Ah, Valentine’s Day! The day when
sweethearts remember one another with special dinners, roses, chocolates and
maybe a jewelry bauble or two. (I could get really cynical about how it usually
ends up being a day for wallet-busting dinners, second-rate chocolates, and
over-priced roses, but I won’t. It’s capitalism in action. Actually, I don’t think
one day of showing your love to your sweetie cuts it, but that’s for another
blog…)
Anyway, it had finally arrived.
Valentine’s Day. February 14. The day I’d penciled in and looked for to so
eagerly. Ached for, actually. The day I’d give myself a gift. The day I’d arise
from my mattress confines, heat the shower water to near boiling temps and
luxuriate in the billowing steam and caressing waterfall.
But it didn’t quite happen that way.
Valentine’s Day arrived, along with
cards and flowers from my two significant others, Chris and my four-year-old
son, Parker.
And I made a decision.
No shower.
I waved away the opportunity for it.
My cramped, stringy, weakened muscles would just have to continue to … well …
stay weakened, cramped and stringy. A brief, selfish act wasn’t worth the risk
and its potential consequences.
I could postpone Valentine’s Day.
Miraculously, we’d made it to
thirty-two weeks and added more steroid injections to the program. And a home
monitoring system connected through my phone line to record and evaluate
contractions had been installed. The injections always managed to leave me
painfully bloated (actually made me feel as though I would explode) and
invariable caused the baby to run races and perform somersaults and fist
punches within in my uterus. My derriere became a pincushion and my baby a star
wrestler. Little holes finally wore through my pajama seams, and the divot in
the egg crate resisted rebounding to life when I left it momentarily to use the
bathroom.
My hips grew increasingly numb from
the constant pressure, and the baby often pressed high into my ribcage,
especially following those critical injections. Sciatic nerve pain sprang to
life as the hip numbness worsened. Vigorous back rubs and hot water bottles
offered some relief, and as I more frequently flipped form my left side to my
right, then back again, my water bottle and support pillows followed suit. It
was my exercise for the day, and I was beginning to get a lot of it.
But the big physical activity
continued to be toe pointing, while the highlight of the day was the telephone
contact with my health service to discuss the results of my hour-long
contraction monitoring. With every contraction came a compulsory logbook entry.
With unwanted continual, consistent uterine activity came the precise time keeping
of contraction intervals, extra water ingestion, and a Terbutaline “vitamin”
tablet to get everything under control.
Motivational and instrumental tapes
continued to lull me to sleep. I even thought the baby might appreciate a
little music, so one evening I applied the headphones to my swollen belly to
impart some entertainment to the womb. That was, until Chris reminded me that
the fluid in the uterus might conduct the sound waves in such a way as to be
detrimental to the baby’s hearing. In my debilitated state, I’d forgotten most,
if not all, of my therapeutic ultrasound training and practice. Horrified, I
plucked the headphones from my tummy and prayed that I hadn’t permanently
damaged my unborn baby’s sensitive ears!
By February 22, the thirty-third
week, Dr. Landry seemed driven to present me with a baby to take home, minus
any hospital stay. That sounded awfully nice, but I doubted that my broken body
retained enough energy supply to care for a newborn infant. A couple of days in
the hospital for both of us sounded like a reasonable alternative to me.
And what about those panic attacks?
Mercifully, they ceased to be a
threat, until one night when Chris had to momentarily shut off the power to the
house and take away our one working flashlight from me in order to see what he
was doing with the circuit breaker.
There I lay in abject darkness,
unable to even see my hand in front of my face.
Slowly, the familiar, smothering,
chest-clamping fear crept across my body then coursed its way through my nerves
like a rapidly ascending elevator. I called for Chris but received no response.
He and Parker were in the garage, where he told me they’d be. For some reason,
when the panic began my memory took a hike.
Several minutes seemed like an hour,
and, as I lay there panicking, my brain fed into it, only making the situation
worse. I couldn’t breathe. I felt faint. My heart slammed repeatedly against my
chest cavity. Sweat beads erupted, not just on my face but all over my body. I
choked. My urgent calls to Chris continued, each one progressively louder and
more frantic than the last one.
And then I did it.
In irrational desperation, I climbed
out of bed. Carefully. I was still
coherent enough to remember my movements had to be done carefully. I lifted my
hand in front of me and followed my searching fingers through our large
entryway, up three dining room steps and into the kitchen to locate a candle, a
match, and a plate.
But a stationary parade of stars
displaying themselves throughout our kitchen’s slanted ceiling windows diverted
my attention, and I gazed—enraptured—at their illuminating brilliance in the
pristine winter sky.
I stood transfixed, eyes glued to
the heavens. No wonder the Bible says
there are too many to count, especially when these only represent the ones I
can see without the aide of a telescope. Finally pulling myself away from
the mesmerizing, twinkling light vision, I located the articles I’d gone in
search of, lit the candle, and re-navigated the course just taken.
On this trip, however, I held a tiny
beacon.
Using one hand to support my
precious uterine contents, I returned slowly and carefully to the bedroom, placed
the candle on the bathroom counter, lay down on the bed and started at the
flickering glow.
Kind
of like fastening your eyes on the light of Jesus, I thought. If only I would learn to follow His light
with such single-minded intensity.
As I stared, I relaxed. The
longer I stared, the more I thought about Christ and his life-producing light.
The more I thought about Christ, the more his supernatural peace replaced the
paralyzing fear encasing my body. The more I thought about Him, the greater His presence penetrated the depths of my
soul.
It was then
that I really understood my relationship with Him. And His relationship with
me.
With Him, I
would never be alone.
Within
minutes, the room lights sprang to life and Chris and Parker bounded happily
into the house. “You left me completely in the dark,” I pointed out, a strained
edge to my voice. But why did I even tell
him that? It doesn’t really matter now?
“Sorry.” Chris
simply said, with raised eyebrows, a perplexed look and a shrug.
He doesn’t understand. He couldn’t
understand. No one can, really, unless they’ve personally experience the
choking fear of irrational thoughts and brain-induced survival chemicals
ripping through your body.
It was my
final attack. No announcement. No tapering off. In just one night, the hedge of
protection went up and the gauntlet was swept away. Fear evaporated as a
blanket of peace enveloped me like a protective shroud.
Except for
the continued contractions, uterus-monitoring calls, increased boredom, and
general third trimester discomfort, the remainder of my nights seemed
relatively uneventful.
Beautifully,
mercifully… uneventful.
I don’t
think I’ve ever been more grateful for anything in my life.
_______________________________________
NEXT WEEK: Radiant lights, the nesting instinct
sets in, my prayer focuses changes, and getting stuck between a rock and a hard
place…
_________________________________________
Until next week,
Thanks for
joining me!
Blessings,
Andrea
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