The Story of Kelly, The Birth of Me Part I

It was my plan to be able to post the whole story tonight. But as you can see from the first line, I didn't start writing until last night. And this, my friends, is a long ass story. Difficult to write and emotionally draining as well.

So, it'll be divided into three parts. The first installment begins... NOW!

On the eve of Kelly’s first birthday, I find myself still searching for a way to tell the story of his birth. How do I even begin? Where should I start? I’m not sure I know what the beginning was. There are parts of this story I’d rather not revisit. Pain, joy, despair, anguish, exuberance, and acceptance. It’s all there. And I know it needs to be written.

Ten years ago, I wrote that with the birth of my first child my soul shifted. I became a mother. The same person I was before, but with a different perspective. I can tell you now that with the birth of my last child, the journey I took to bring him here and the journey I am on to raise him, I am a changed person. I am battle weary and scarred. I am whole and new. I am happier… and sadder. It’s complicated.

And so is the story I’m about to tell.

Shortly after Iryna’s birth, I had a feeling so faint, so deep within me that I hardly sensed it – I wanted another child. A fourth child. So shocking was it, in fact, that I only allowed it to surface in humor and jest. “Oh, look, honey,” I’d say, “the fourth child is free for soccer registration…” or “…summer camp…” or “…Catholic school.” It became my little barb at Mike. “The fourth one is free!” It always met with a harsh scowl and grunt and a promise from him that he would soon make an appointment with a doctor to have himself taken out of the gene pool.

Inside me, over time, it took on a more serious tone. I began to pray for an accidental pregnancy. We were careful and I knew an accident was a long shot, but I prayed nonetheless. The cerebral part of me thought it irresponsible folly. We didn’t have the money, the resources, the bed space for another child. But the prayers continued, more fervent with each passing month.

Early in the morning of my 38^th birthday, I stumbled to the bathroom. In the darkness, for reasons that will forever remain unknown to me, I tore open the last remaining pregnancy test from a three-pack I had when pregnant with Iryna. When I peered at the results with the scant light from my cell phone, my breath was sucked right out of body and replaced with an excited fear that rattled my bones and made me giggle like a drunk sorority sister. After 20 years of carefully planned fertility, I was very clearly knocked up.

It was difficult but I held my secret all day, pushing it down like a springy jack-in-the-box with a broken lid. Every time I felt it start to slip out of my mouth, I’d shovel in food – chocolate covered pretzels, Swedish fish, Godiva truffles. Secrets apparently need sugar. After the kids were tucked into their beds, I took a deep breath and unhinged the lid.

“I have something to tell you so I’m just going to come out and say it. Okay?” I started.

“Uh huh,” he said, distractedly. Then, noticing my seriousness, he straightened and met my eyes.

“I’m pregnant.” The jack-in-the-box jumped out with force and then just hung there, all awkward smiles and jittery expectations.

“You’re kidding, right?” Mike asked. “Really? You’re pregnant?”

I didn’t say anything. I just sat there, stuck in that place between giddy laughter and hysterical sobs. I call it “Pregnancy Purgatory,” the temporary punishment before the joyful celebration. A place where time stands still and seconds seem to last longer than your last period.

Tears started to well up in my eyes when Mike began maniacally laughing, stopping only briefly to say, in stunned cadence, “Four kids.”

“You’re not mad?” I asked pathetically, like a sinner to Saint Peter at the Gates.

“Why would I be mad?” he asked as he hugged me to his chest.

We talked about whether to tell the kids. I was just barely pregnant, not even day 30 of my cycle. I wanted to wait till we saw a heartbeat, having been burned with a miscarriage between Reilly Kate and Roman. Mike insisted we tell the kids straightaway. He argued that if something were to go wrong and they didn’t yet know, they’d then find out and only know the sadness, not the happiness. We needed to share our joy with them; let them celebrate their new sibling. The day after we told them, the kids and I bought the baby St. Patrick’s Day jammies and hung it in my closet. Our fourth baby was loved, wanted, and real.

The kids were as excited as I was sick. Morning sickness hit hard, harder than any previous pregnancy. As did the fatigue. I spent many an afternoon beached on the couch trying to keep the contents of my stomach and letting the kids run amok. Nights were spent awake in strange fits of hormonal insomnia.

It was during a middle of the night insomnia driven writing-fest that I got up to pee and found the dreaded pink t.p. Every mother inspects every wipe, every trip to the toilet during those nine long months. A little pink is usually no cause for concern. I’d had pink on the t.p. at one time or another with every pregnancy – including the one I’d lost.

I was 8 weeks along and the pink could have been easily explained as placental attachment. But I knew it wasn’t. My broken heart sank to the bottom of my soul. My hands shook in panic as I typed my midwife. Sleep was lost to the searing pain of grief. I was losing my accident, the only hope I had of my longed for fourth baby.

The following afternoon, Mike, the kids, and I found ourselves in a cramped little ultrasound room looking at the screen image of my empty uterus.

“A blighted ovum,” I said.

“I prefer ‘anembryonic pregnancy,’” said the technician. “Why set blame on the woman and her egg? It could have been something wrong with the sperm.”

I looked at Reilly Kate, her eyes brimming with sadness. “Our prayers failed, Mommy,” she cried.

Her sorrow crushed me. I had failed to protect her from this grief. I had allowed a promise to enter her heart that couldn’t be kept. Heavier than my personal anguish was the burden of knowing I passed it to my family.

“Let’s go for ice cream! Ice cream fixes everything,” I exclaimed, the smiles and happiness glued on for my kids like fake lashes batted for shore-leaved sailors.

The next day, I awoke with a renewed spirit. Surely, Mike would see how important this fourth baby was to me. Surely, this would go as the last miscarriage did, the one before I got pregnant with Roman. I’d miscarry as soon as my mind allowed my body to release the products of conception I had in my womb and then we’d try to conceive again, at the first post-miscarriage ovulation. Surely.

There was a catch, however. Mike was leaving in six short weeks for a five month tour in Afghanistan. I needed to miscarry quickly in order stimulate ovulation before he left. I decided to take some blue cohosh, and triple the usual dosage. I drank it down, gathered the kids up, and we all left to do some weekend shopping.

At lunch, I started to feel crampy. I went to the bathroom and while there started to bleed. Clots as big as golf balls were coming out of me. I’d had this before, with the last blighted ovum. Not quite this bad, but I was further along this time, I rationalized. After 20 minutes, I called Mike on his cell phone and asked him to pay the bill, load up the kids, bring the car around to the front of the restaurant and have a diaper ready for me.

The bathroom looked like a massacre had taken place. I cleaned it up the best I could, figuring I’d get a call from the police later. Visions of trying to explain the ultrasound report to burly detectives entertained me as I zipped up and literally sprinted out of the restaurant.

At home the bleeding didn’t slow. I sat on the toilet listening to the life flow out of my body, keeping everyone calm as I tried to determine if an ER trip was needed. Reilly Kate brought me diapers to use as pads as I tried to rest on the bed and my herbalist friend Kara came by with cayenne and witch hazel. I wore a wrist blood pressure cuff like a fancy bangle and recorded the results in my ever more light headed brain. When the numbers plummeted to a fretful 82/28, I gave myself 20 minutes to bring the bleeding down.

I closed my eyes and willed my body to stymie its self destruction. And it listened. Within a half hour, Kara felt that the worst had past and left my bedside. Mike put the kids downstairs with a pizza in front of a movie and headed to the grocery store for some electrolyte water. I tucked myself in like an obedient von Trapp child, happily humming a drowsy tune. Everything was going to be fine, I thought.

Just as my eyes shut their lids, I once again felt the life begin to flow out of me. Gushes of blood with clots bigger than my fist now passed out of my womb and I ran to the bathroom to keep from soiling my bed. An internal alarm had been sounded within me and I knew I was in mortal danger. I tried to get back to bed to call Mike, but when I stood up, the world slanted and went completely black. I gripped the furniture to upright my failing body and relied on my many years of black-out-drunk training to keep myself from passing out.

I couldn’t get the wrist cuff to register a blood pressure. An ominous sign. I called Mike and let him know I was dialing 911. I fought to stay conscious, horrified to think I might die with my children finding my empty body in a bloody bed. I lied on my left side and prayed.

Mike was home within minutes, holding my hand and feverishly dialing my mother. He wanted her to come as soon as she was able. I felt horribly guilty at the inconvenience, the fear, the heartache I seemed to be causing. As a mother, the worst sound you can hear is one telling you there is something wrong with your baby. I’d heard it the day before from the ultrasound tech and now my mother was hearing it from Mike.

By the time the wail of the ambulance filled my ghost town cul de sac, I was feeling better, more stable, but my hands were cold and my weakened body shook. I was carried out by stretcher as my confused children stood by stoically watching.

“Mommy’s going to be okay,” I feigned with a half grin. “Mommy’s just going to see the doctor. Oma’s on her way. She’s coming to visit you guys. I’ll see you soon. Daddy’s going to bring you to the hospital. I’ll meet you there.”

My empty reassurances tumbled out in clumsy chunks making no one feel any better but filling the fear filled void.

“Bye bye, Mama,” Iryna waved.

The last thing I saw as they put me in the ambulance was Iryna on Mike’s hip, Roman and Reilly Kate flanking his sides, and my neighbors discreetly poking their noses through the curtains to take in the excitement without any danger of being recruited to helpfulness.

My hospital experience was of the things that lawsuits are made. Through a variety of mistakes, mishaps, mismanagement, and – yes, I’ll say it – malpractice, I wound up alone in a closed ultrasound room in a deserted wing with a dry IV and a dead cell phone floating along the edges of consciousness. When I was brought back to the ER, a nurse took one look at me and suggested a blood typing to prep for a blood transfusion. When she couldn’t get a vein, she called for another nurse.

“I don’t feel so good,” I whimpered.

They tilted my bed so that my head was below my heart and continued to prod for a vein.

“Uh, I really don’t feel so good,” I whispered.

They hit a button and I felt the squeeze of the sphygmomanometer. My head was floating away from me like a helium balloon on a warm spring breeze. I was detached. The world around me was a golden shade of gray, voices were muffled and my ears were ringing.

I looked up at the monitor. My blood pressure had plummeted to 42/27 and the nurse who had been in search of a vein began yelling, “Dammit! I need a cardiac team and a crash cart! Get those kids out of here!”

I opened my eyes and saw my husband and children standing at the entrance of my room. They were my only string left to reality. I watched as they were pulled away, out of my view.

I’m dying, I admitted to myself. I really am dying. I will never see my children. I will never again feel my husband lips on mine. This is it.

It sounds very dramatic and I’d be remiss if I didn’t tell you that just writing the above ripped at my very core, bringing up emotions I’d rather keep locked. But I’d also be remiss if I didn’t tell you that at the time, I felt very much at peace even if a little surprised at the finality of my early demise. It was all very surreal, but not unpleasant.

“Heather! Heather! Are you with us?” the nurse asked loudly.

I couldn’t respond. I couldn’t move. My limbs were paralyzed and I could summon no sound from my mouth. I closed my eyes.

“Heather stay with us. Can you hear me?”

I tried to nod but nothing came of it.

I’m dying, I whispered deep within the recesses of my mind as a dark wave washed over me.

“…O neg!”

“The crash cart…”

“…another IV wide open!”

“These aren’t big enough!!”

“Heather? Heather?”

Now, here is where all those years of heavy drinking paid off. And no, I’m not kidding. Anyone who has, at one time or another, had too much to drink and found themselves losing control of their conscious mind knows that determined focus can save one from not just embarrassment but from the bumps and bruises associated with falling down drunk. I’ve been there. I remember many a time sitting in the back of a Korean cab alone and having to focus to save myself from falling into that drunken abyss. Focus. Determined focus. It was as I lay dying in the hospital years later that I employed this well honed skill.

I focused on that string that kept me attached to this plane. I literally envisioned a string. I saw Reilly Kate, Roman, and Iryna. I felt Mike’s lips on mine. I wrapped that string around my fingers and stared at their faces. I stayed focused for all I was worth. As if my life depended on it.

“Heather, don’t move. We’re putting in some very large needles. Do not move.”

As if I could, I chuckled, never taking my eyes off my family.

“Does this hurt? Can you feel this?”

I can’t feel a thing, I replied without moving my lips or loosening my steely grip on my string.

Slowly, I started to feel again. Cold at first. My arms were cold. And then my toes. Eventually, I opened my eyes. I was very much attached to the glaringly bright, sterile world that surrounded me. I came through the other end. I looked around. I had a bag of blood and two IVs attached to my arms, which were bandaged around stiff boards. I was very cold, very pale, very weak, and very much alive.

“Can you bring my family in, please?” I asked.

The staff carefully cleaned up the debris of my henceforth labeled “syncopal episode.” (Don’t you just love how they change things when they think no one’s conscious enough to remember?) Then they brought Mike and the kids to me.

“You look terrible,” was all Mike could muster.

I held Reilly Kate’s hand and kissed Roman’s toe-head. When they weren’t looking, I whispered to Mike, “If I die, sue them. I’m serious.”

“You’re mom’s on the way. I’m going to go pick her up at the airport before they take you into surgery,” he replied.

“Did you hear me? They’re fucking this up. If I die, you need to sue them. Get enough money to take care of the kids,” I insisted.

“You’re not going to die.”

“Mike, just promise me that if I do, you’ll sue.”

Shortly thereafter, they wheeled me off for my D&C. Mike went to get my mom and take her and the kids back to the house. When I awoke, they told me that my husband would be coming to take me home.

“Has the bleeding stopped,” I asked.

“Yeah. You’re fine. You’ll going home as soon as your husband comes back,” the post-op crew assured me.

No sooner than that and my blood pressure once again went crashing down. But this time, I was a battle scarred veteran.

“Excuse me,” I interrupted the nurses gabbing at the station. “Excuse me! I’m not feeling well. My blood pressure is going down.”

I closed my eyes and went back to my focus. I knew I wasn’t dying this time. I couldn’t. I had my focus. They went to work, changing the second IV and calling the doctor. It was decided that I’d be spending the night.

Mike met me in my post op room. I was exhausted and other than a small exchange about how my mom was settling in with the kids, I don’t remember much. The nurse came in and out all night. I could hear whispers and feel the squeeze of the blood pressure monitor. At one point, I was awoken by the prick of a needle and a low-toned, “For blood typing.”

In the wee hours of the morning with darkness still cloaking the rising day, I felt a pressure on my chest. I opened my eyes to find my nurse’s forehead resting upon my breastbone, her hands clasped to her chin in prayer.

“Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, thank you, Jesus,” she cried and raised her head. Her tear filled eyes met my sleep filled. She explained in a thick Caribbean accent, “I thought we might lose you. You’re blood pressure was so low. I’ve been praying all night long. But now you’re at 72/53. You’re doing better. Thank you, Jesus.”