I love roller coasters.
Well, at least I used to love them. Not so much anymore.
My arthritic neck and back can’t take them now. So, I have a choice to get on
and get hurt, or to sit on a bench and watch screaming humans get tossed, looped
around and nauseated. For fun!
This ride I’d been on for three
months, I chose to get on. Set my face like flint to ride, get walloped around and live to tell about it.
Just because it was voluntary
didn’t make the end ride any easier.
I thought I'd been chucked around pretty good up to this point.
But the death drop was just beginning.
But the death drop was just beginning.
The final days of January and first
several days of February brought a sweltering heat wave, turning my
south-facing room into an oven. The air conditioning brought some relief, but
by six in the evening, I was damp, drained and eager to extinguish the lights.
With such an early retirement, I awakened in the earliest morning hours,
conceding to banal television entertainment with its insomniac lineup of
pocket-draining infomercials and worn-out talk shows. Eventually, even the
local station couldn’t justify transmitting any longer and vacated the night
airways.
I more frequently listened to
Christian radio, opened my Bible more often to study it, wrote letters, filled
my journal and signed checks for the constant supply of bills streaming into
the house. I also played with Parker—to the best of my limited ability—and
managed to crochet two baby afghans, one for my baby and one for a friend’s.
Unfortunately, the latter one was lost in transit to Chicago. (I could only
hope the unintended owners appreciated my labors.) The liquid diet continued,
except for the moments when I broke down and treated myself to solid food—then
wished I hadn’t been so foolish.
I imagined that as the March date of
thirty-six weeks approached, time would pass more quickly.
I was wrong. It only seemed to slow
down.
Tick…Tick…Tick...
A friend happily surprised me with
several cuddly receiving blankets, which elevated my hopes that I might
actually bring a new baby home to wrap them around. Tucked among the blankets
were a bath sponge and gel, for me! For the time when I’d be able to soak
luxuriously in a tub brimming with steaming water and vigorously scrub my skin
into a shiny pink glow. Dr. Landry expected me to come to his office for weekly
visits beginning February 8, providing mini-goals that I cheerfully anticipated
would eradicate the creeping clock.
By February 8, I was more than ready
to complete the pregnancy, though. I actually had visitors, which meant welcome
conversation and companionship, but the animated socializing also delivered
unwanted fatigue and contractions. On Saturday, the contractions were so
numerous and consistent that I needed to finally break down and ingest some of
the Terbutaline, Dr. Landry’s “Vitamin T.” Then I had to maintain a subdued,
sequestered afternoon. Sunday brought more inconsistent uterine activity,
making it difficult to discern whether I was having Braxton-Hicks or bona fide
contractions. My forehead’s worry creases deepened.
The examination at Dr. Landry’s the
following morning told the story: my cervix was rapidly deteriorating—thinned
to the thickness of a paper towel—with an effacement increase to ninety
percent.
“I don’t think we’re going to make
it another two weeks,” he pronounced. “I’m going to begin steroid injections
today to enhance the baby’s lung development; home health will come out to your
house tomorrow, then again next Monday and Tuesday to administer more
injections. I do not want you to come
in next week; you need to stay in bed. And you need to be taking your “Vitamin
T,” he finished with a smile.
My head swirled. Ninety percent, hanging by a thread
paper-thin cervix, steroid injections… I tried to focus and nod, like I was
following along. Good thing Chris is
taking all of this in.
There was one redeeming aspect to the
visit: my baby was doing well. “Looked beautiful,” according to Dr. Landry.
Doing all of the things he expected a baby to do in the womb at that stage, and
the lung development was good. Good weight gain, good growth, strong movement.
Impending childbirth.
Suddenly, the clock seemed to have
accelerated.
Tick. Tick. Tick.
I had spent so many weeks, days,
hours, minutes and seconds in bed, I wasn’t sure what to think at that point.
Lying flat and confined had become “normal.”
But
maybe it’s finally time to pick out baby names and prepare a hospital overnight
bag, I thought.
Juxtaposed among the happy feelings
of having a new baby to bring home, though, were feelings of having a tiny, fragile,
premature infant in neonatal intensive care for an indefinite amount of time.
It was a given. At this stage of development, the baby would be too small to
come home, and I’d be released from the hospital long before the baby would be.
Even though the baby looked strong in the womb, any number of problems could
develop in the ICU, leaving him or her with permanent, physical damage.
We had made it so far, and even
though the survival rate placed us high on the statistics chart, there was no
guarantee the baby would survive. There were still an unknown number of
pregnancy days remaining, and then the actual delivery. Even a perfect nine-month
pregnancy could end with debilitating problems. Or death. Experience told me
nothing—absolutely nothing—could be
taken for granted. There were no guarantees.
Call it knowing too much. Stubborn doubt
and fear clouds remained parked over our heads. Parker managed to sum it up in
profound, child-like fashion. “You’ve been pregnant a l-o-n-g time,” he observed following that
doctor visit.
Oh,
Sweetheart, you have no idea. It feels like a lifetime!
_______________________________________
NEXT WEEK: The ride down begins…
_______________________________________
Until next week,
Thanks for
joining me!
Blessings,
Andrea
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