I'm Never Having This Conversation Again

If you know me, or if you're a master of context clues, you know that having Ellie was, and I'm struggling for the right word, difficult I guess.

At some point during my labor my doctor said my pregnancy was arduous. I read somewhere after I had Ellie that if you are still talking about your labor a year after you've had your child then you have something unresolved.
A Gorilla in the Mist.

Im going to dump this here and now and try not to mention it ever again.
Outloud.

But it's not about my labor.

I'm still thinking about my pregnancy. About having Ellie and how it came about and why it's top of mind.

I think there's a quote from Alice in Wonderland that says when you don't know where to start, to start at the beginning.
But which one?

My husband was, at the time, my then fiance. We had moved in together in June of 06, with a ring onhand and another inhand, the intention to marry that fall and the idea that we'd try to conceive. We weren't desperate or babyhungry, nor were we in a hurry. But we knew we were going to get married and we assumed wed have children eventually so why not now?

I got pregnant the fist month. About 6 weeks in there was spotting, and at 8 some significant bleeding. I could look up the timeline, or the blog entry that summarizes it but suffice to say that during the first visit to the emergency room they called it as a miscarriage first. During the "factchecking" ultrasound they were able to detect a heartbeat. They assumed I had lost a twin.

The second visit to the ER happened 4 weeks later, again pronounced a miscarriage based on a trail of blood and chunks of tissue, discarded not analyzed in the er. I heard the call to my doctor from outside the room. The nurse found the ob on call and said that Dr. * patient was in with a miscarriage and were they going to do a d&c, have him do the exam or send me home with counseling to pass it naturally. Astonishment again upon finding the heartbeat. My placenta had detached more then a third of the way, and was showing wear on the other side as well. I had huge blood clots behind it.

After each visit to the er, there was a week to two of bedrest. By 18 weeks I had been on restricted movement for almost six weeks. I had the amnio, they saw a spot on the heart. The amnio was a risk given my placentas not being firmly attached. So now 20 weeks, wondering first is the baby going to live then will it have Downes.

They also detected that my cervix was funneling. The way it does before you go into labor. Normally it's measured in centimeters. I was at millimeters.

I was hospitalized at 23 weeks.
I was discharged after 28.
I was on strict left lying, no sitting up, no shower, bedrest for 88 consecutive days.
I was on bedrest totally for 124.
4 months of a 7.5 month pregnancy.

So simply put into paragraphs.
"Oh I had troubles"

I mean who doesn't have a birth story, a pregnancy story?

I've heard people talk about having liver problems, diabetes. Bad labors.
And god, I know its unfair to say this but GOD I just sometimes feel like "But at least you were taken by surprise. Your pregnancy was NORMAL at one point then went bad."

Mine was never ever good.

It wasn't good from the first 6 weeks, and it wasn't good after. I never went out pregnant. I never drove a car, went to the mall, wore maternity clothes. I never had a shower (bath or celebratory) I never had advice given to me. Old ladies never touched me. The magazine articles didn't relate to me.

I lay, trapped, in a bed. Day after day with everyone - nurses, doctors, neighbors, relatives friends and strangers knowing my business. I had to pee with help. My legs couldn't support me. I wished my child dead. For it's sake not mine. Over and over.

I cried every day, and more at night. I was trapped in my body with a ticking timebomb growing - maybe - inside me. Chained to me.

Would it live, or die?

In the earlier months it was easier.
A death is a miscarriage. Up to so may weeks there isn't a brain. It's simply a "could have been a life" But at 22 weeks, 23 weeks, the mythical baby becomes a "I'm likely going to live a few days after birth then die."

I was growing a monster. Because it wasn't really going to be a human being that early.

I never feel in love with my child, I never hoped. We had no names, no nursery, no dreams. It was just a thing. I thing I was committed to protecting because I was too scared to let it die.

Daily I worried that I would go into labor and deliver a mass of blood and tissue wherever I stood.

A trip to the bathroom was cause for an hour of panic.

I carried low. I could feel the pains.

The only reason we found out the gender was, at 26 weeks, infant girls had a higher likelihood of survival.

And this is only a story. It's letters strung into words, into sentences. I can't describe minute by minute moment by moment feeling a life inside you that there was no way to protect. I can't begin to describe the feeling of praying, literally praying for Gods will to be done, whatever that would be, because you were tired of trying to fathom it with your own mind.

I went into labor 6 and change weeks early, the irony being that my cervix wouldn't open. My placenta had detached and Ellie was swallowing blood but no one knew because I wasn't dilating. If not for an extremely clever nurse with a keen eye...well, I don't really know what the outcome would have been. They kept assuming my labor would stop. Not really knowing that I was really REALLY in labor.

I felt safe in the hospital though. No matter what someone would take care of things.
I didn't even then wish for her survival. I just wanted her out.
Not to get my life back. I couldn't have cared less about that.
I wanted her out because I couldn't stand the fact that she was going to die anyway - she was to me a thing that I housed. Certainly not a baby. A monster probably. She was going to have no brain I thought. No ears, no eyes, a mass of tissue. Retarded at best. I incubated an alien.

Doug saw her first. First in the NICU. We saw her only a second after birth.
About two hours later the labor nurse wheeled me up.
And was sharply reprimanded thereafter.
Because she didn't think to call.
And she wheeled me into a space where a team of doctors and nurses were rescuing Ellie from her lungs collapsing.
She wheeled me, a mother who was not a mother into a room where her baby was being attached to ...life support?
I can't say it correctly.

My first thought...my very first thought...was "She should have died"

It went from bad to worse.
That night I tried to go see her on my own.
My husband was asleep and I snuck out of my room. 30 hours of labor, no strength from months of bedrest, I tried to sneak into the elevator bank to get up to the NICU. I thought if I could see her alone I might fall in love. Feel something other then relief. Then fear.

I tried to reason with myself. If worse came to worse, if she lived, maybe my sister would raise her. Or I could leave Doug and he could raise her. Sure I'd have to move, start a new life, but the baby would be better off, happier without me.

The nurse saw me on the camera from the front desk. She was pissy. She took me upstairs begrudgingly and I know I heard sharp words to her from the NICU nurse. Probably because her attitude sucked. The NICU nurses were kinder. They left me there until the NICU nurse called down to have me moved back to bed. I still hadn't held Ellie nor would I that night. I can't remember when I did. The next day? Or maybe the day after?

When I look at the pictures, we seemed happy. Normal. In control.

When they told me I was going to be able to bring her home, I cried. It wasn't relief. I lay on the floor of my closet, hiding, and cried until Doug came looking for me.

He was, to this day, the biggest fucking asshole that ever walked in that moment. I don't dare write down what he said as my house, heart and stomach won't allow it but suffice to say that it was his opinion that she was alive, and fine, and it was time for me to move on and get mothering. How long would he have to worry about me?

Like it was my fault that he had worried the last 9 months?

We had a few visits - from the visiting nurse, from a doula, then a social worker type woman. All part of the follow-up services, part of her being premature.

Because although I was horrified and incapacitated, I also had the wherewithal to devise a plan for attacking it. Attacking my fear.

As it turns out, it wasn't postpartum. A woman from Jewish Family Services was able to correctly identify it and I spoke to a counselor - for post traumatic stress. Go figure. So apparently I was crashing from holding it together. My very own syndrome experience. Whee! And after talking it out, and hearing the horror in her voice, and receiving the assurances that any one of the traumatic incidences that had happened would send anyone reeling, that it was PERFECTLY normal for me to feel the way I felt.

I think it took my just over a week. Fortunately Ellie was healthy, as good as any baby could ever be, easy, and pleasant. I fell in love rather then knew I was in love, and I fall in love more each day. Although frankly, lately, she's terrifying as she is no longer my malleable baby but a little personality with fury to match.

So why why the long post? Why the poor me pity me?

It goes back to the much talked about, ballyhooed, Maybe Baby.

The house is small yet I save things. Why? For the Maybe Baby.
I need to join a gym but I pause. Why? Because a Maybe Baby will incapacitate me.
I need new pants (see Join Gym Above) but I won't buy clothes. Why? Because the Maybe Baby might render them useless.

Doug and I talked about "starting" (euphemism for knocking boots with intent) in September. Then we decided Christmas. And I just couldn't do it. Well, so to speak. So now January is coming. And the day of reckoning in near.

"Don't think about it" people say. As if I don't know when I'm ovulating. (Clockwork, thank you)
"God gives you what you can handle." Yeah, well, god thinks highly of me.
"Then don't do it." But that's not the answer. I'm not ready to say never. And if we aren't saying never, then we need to say now. Because I'm old. And there isn't going to BE a right time.
"You don't even know if you CAN get pregnant again." Why no, I don't. Thank you

So I've started teaching Ellie how to climb out of her crib. And down from the car seat. At 19 months. I need to get in the habit of kneeling to hug her. And we'll get the toddler chair so she can climb up on her own. I'll have step stools everywhere. I'll figure out a daycare now. Just in case she can't stay with me during the day. We've hired a cleaning woman. And I have a binder of takeout menus. Because while I can't be prepared for everything, or anything for that matter, I suppose all I can do is line up what I can.

Most people are excited to have a baby. A planned one. I hear my friends planning, plotting, stratigizing. "We hope we'll get pregnant" "We're trying." "We are!" I just can't feel that. All I can see is that I'm going to willingly give up a year of my life. And not in the "We all do to some extent way." And, of course, our biggest fear is "What if we aren't so lucky" What if the next baby doesn't stay in for 34 weeks? Seriously, Ellie made it because we had the shots. Will we get shots next time? What if my placenta detaches with the cerclage in place? Can I hemorrhage? Die?

I had reconciled myself, when pregnant with Ellie, to never even having a child. And Doug and I decided that, truly, that one, her, is enough. We feel complete. The second child is for all of us really though. A chance to love more, to have a sibling, to have a family at Christmas in our old age, whatever reasons you go forth. But if it's not meant to be, we'll reconciled to that too.

I just want it to be easier this time. For him and for Ellie. Because I can stand the laying down, the fear, maybe the heartache. Because it's just me. But it's hard to be the one that's ruining it for everyone else.

So I'm done talking about it. In words outloud and in print. You won't hear me discussing it again.
It's unlikely that I'll be ready in January though.

Sooner or later.
Sooner is looming.
Later is comforting.

Sooner or later I'll need to move forward. You can't sit at the cross roads forever.