstory as to what happened, so, here goes...

Despite all of my best efforts, I'd struggled with high blood pressure for years.  Pregnancy didn't make it better, although, until about a month ago, it was fairly well-controlled with medication.  My OB was carefully monitoring me for pre-eclampsia.  There was a bit of a concern when my third trimester ultrasound showed a healthy but rather small baby.  Granted, both my husband and I are short, but restricted growth could also indicate problems.  I was told I'd be getting a non-stress test twice weekly to monitor the baby's development.  At a subsequent appointment, I asked about bed rest (per my concerned husband's urging).  The doctor's reply was that it would not be necessary, and he left the room to review some test results.  Moments later, he returned and said that I would not be going back to work, but to the hospital instead.  Protein was found in my urine, and that, coupled with my alarmingly high blood pressure, was an indication of pre-eclampsia, the condition that struck my friend Alayna during the birth of her son Isaiah. 

Doctors - good ones - do not mess around with pre-e.  It can be unpredictable and lead to sudden seizures.  Long story short: I drove myself to Mercy Hospital and checked in for further testing.  Ross arrived fairly soon after and the diagnosis of pre-eclampsia was confirmed.  I was surrounded by efficient, caring nurses and doctors and that was a good thing, because we were told that the baby was coming within the next 48 hours.  We were given the option of inducing labor or a c-section.  It was a tough decision, as I had really wanted to avoid surgery, but the idea of putting the baby and myself through up to two additional days of stress and trauma on top of the already scarily high blood pressure I was having...well, that didn't seem right.  We opted for the c-section, and at 4:03 PM on June 11, 2014, Ronen Curtis Godlove entered the world.

My husband was the first to hold him, as the anesthesiologists continued to give my updates in their calm, reassuring voices, but a sudden wave of terror hit me when I heard his birth weight.  He was only four pounds and three ounces.  I panicked.  So tiny!  The best guess of our sonographer was nearly five pounds!  Still, he seemed healthy, and tears rolled down my face when I heard, rather than saw, his first cry.

Family stopped in as I was still hopelessly high on Lord knows what wonderful drugs I was given.  My grandmother held her first great-grandchild, tears in her eyes.  No one really had the words to say on the occasion - after three miscarriages, we were holding a gorgeous little boy in our arms.  So no one said much.  And that was okay.

But things went south quickly.  Ronen's blood sugar levels were dangerously low, and his body temperature wasn't very reassuring.  He was placed into an isolette to warm him up inside our room, but then transferred to the NICU almost immediately.  I don't even recall what my reaction was, other than to soberly nod as the nurse was explaining why they took him away.

In the hospital room that night, while my husband slept fitfully, I scratched myself nearly raw from the morphine - not realizing that I was even doing it.  I slept for minutes at a time, as my vitals, pain level, and incision were checked constantly.  The next day, my husband made his second trip into the NICU to see our son, who was still in the isolette, wires attached to his chest and an IV strapped into his incredibly tiny hand.  

The next nine days were, to be trite, a roller-coaster of emotions.  One hour, his blood sugar was perfect, but the next, it dropped by twenty points.  Although his body temperature regulated fairly quickly, there were other concerns.  He was, after all, technically a month early.  We were told that he may be out as early as the weekend after his birth, but each day brought new challenges.  He was a sleepy baby, and very hard to rouse for his feedings.  He wasn't taking enough formula.  His blood sugar was unpredictable.  All of these things, we were told, were normal for preemies, and we just had to wait things out.  He wasn't losing weight, though, which was encouraging.

Finally, after lots of prayers and what seemed like an eternity, our little man was given the all-clear to come home with us.  Though I'd visited him frequently in the NICU, trying to breastfeed and just get to know him, I could not believe I was taking home this tiny and helpless stranger.  His every need was my responsibility.  I was more overwhelmed, I think than I was nine days earlier, when we learned he was coming out, one way or the other!

So, I now have a thirteen-day-old baby in my house.  He's my baby, though I'm still having a very hard time wrapping my head around that fact.  My husband is utterly enamoured of him and keeps exclaiming that he looks like me (he does).  I'm going through the ups and downs that virtually every new mom experiences: the constant trickle (or flood) of self-doubt...the challenges of feeding a newborn...the sleep deprivation...forgetting to eat (trust me; it's the first time in my life that I've ever actually, truly and genuinely forgotten to eat)...struggling to accept help from friends (it's that awful pride thing that tries to convince new moms to handle everything by themselves)...and trying to have patience with myself as I deal with a new role, a new body, and new fears.

All in all, though, I have to brag - my husband has been pretty much my hero these past few days.  It only seemed fitting that this past Father's Day was his first as a father, even to a son stuck in the hospital!  He has risen with me for most nighttime feedings, has brought me little treats, has encouraged me to drink lots of water to stay hydrated, has tried to keep the house clean, has been as supportive to me as he knows how.  I'm dreading the day he has to return to work!

And what about the cats?  Well, Loki seems terrified of the baby and will only eye him from a very safe distance.  Thor is curious, but not curious enough to really bother him, as long as he still gets his cuddles and pets from his beloved Mommy Cat (he does, though not as frequently).  Freyja still hasn't acknowledged the baby at all yet, but Ross and I did notice a change in her behavior.  Although Thor and Loki had both been left alone for a few days before, when we went on vacation or on weekend trips, Freyja had not.  We think she was terrified of being abandoned, because since we've been home, she has been even clingier than usual.  She jumps into visitors' laps and simply has to be in the room with one of us (usually me).  She is following me into the bedroom and bathroom now, which she only did rarely before.  We're convinced that she was abandoned before, which is why she showed up on our porch to begin with, and she's afraid it will happen again.

Only cure for that is to shower her with kisses and cuddles so she knows she is loved and we're not going anywere!

I've decided that I won't be blogging too much about my baby.  And, on social media, I'm limiting who can see pictures and details about him.  Things are just too unpredictable nowadays, plus I'm worried for his own privacy someday!  I don't know what the internet will be like in ten years, but if Facebook is still around, does he really need to see that I posted pictures of his diaper blowouts or bathtime exploits?  Boy, I'm grateful that my mom never had Myspace...

Pink Ribbons and a Brown-Eyed Girl

I wish I were lacing up my hot pink Nikes to run in this weekend's Race for the Cure.  Having been involved only from a spectator's perspective, I know it's a huge and epic event.  Well - let's be honest.  I wasn't actually spectator, my first time around.  I was working as the manager-on-duty in the Oakland Starbucks and we were understaffed and Oh God It Was Terrifying.  Seemingly endless waves and waves of pink-clad men and women splashed into the store, wanting little more than a bottle of water or a quick bagel to snack on as they walked and ran in honor of victims and survivors.  Although I remember being overwhelmed to the point of numbness, I don't recall any customers being rude or impatient.  They were all there because they saw the Bigger Picture.

Which I can see, too, since I now count breast cancer survivors among my closest friends.  And I would have no issue with squeezing my seven-month-pregnant belly into a pair of yoga pants and a support belt, ready to walk among those brave woman and thousands of others, but my pregnancy has caused several asthma flare-ups and some pretty scary (though normal, I'm told) episodes of breathlessness lately.  Not wise to go tempting fate and power-walking with the Pink Brigade, I'm afraid.  Next year.

Not being able to participate is a definite downer, but the hardest part of Mother's Day weekend will surely be the fact that my mother is gone.  Last May, I was still in a cocoon of shock, having lost her a mere two months prior.  I didn't feel much, and it didn't register too clearly that she was gone.  This time around, I've had over a year to process, to rant, to weep, to rage, to mourn, to contemplate, to accept, and to adjust to my mother's passing.  

There have been a lot of moments where I was filled with anger - not towards God, but towards her, since her cause of death was likely preventable, had she sought help for her hernia when she was first diagnosed.  There have been moments of laughter - when friends ask about my pregnancy and I'm able to tell them that I, mercifully, did not have "six straight months of god-awful heartburn", as my mother (repeatedly) told me she suffered with me.  There have been moments of pain - when I have wanted to reach out and ask her intimate questions about family, history, faith, and forgiveness.  There have been moments of beauty - when my husband and I finally got up the nerve and went through all of her paperwork, and found ourselves delightedly reviewing old photographs of my dad in his 80s finery (tight jeans, a feathered cowboy hat, and an elaborately embroidered top), birthday cakes from years past, and all of our long-gone pets.

Don't get me wrong, please.  I dearly love my step-mama, Deana.  She has become to me a treasure and a friend and yes, a wonderful mom.  She has been incredibly supportive during our miscarriages and has shown us the same level of support and excitement during this pregnancy.  She has taken care of my often-stubborn dad and has weathered years of mothering three daughters (two of whom possess their dad's stubbornness).  She is an all-around amazing woman, mother, Christian, teacher, friend, and businesswoman.  And I love her.

But I can't ask her the question, "What was it really like when you were pregnant with me?"  The baby pictures she has of me aren't connected to her own personal memories.  I can't trace my biological family tree through her.  I can't laugh over stories of my first taste of solid food, or riding a bike, or a grade school play.  I won't be able to show my mother these ultrasound pictures, or let her hold her sweet grandson for the first time, wondering if his eyes will darken to a beautiful brown, like hers. 

Two nights ago, I picked Ross up from work and we stopped at Giant Eagle to pick up a few things.  I wasn't in a great mood, and he thought he had done or said something wrong.  As I threw a package of raisin bread in the cart, I finally blurted out, "I miss my mom!"  He looked startled, and asked, "Why?"  He probably thought it had something to do with the bread.  Did it remind me of her?  Poor confused guy.  I fought back tears and reminded him, "It's Mother's Day weekend."  He didn't say anything, just put his arms around me and wheeled the cart to the register.  

On the way home, he gently asked, "Well, what are some of your favorite memories of your mom?"  He'd only met her once but had heard hundreds of tales from myself and my dad - some of them funny, many of them sad - about living with her.  "I don't know," I said honestly.  If I am being completely truthful, which has been my aim in having this blog, then I have to say there were a lot of awful memories.  A lot of hours of the silent treatment.  A lot of regrets because I didn't understand why I needed to respect her.  A lot of fights.  A lot of disappointment.  A lot of misunderstanding and failure to communicate.  A lot of bitterness.  Oh, so much bitterness.  

Much of that faded in the years after I had moved away from home, and, little by little, happier memories began to join the sad ones.  Memories of stopping at Arby's and then browsing at Fashion Bug (now defunct, sadly) for accessories.  Memories of text messages and phone conversations about our pets (while I was collecting my Crazy Cat Lady starter kit, she was adopting and rescuing neighborhood strays left and right).  Memories of the sweet and silly letters she liked to write, and the goofy doodles she sent me.  Memories of conversations in which she admitted to finally forgiving my father for hurting her.  

And then the memory of her passing cuts through me like a cold wind, stopping my heart.  The look in those soft black-brown eyes when they met mine for the last time, full of pain and regret and weakness and sorrow.

And sympathy.  For me, having to see her die.

Those moments stick with us, become an immovable part of who we are.  They become tinted over time with either rose-colored optimism or they fade to a shadowy sepia, but they stay with us.  In that moment, when I look back, I see her asking forgiveness.  Not for the way she raised me, or for anything she might have failed to do as a mother.  But forgiveness for having to have our final memory of her one in which she was lying prone and hemorrhaging in a hospital bed in Kentucky, unable to speak or move or breathe on her own, surrounded by gentle strangers.  For knowing that we drove five straight hours and risked countless speeding tickets, because seeing her alive was the only thing that mattered.  

For her last day alive being so dreadfully ugly.

I can't lie and say I've fully come to terms with the circumstances of her death, or even hear death itself.  I still think of her every time I pass by the greeting card section in the grocery store, fighting the urge to pick a silly holiday card to send to her.  I see her face in my reflection quite often.  I hear her voice when I scold my cats for doing something naughty, and I'm sure I'll hear it when I scold my son.

I recently told a friend of hers that I hope so much that my baby boy has her smile.  I know that I have my grandfather's smile, so remarkably so that people frequently mistake my aunt (his daughter), who also shares it, for my mother.  How beautiful it would be to get to see my mother's slightly crooked, dimpled grin again, every day for the rest of my life.

This Is 17 Weeks

Today’s topic: pregnancy woes - and wows.

Other than the terrifying bleeding brought on by my subchorionic hematoma, I’ve had a fairly uneventful pregnancy.  Nausea during the first trimester was pretty minimal.  I never threw up, although there were a few smells that made me a little sick.  Shockingly, coffee was (and still is) one of them!  Ultimately this was probably a blessing since I’ve had to be pretty careful with my caffeine intake, but I never, ever thought there would be a day when a co-worker’s  innocent cup of Folger’s sitting next to me would cause me to heave and cast evil glances her way.  “Don’t worry,” my friend Jaime insists, “That java-love will return to you eventually.”  She would know – she’s working on kid number #4 right now; she’s due a few months before me and she’s pretty much a professional pregnant lady.

Like many women, I got the dreaded “baby bloat” within a few weeks of learning we were expecting.  Of course, that’s too soon for maternity clothes, so I turned to my heroic standby gear: tunics and leggings.  It doesn’t look like I’ll have to alter my personal style too much during the next five months, as many of my dresses and tops are either stretchy or flowy anyway.  I’ll sort of end up retro-gypsy-chic these next several weeks, I guess.  Whatevs.  I keep poking at my belly, waiting for it to fully “bloom”.  I’ve always had some extra weight on my tummy, so I’m anxious for it to turn into a “real” bump” that doesn’t go away when I suck it in.  (Chubby-ish mamas - you feel me, I know this.)

This past Monday was possibly my first experience of heartburn in my life.  I was on the late shift at work and enjoyed a great morning, writing and relaxing.  When I sat down in the office, there was suddenly a dull achy pain under my sternum.  I wondered if it was related to my asthma – I hadn’t had chest pain in years, but with a tiny human squirming around inside me, who knew what could change?  Then I thought – ah, probably gas.  (I won’t be discussing that topic in too much detail; I’m still mostly a lady and there’s no reason to expound on that.)  Finally I asked one of my co-workers what heartburn felt like and we figured out that’s what it was.  Thanks, little baby.  Ironically, it would have been my mom’s 59^th birthday, and she told me that she had heartburn every single day she was pregnant with me.  Hmm…maybe a loving little reminder from her on that very special day?

I’m grateful that I have a lot of friends who have had kids already.  Not just because I know I’ll be getting loads of awesome hand-me-downs (thereby saving us tons of money), but also because they’ve gone through this.  They’ve given birth, they’ve been in recovery.  They’ve tried to breastfeed; some have failed, others succeeded.  Very few books I’ve encountered have been totally honest about this process.  Or, they are so blatantly honest that they’re vulgar and they make you wish you had never even had sex to begin with.  My friends have been a perfect balance between the two. What to Expect When You’re Expecting has been my go-to book but, actually, it doesn’t really impress me.  Especially in the area of my hematoma.  Medically, it happens to about 10% of women, but it’s never once mentioned in the 300+ pages.  Really?  I also decided to go cold turkey when it came to the internet and chat rooms this time around.  I never got a lot of reassurance from them; instead, reading about all the things that could possibly go wrong made me sicker.  Plus, let’s be honest.  I’ve lost three pregnancies.  I don’t want to play the comparison game, but there’s not a whole lot worse than that, relatively speaking.  I’m not trivializing stillbirth or any other type of terrible trauma – not by any means.  I’m just saying that, at 8 weeks, the worst thing I could imagine was losing the baby, and it happened.  So, yeah, I don’t do chatrooms.  I do have an app on my phone that tells me what fruit my baby is, and gives generic pregnancy tips, which is cool.  But that’s about it. 

We’re a sweet potato this week, if you were wondering.

Now, as for the gender – yes, we do plan to find out.  We’re scheduled for our anatomical sonogram in just over three weeks.  We have happily settled on a name for a little girl, but are still toying with boys’ names.  I will be honest, I’m 99% sure it’s a girl.  Motherly intuition tells me this, plus I admit I peeked at all the goofy old wives’ tales, and, surprisingly, every one of them has turned up “girl”.  Most of my friends think it’s a girl.  (A few, including Ross, are holding out for a boy.)  Of course we would be thrilled with a baby of either sex.  Regardless of gender, this child will be raised by lots of proud geeks.  Our first purchase for the child will very likely be the bib that reads, ‘These fools put my cape on backwards.’

Can’t wait.