Aw.
Three days after Lena and Liberty were born, Columbine happened and I thought, wow, these kids are seriously f*cked, what kind of a world is this?
Happy Birthday, Lena and Liberty! And since you don’t read this blog because Mommy swears in it, let’s talk about me now.
Birth story alert! If it had a title, it would be called “Why I Chose a Homebirth the Second Time Around.”
Lena and Liberty were born 4 weeks early after 8 weeks of bedrest and many, many lies by my perinatologist. He was a gentle, grandfatherly type who never wore his scary white coat and always sat down next to my bed instead of towering over me. I loved him and trusted him instantly. He was a big fat liar. Baby A (Lena) was head down, engaged in the birth canal ready to go, which usually indicates that a vaginal birth is a definite possibility. Baby B (not Lena) had a little bit of a problem in that her esophagus didn’t go all the way down to her stomach. Scary, but fixable I was assured. The perinatologist used this little defect to convince me that I should have a c-section: “You know, sometimes these babies also have a tracheal problem and if you give birth by c-section, I’ll be able to keep Baby B connected to you by umbilical cord long enough so we can create an airway for her. Otherwise, she could die.” Sign me up. I didn’t even question why the pediatric surgeon or the neonatologist didn’t tell me about this little piece of information. Are you wondering why they didn’t? It’s because it wasn’t true. I didn’t find out that it was a lie until I was strapped down on the operating table waiting for the gas to put me under. Dr. Neonatologist came to my bedside and said in his broken English, “I here to see what wrong with Baby B-if she need surgery today or can wait a few day, or if she have no airway, Baby just die.”
‘Scuse me?
“If there no communication between trachea and lung, nothing we can do, Baby just die.”
Mmkay. I’m not leaving this hospital without my Baby B’s airway, does everybody understand that? Let’s just forget for a moment that the whole reason I consented to this c-section was because Perinatologist told me that if there wasn’t an airway, the c-section would allow time for Neonatologist or Pediatric Surgeon (or maybe God? Now I don’t even know who he meant was going to fix this if it happened) to create an airway. And what about poor Baby A? She has been a very good girl, getting herself into a perfect position in order to come through the birth canal. She was planning on coming through the canal! She could have gotten herself all jumbled up and flipped breech or transverse or any other way that pleased her, but she listened to her mommy all those months and put her head right on my cervix like a good girl.
I didn’t say any of those things. What I really did was cry and yell at everybody to just stop, stop, stop. “She’s alive right now. Let’s not do the c-section! We don’t have to do it right now. I’m not really in labor right now!”
(Here’s a secret: I wasn’t really in labor, but I was so sick of being in the hospital that I just wanted it overwith. I had been contracting every 2-3 minutes for 8 weeks and they weren’t getting more intense and they weren’t changing my cervix; I just had an irritable uterus that wanted to contract constantly so as to throw everybody into a tizzy and make us all think that I should stay in bed. Forever. Perinatologist told me that when the contractions changed and became painful that I should let my nurse know and we would then do the section. On Friday, my ultrasound showed 2 healthy babies who were “both around 6 pounds” [more lies]. On Saturday, I was 36 weeks along and sick sick sick of being in the hospital, and fairly confident that my babies would be healthy so I lied to the nurse, “Um, I think I can feel these contractions now.”)
Again, I said, “Stop! She’s alive right now! Let’s just keep her in there.” Then they ushered in Grandmotherly Nurse to pat my hand and tell me that it would all be ok. My arms were strapped all the way out to my sides, crucifixion-style, so this move meant to comfort me was a bit of a stretch. All it did was remind me how f’ed up the whole thing was. So she patted my hand, 2 feet away from me, and then she put a mask over my face. I remember thinking that the mask would give me oxygen: They think I’m hysterical and I’m going to pass out if I don’t have enough oxygen…Is oxygen supposed to make me this sleepy?
I woke up several hours later in a lot of pain, with a lot less blood, a scarred uterus, and no babies by my side. Oddly, my first concern was the placenta, “Did they remember to send the placenta out to get tested?” Heaven forbid we didn’t find out if our girls were identical or fraternal! My second thought came immediately, “Is Liberty alive? Does she have an airway?” Yes, they assured me. “And Lena?” Yes, yes, yes. Both of them had a bit of trouble starting to breathe because of a lot of fluid in their lungs (stupid c-section). Liberty was on a ventilator. I couldn’t even think about it.
People were telling me how beautiful they were. My sister, my mother, my husband. A nurse brought me a Polaroid of each of them with their names, weights, and lengths written on the bottom. Lena was 4 lbs. 12 oz., 18 inches long and Liberty was 5 lbs. 1 oz., 18 inches. Um, ultrasound? You suck at guessing weights. I think a carnival worker could’ve done a better job. If not, I at least would’ve gotten a stuffed animal if the carnie was as far off as you were.
Honest to God, when I looked at those Polaroids I thought, “How in the hell does anybody know how beautiful they are? They have tape all over their faces, holding tubes in their mouths. People are lying to me again. I have ugly babies and nobody wants to tell me.” Then I realized that it was only Liberty who had a tube. I had looked at the same picture twice. Lena’s picture was grainy, but everybody was right, she was beautiful. Once I could look around the tube, I could see that Liberty was indeed beautiful too. The tube pissed me off because things that scare me tend to piss me off, but if it was helping her breathe, then fine. After looking at the precious Polaroids I went back to sleep.
It would have been a good sleep, too, if not for Resident who kept coming in and pushing on my stomach. Didn’t she know I just had abdominal surgery and she was very rudely putting way too much pressure on my wound? You would think that medical schools would teach people something like, “When a patient has just had surgery, try not to put pressure on the body part that was recently cut open.” Absurd. I was hooked up to a button that would deliver 1 shot of morphine every 8 minutes or so. Each time Resident came to push on my belly, I clicked that morphine button a hundred times. Resident kept telling me that it would only work once per 8 minutes, but I was banking on it malfunctioning. I made a deal with it that if it would just deliver 8 shots of morphine every single minute then I would love it forever and buy it anything it wanted. ClickClickClickClickClickClickClickClickClickClickClickClick.
Resident didn’t like the way my uterus kept gushing blood all over the place. No wonder I was so sleepy. Blood loss kind of takes the wind out of your sails. She gave me 2 transfusions and called it good. Could I see my babies then? Sure, but I had to be careful not to touch them. Fabulous. They’re lucky I was high, or else I would’ve really been rude.
Nurse wheeled me and my stretcher into the NICU where I called both my babies by the wrong name. I said, “Hi Liberty,” and Nurse said, “That’s Lena.” Oh. On the way to Liberty’s isolette I concentrated so hard, telling myself that I should really try to call the next baby by the right name. It was about a 20-foot walk and I think I fell asleep on the way. At any rate, I said, “Hi Lena,” and Nurse once again corrected me. Oh. I think the reason it’s called General Anesthesia is because you Generally have no idea who you are or where you are until it wears off. I don’t know, but that’s what I believe. Maybe it was the blood loss. Or the morphine. I don’t really know for sure, but my brain did not work well until all of my drugs wore off. Maybe 6 years later.
So Different Nurse then wheeled me back to my room, where she actually expected me to hoist myself up off of the stretcher and put myself in my bed. Ha! ClickClickClickClickClickClickClickClickClick. I got myself into my bed and then I promptly asked for something in which I could vomit. I did not want to vomit. I was in quite a lot of pain and I did not, did not, did not want to use my stomach muscles for the purpose of hurling into a tiny vomit catcher. I didn’t know I had any will power because when I’m doing something I shouldn’t do, I always say, “Gee, I wish I had will power so I wouldn’t do these things,” but I’m telling you when that puke was on its way out of my stomach I forced it all back down by the sheer power of my will. That might have been the happiest moment of my life.
Nurse left my husband and me in my room all by ourselves. It was about 7 hours after Lena and Liberty were born and I was still feeling guilty for faking real labor. I told my husband the truth and I asked him if he was disappointed in me. I can’t really remember what he said, but I know that he usually knows the right things to say so I have supreme confidence that he assured me that he was indeed proud of me and not at all disappointed, for Heaven’s sake. Or maybe he said he really had a lot of yard work to do and that would’ve been a nice way to spend a Saturday. Either way, I don’t remember.
After Bryan left, I started to talk to my belly because that was what I had been doing every night for the past eight months, and then I remembered that my babies weren’t with me anymore. And I wondered if they realized that I wasn’t with them. And then I cried and cried and pushed my morphine button until I finally fell asleep, which probably took about 10 seconds, but it felt like a long time.
And I wouldn’t change a thing. Except for the whole birth story/birth defect/scary/sad/angry stuff. Other than that, I wouldn’t change a thing. These girls have been amazing and I’m truly lucky to be their mother. If time could go more slowly, I would be ever so grateful. Nine years went by in a blink. Another 9 years and they’ll be 18. Where’s my morphine?
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