Cerclage, Epidurals and a Nurse’s Divine Intervention

            Mayo Clinic defines a cerclage as: a procedure in which sutures are used to close the cervix — the lower part of the uterus that opens to the vagina — during pregnancy to help prevent premature birth.

           

            The best way I can describe it: turning your cervix into something resembling a marble bag opening.

           

            And my cervix was about to be turned into a marble bag clone.

           

            They scheduled surgery for the afternoon, since a heart surgery patient took priority over me. Dr. Landry arrived in my room prior to scrubbing to say, “Hi,” and discuss the procedure with me again, now that the muscle relaxants had worn off. During the go-through, he mentioned that an epidural would be administered for anesthesia. May eyes widened in terror as he talked, and I chewed my lip.

           

            The epidural I received when delivering Parker had failed to anesthetize my lower parts properly. After I explained that to Dr. Landry, he promised me an “audience” with the anesthesiologist to discuss my concerns. An anesthesiologist, he pointed out, that he highly regarded, and with whom he appeared pleased to be working. Lucky me.

           

            Surgery time arrived, and they prepared me for transport to the operating room. After being carefully, gingerly re-positioned on a gurney, Dr. Landry leaned over and asked, “Are you ready?”

           

            “Are you?” I questioned a bit too sarcastically I guess, because the nurses sucked in their collective breaths when I said it. I could almost imagine the “impertinent patient” discussion they’d soon be having at the nurses’ station down the hall after they wheeled me away.

           

            But Dr. Landry merely smiled and nodded before he and Chris maneuvered me to the operating room check-in area. I watched the ceiling tiles zip by as I cruised along. Chris then smooched me goodbye and said he’d return after going home to see Parker and take a shower.

           

            In the hallway outside the operating room, Dr. Landry officially checked me in himself at the window, and the anesthesiologist maneuvered to my bedside. Following a preliminary introduction and brief diagnostic back-and-forth with Dr. Landry—who firmly emphasized that he’d like to do an epidural—I interrupted by blurting out my experience with the relatively unsuccessful epidural during Parker’s delivery. I had a sense of urgency about her knowing it. I couldn’t dispel the feeling that an epidural would lead to catastrophe.

           

            She shifted her attention to me and carefully explained why epidurals sometimes don’t work. Dr. Landry hung over the bed, listening intently before again interjecting that he’d prefer an epidural. But she gave me one last look, turned to Dr. Landry and unequivocally declared, “No. I will do a saddle block so we can ensure complete anesthetizing of the area.” 

           

            I’d won! I couldn’t help but break out in a victory smile. Four eyes turned to look at Dr. Landry.

           

            “I guess that is better,” he agreed with a nod. “I can’t afford to have you wiggling around on the table. I might end up puncturing the amniotic sac during the procedure.” I breathed a sigh of relief at his change of heart.

           

            It would be the first of many God moments that day.

           

            The anesthesiologist left, cheerfully saying that she’d see me in just a few minutes. “You’re in my hands, now,” Dr. Landry said, gently patting my leg.

           

            Not entirely, I thought. Your hands and God’s. “I wouldn’t have it any other way,” I said with a grin.

           

            “I’ll see you inside. I need to go scrub.”

           

oOo

           

            From the anesthesiologist to the operating-room assistants, the process was a picture of precise efficiency. Within minutes, someone arrived to wheel my gurney into the operating room to quickly prepare me for surgery. Together, they carefully transferred me to the table and quickly strapped my arm down for an IV and then draped my body with warm blankets to prevent my shivering in the cold, sterile room. Instructing me to roll onto my left side, the anesthesiologist deftly inserted the necessary equipment into my back to obstruct sensation in my abdomen, hips and legs. Then she promptly returned me to my face-up position. Dr. Landry suddenly appeared, spoke briefly with her, and then turned his attention to me.

           

            He repeated the expectation scenario again, along with the expected thirty-minute surgery time. Then he positioned himself in an optimal viewing position at the end of the table and prepared to weave surgical thread through my cervix to draw it closed. All I could see at the end of the table was the green surgical cap on his head. The assistants threaded my legs through little stirrups and gently cranked up my pelvis with a pulley to a more acceptable, and operable, viewing level. A butcher shop picture floated through my mind: pig and bovine carcasses hanging by meat hooks from a ceiling.

           

           

            The glare of the operating room lights illuminating the room assaulted my eyes, so I closed them and communicated by nodding or wiggling my fingers at Dr. Landry.

           

            It seemed as though the process had only just begun when he roused me to announce he was finished. “Everything went well,” he smiled. “What we have to worry about now is labor starting because I was irritating the cervix. The recovery room nurse will keep an eye on the fetal monitor and start magnesium sulfate if that should happen, and I will be into check on you after I change. I may release you tonight if everything goes well.
           

            Release me tonight! Is he nuts? I don’t want to go home! I want to stay right here, to be observed 24/7, precisely where intervention will be immediate should anything go wrong. I had no intention of leaving the hospital that night. 

           

            I was briskly wheeled into the recovery room area and parked in a stall along the wall where a nurse busied herself taking and recording my vitals, making me comfortable, and observing my recovery from the anesthetic. What she was not doing, however, was keeping a watchful eye on the fetal monitor, regurgitating a stream of paper indicating stronger and stronger and closer and closer contractions. All of which I couldn’t detect because I’d been temporarily paralyzed from the belly button down. As far as I knew, everything was going like clockwork. Just peachy.

           

            While I lay there, immovable, my overactive imagination kicked into high gear. I entertained morbid thoughts of what it would like if the anesthesia never wore off, and considered what it must be like for paraplegics. The more I thought about it, the more I convinced myself that I’d never walk out of the hospital on my own power. Worse, I’d never walk again!

           

            It didn’t help that every couple of minutes the nurse asked if I had any sensation or could wiggle my toes. Mustering great will and determination, I attempted to move the leaded weights extending from my trunk to the end of the table. I was unable to wave even a big toe in her direction. I’d just look at her apologetically and shake my head.          

           

            Then try to keep from hyperventilating in panic.

           

            How utterly frightening, to realize that you’d be spending the rest of your life in that condition—with dead limbs hanging limply, uncontrollably from your body. My mind raced backwards ten years to the University of Wisconsin Hospitals physical therapy department, where I’d been volunteering as a physical therapy aide. No wonder those paraplegic patients—grown men and women, in the acute stage of their rehabilitation—spent so much time in fits of anger and tears, consumed with frustration about the unfairness of life and the futility of their condition. The physical therapist would get them on the floor and make them stand up, or get back in their wheelchairs on their own, using only their crutches or their arms and upper bodies for support and leverage.

           

            After long, drawn out minutes, they’d usually slump into a quivering heap on the floor, unconcerned about the other patients watching their meltdowns. Day after day after day of repeating the same procedure, the same instructions, the same exercises, they’d eventually emerge victorious. And then they’d weep over their success.  

           

            In an instant, my appreciation for quad and paraplegics deepened.

           

            This would be horrific.

           

            While I was mentally entertaining myself, and attempting every fifteen seconds to feel my toes, the double doors were thrust open and in walked Vera, looking determined and projecting a huge smile. My morbid thoughts abruptly disintegrated as I smiled back.

           

            “I just felt like I needed to come and see how you were doing, “ she said in her authoritative, yet soothing voice as she walked toward me. “How are you?”

           

            Before I could answer, she stopped abruptly, quit looking at me and scrutinized the fetal monitor paper ream rolling from the machine beside me.

           

            “Fine,” I replied, instantly calmed by her warm, hopeful presence.

           

            “You’re not keeping an eye on this monitor at all, are you!?” Vera shot at the recovering room nurse. “She’s having spikes of contractions all over the place, every three minutes! You’ve got to give her magnesium sulfate, right now!” she finished hotly as the nurse snapped to attention and, without a word of response to Vera, rapidly prepared the injection for insertion into my IV line. With visible disgust, Vera reiterated the need for attention to the monitor.

           

            I swiveled my head right to look at the recovery nurse, who busied herself preparing the injection. She refused to raise her eyes to meet Vera’s lethal gaze. Then I swiveled my head left to look at Vera, whose blazing eyes indicated she wanted to reach across the bed to slap her. Instead, she shook her head and told me she’d see me later. Then she pivoted on her white nurse’s shoes and strode back across the floor and through the double doors.

           

            I blinked. What just happened? If it weren’t for Vera… Within seconds, the magnesium sulfate flooded my body, bringing with it the familiar, scorching sensations. At precisely the moment the nurse injected the mag sulfate into the line, I requested two cold washcloths for my chest and face and reminded her of the drug’s other unpleasant side effects: nausea and vomiting.  She smilingly reassured me that Dr. Langford had ordered an anti-nausea drug to combat the problem. My eyelids slid shut in thankfulness, and I relaxed enough to momentarily withstand the hot flashes roaring across my face, shoulders and chest. Within minutes, the burning receded, the labor contraction waves quieted to just occasional blips of baby wiggles, and blessed sensation crept into my lower extremities to awaken my feet. All ten toes gestured ecstatically at their liberation. And I breathed a gargantuan relief sigh.

           

            Dr. Landry also arrived for a quick check—I didn’t blab on the recovery room nurse—and reported that everything looked good, although he reiterated that the next twenty-four to seventy-two hours would be critical. Fortunately, he had decided to extend my stay overnight in order to keep a close eye on me. Smiling, I wordlessly nodded my head. Good decision, doctor! I concur completely.

           

            They wheeled me back to my room and re-positioned me into the head-tilted-south position. And, once again, I inspected the ceiling tiles as we cruised along. Chris, Parker and my mother arrived to check me out and offer encouragement. Then I was left alone to fill the silence with television and any sleep I managed to self-induce. Seventy-two hours sounded like such a turtle race, especially when every minute hung in the balance.

           

            And I had plenty of time to think about what might have happened if the anesthesiologist had sided with Dr. Landry, and Vera had not responded to the “felt need” to vacate her post and make a quick trip to the recovery room, just “to check on me.” 

            Maybe God wasn’t so silent, and He hadn’t yet uttered, “No.”

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NEXT WEEK: I get to go home, and hope sparks my heart…

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Until next week,

Thanks for joining me!

Blessings,

Andrea

Ultrasound, Incompetent Cervix and Cerclage Talk

            Dr. Landry finally snapped off the ultrasound unit and slowly turned to face me.

            “I think what you have,” he seemed reluctant to even utter it, “is an incompetent cervix.”

            

            Well,…isn’t that just one big surprise! I thought, disdain prowling angrily around my cerebral cortex.

           

            Dr. Landry then launched into an explanation of the cerclage surgical procedure I needed, and then called to check on operating room availability for the following day. After that, he ordered me catheterized and confined to bed in that wonderful—and so-familiar—head-tilted-down, feet-tilted-up position, so my innards, and, most especially the baby, would slide toward my ribcage and alleviate cervical pressure.

           

            Then he prescribed a relaxant to be injected through my IV “on demand.” The nurses busied themselves with the task of having me officially admitted, since I’d been donning temporary bands since arrival. The medication was rapidly effective, easing me into a pleasant euphoria and relatively stress-free state. Chris laughed outright at my slurred speech as I attempted to maintain an intelligent conversation with him. The nurses encouraged him to spend the night in the corner reclining chair—I was in a labor-delivery room—and he contacted my parents to let them know he’d be staying with me.

           

            Because I had experienced some contractions, the fetal monitor remained strapped around my swollen midsection so the nurses would know if I suddenly went into labor. With all details accounted for, those round-the-clock, mandatory vital statistics checks began.

           

            Dr. Landry waved goodbye, after assuring me that he’d call in the morning, and that the nurses would contact him immediately if anything changed.

           

            We settled in for the night. Chris slept fitfully, his six-foot-one-inch frame bunched into the less-than-comfortable chair, while I teeter-tottered between artificially induced sleep and staring at the ceiling.

           

            Another ceiling. Another hospital. Another doctor.

           

            And the old, all-to-familiar heartache.

           

            Will I be able to hang onto this baby? It was a waiting game now. I’d been so certain that God had put His blessings on our decision to have another child. Had I made a gross error in discernment, or was it yet another trial? A test? Would I make it through the night, only to have the amniotic sac rupture after surgery? Or would I make it through surgery, only to go into labor they wouldn’t be able to arrest? I asked myself questions I knew couldn’t, or wouldn’t be answered—to my satisfaction, in my time frame, at least.

           

            While Chris had been out of the room making his call, one of my nurses, a kind and compassionate woman named Vera, told me about a young woman who had bled to death from a placenta previa because she hadn’t arrived at the hospital in time to be helped. Her doctor had warned her of the problem, but she had either ignored the danger or misunderstood its gravity.

           

            The story re-freshened my awareness that by God’s mercy alone, I had been saved from physical death during my previa with Victoria. And it was by God’s grace working through Chris and his wisdom that had thus saved the baby now languishing in my womb, ready to make its too-early entry into the world.

           

            Vera stayed with me while Chris was gone, and we had talked about faith, and God, and His promises. Finally, Vera stopped talking to silently and intensely observe me. In her eyes, I saw an uncanny depth of perception and gentle peace. She seemed to ingest, quickly assess and deeply contemplate—with wisdom, understanding and discernment—what she saw in front of her.  

           

            Then she leaned close to me and softly, compassionately uttered her carefully selected words.

           

            “I have a good feeling about this. I think everything is going to be fine.” My gaze adhered fiercely to hers.

           

            In that moment, I truly believed her. I wanted to believe her. Ached to believe her. Maybe the torment was temporary and would soon be a memory. Maybe Vera was right. Maybe I wouldn’t have to relive another nightmare.

           

            Dear God, may it be so!

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NEXT WEEK: The cerclage surgery, and God uses Vera to intervene...

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Thanks for joining me!

Until next week…

Blessings,

Andrea

Diagnosis: Incompetent Cervix...

           Why, why, WHY!? How could this happen to me again? My body lay uncomfortably confined in a head-down, foot-elevated position on a rock-hard hospital bed, while my mind reeling from the reality it was forced to rapidly process. Nurses bustled too quietly around the room while my obstetrician, Dr. Landry, attempted to articulate a medical discourse about my “condition.” Chilled by the news he communicated, I tried to mentally shroud his gently spoken, but decisive words.

           

            Roused from a Sunday evening with his family, he had shuffled slowly into my room five minutes earlier, hands buried in his bomber jacket pockets, his face a picture of concern and caution. Before he spoke, I instinctively dreaded his forthcoming appraisal. With a sober voice and matching demeanor, he bluntly pronounced his diagnosis: incompetent cervix: The medical community’s nomenclature for a cervix that opens prematurely during pregnancy.

           

            “Surprise, surprise!” I uttered inaudibly through clenched teeth. Hadn’t I questioned him repeatedly about this possibility occurring? Although he had offered repeated assurances, doubt, anxiety and unusual symptoms had plagued every stage of this pregnancy. I sensed that he initially found my concerns amusing, then—as I persisted in nagging him with them—a bit irritating. An ever-present cloud of dread had stubbornly suspended itself over my head. Having previously paid a catastrophic price for self-imposed silencing of my concerns, I wasn’t about to pay that price again. Was it simply a mother’s intuition haunting me, or something more?

           

            “Your cervix is dilated to three centimeters, and you are seventy-five percent effaced. If we can save this pregnancy at all…,” his voice trailed off as he carefully considered the predicament.  

           

            I inwardly recoiled from his choice of words. Several days ago in his office, he had spoken gently about “the baby.” Now he referred to my condition as ”this pregnancy.” I wanted to bark out a correction: “You mean this life I am struggling to carry to term!” Perhaps he was giving me the blunt, academia-style, medical-terminology version to make it more impersonal for him, attempting to dilute the tension cloaking the room. Quickly assessing my silent response, he continued his discourse by apprising us of possible treatments and procedures, and the prognosis for each.

           

            The blood test showed my white blood cell count to be slightly elevated, so performing a cerclage—surgically drawing my cervix closed like the opening of a marble bag—would have to wait until morning. They wouldn’t prematurely attempt the procedure if my uterus harbored an infection since that might be the underlying cause for labor. A closed infection could mean both fetal and maternal deaths. In the case of an infection, he wanted to perform a D and E.  I just stared at him and dumbly bobbled my head up and down.

           

            At the time, I didn’t fully comprehend what that D and E entailed, or know the barbarity of performing one when the end goal was an abortion. It certainly wouldn’t have been an option for us if we had fully understood the process, even with an infection. With rapidly waning energy, Chris and I dismissed the opportunity to question him, and he proceeded through his option list without hesitation or explanations of the gruesome details.

           

            If labor progressed, the result would be a severely premature baby delivered at twenty weeks—too early to consider supporting on lifesaving apparatus in 1994. Our only hope would be to survive the night, perform a cerclage the following day, and pray like mad that the amniotic sac wouldn’t rupture, either during or following surgery. Surgery alone could irritate the uterus enough to incite labor, taking us to the point of no return.

           

            Dr. Landry wanted to get a visual picture of what was transpiring, so he ordered an ultrasound machine delivered pronto to my room. He and Chris chatted while a glaze crept over my eyes. Within minutes, he was pointing out numerous problems, all visible on the monitor: the open cervix, the baby’s engaged position, the bulging of the amniotic sac into the canal. Everyone else in the room concentrated on the picture emitted from the screen, while I glared at the cold, ugly ceiling tiles. I was angry, disoriented, terrified. And despite the other three humans in the room with me, I felt so lonely.

           

            Yes, yes, I can see the baby! I wanted to sit up and scream at the two of them. I can see the precious baby I most likely will not be carrying tomorrow night! Instead, I managed a silent, terse nod before once again reverting my partitioned gaze to the unresponsive ceiling tiles.

           

            The jarring vision on the screen left me shaking, and doubtful we could really “save this pregnancy.” It felt so painfully hopeless. Five months of dreams evaporating before my eyes on an ultrasound monitor. Wasted dreams. The God I thought I trusted so deeply suddenly seemed cold and silent, miles from my heart and this hospital room. Maybe God doesn’t care as much as I thought He did.

            

             Disgust and self-protective ambivalence latched onto my heart, and both my heart and soul quickly hardened in response to the cold vacuum of truth sucking the warmth out of them. The pit closed its mouth over me, and I couldn’t locate a dribble of a tear to shed. Maybe my prayers will remain unanswered. Indefinitely. God’s saying, “No.”

           

            Chris and I had given ourselves this one, last chance to have another child. Now the odds indicated we would leave the hospital with empty arms and an empty womb.

           

            Again.

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NEXT WEEK: My night, and God gives me his first sign that He’s still watching over me…

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Until next week,

Thanks for joining me!

Blessings,

Andrea

             

When an Incompetent Cervix Strikes: The Warning Signs (Part 2)

            It was one of those horrendous days that causes your heart to pound so hard in your chest that you're sure your ribcage will rupture, and then sink so low in your gut that you know you’ll die from the ache. A day where you’re clawing for an invisible life line you know in your heart isn’t there.

           

            With lingering discomfort and fatigue plaguing my body—yet, unfortunately, overpowering fear of disappointing anyone (especially my mother) winning the battle—I agreed to lunch and the movie…and rushed out the door to attempt both.

           

            In order to keep my promise. In order to be normal. In order to keep the peace.

            So, with these burdens weighing on my heart, mind and body, my mother, my four-year-old son, Parker and I zipped off to a restaurant to eat before the movie. We were in the middle of enjoying lunch when I excused myself to use the restroom. Seconds later, I gaped in horror at blood and mucous soaking into the toilet issue in my hand. Terror ripped through me. Please, God! No! Why would you allow me to conceive and carry to five months if I’m not going to be able to carry the baby to term? You’re not going to abandon me, now, are You?

           

            My own voice in my head screamed a response, I can’t panic. I’ve got to act. Now! Practically sprinting from the bathroom, I grabbed Parker’s hand, pulled him from his seat and bluntly informed my mother that I was bleeding. A look of nervous shock drained the color from her face as we hurried from the restaurant.

           

            “What about the movie?” she pressed as we navigated through the hungry crowd. I snapped my head around long enough to blink at her. “You’ve got to be kidding!” I wanted to shriek aloud at her. But I knew better. That comeback would only trigger an all-out riotous response and I’d be harangued about it for days.

           

            “I will drop you and Parker off at the theater and drive home,” I countered without breaking my stride across the parking lot, fighting an intense desire to break into a desperate sprint. “I need to call the doctor. Someone will pick you up in two hours.”

           

            I wanted to be alone. I needed to be alone. My body shuddered as the first cramping spasms gripped my pelvis. Will I make it home, or will I lose this baby in my car? “No,” I kept repeating, as if commanding my body to stop releasing blood. I have to hang on! I brusquely deposited them at the theater and then reinitiated the frantic fifteen-minute-drive home. Delirious panic hovered just below my self-controlled surface.

           

            “Almighty God,” I cried aloud in the car, “please don’t allow this child to be taken form me, too! I know I prayed that whatever Your will was in this pregnancy, I would be able to handle it—with Your strength and love. But I don’t think I can. I don’t want to have to try! Please, God,” my pleading evolved into a anguished moan. “Don’t subject me to another loss!”

           

            My thoughts raced wildly. Do I pull over, stop and call 911 from a roadside call box or give up and let it end right here? O, Lord, what’s the best thing for me to do? I decided to try to make it to the house. My hands rhythmically clenched, opened, and re-clenched the steering wheel, making the blood drain from my fingers. Prayer and incessant self-talk consumed my drive home.

           

            Methodically parking the car in its ordained spot, I gingerly applied the parking break, opened the door, carefully slid from my seat, and headed to the open backyard garage door. Chris must be working back there. He stepped into the garage before I made it to the door, and I didn’t wait for him to get out his characteristic, cheerful, “Hi!”

           

            “I’m bleeding and cramping. I need to lie down. You call the doctor.” Why do I sound so flat, so emotionless?

           

            I hurried upstairs to lie down and elevate my backside with pillows to reduce cervical pressure. Chris followed hastily with the cordless phone. Dr. Landry was off, but the answering service promised that his partner would return the call. My fingers drummed beside me on the mattress as we waited. When it came, his barrage of questions began.

           

            “What does it feel like?...Like labor?...How much blood?...Only some  spotting?...Probably nothing. Some women have bleeding off-and-on through their pregnancy…I find it hard to believe that you would have an incompetent cervix since your first child went full term without any problems. That’s just not what happens with women who have an incompetent cervix…If it was my wife, I’d tell her to lie down and relax a couple of hours to see if the bleeding and cramping stopped. Ninety-nine percent of the time, there’s nothing wrong. It’s the one percent that comes back to bite us in the fanny when we don’t do something about it…If you would feel better, come into the hospital and we’ll do an exam. When you get to the emergency room, tell them I sent you, and then go straight to OB. Tim will be on call in thirty minutes.”

            

           “Okay,” I mumbled a lifeless “thank you” then broke the connection. My body still felt peculiar, but emotionally, I was beginning to feel like a Grade A fool. Wanting to wish away the horrible possibilities, I dutifully followed his advice. And for good measure, I begged God to work a miracle. Even as I asked, I doubted one would be forthcoming.

           

            When my mother arrived home, she endeavored to offer emotional support by reminiscing about her bleeding bouts while carrying me, appearing skeptical about whether my episode should be a significant concern. Is she trying to wish away the possibilities, too?

           

            “This far into the pregnancy?” I questioned.

           

            “Well,…no,” she admitted after recalling the past. “Just the first three months.” Bleeding and mucous loss in the twentieth week of pregnancy seemed unusual to me. Recognizing my distress and need to remain calm—and to sleep—she hastily retreated to wrestle with her own feelings of helpless, and, I suspect, fear.

           

            The spotting eventually stopped, the cramping subsided, and I wondered again if this was simply an overreaction based on my previous, ghastly medical history.  The signature gripping low back pain and abdominal cramping had assailed me upon my arrival home, but I hadn’t told the doctor about the back pain. I deliberately omitted that information. Desperately wanting everything to be okay—normal—I tried to pretend it was, even with the doctor. And he thought my theory about cramping being nerves sounded plausible, so with one final assault against self-doubt, I managed to rest comfortably in my relatively pacific bedroom.

           

            Several hours later, after winter darkness settled in, I migrated downstairs to the living room couch and gratefully accepted a slice of dry toast from Chris. A fire warmed the room, and the expansive picture windows reflected the beautiful, brightly clad ensemble of dancing flame spicules. Mom played the grand piano and sang, while Parker tried—without restraint or humility—to outclass her in the solo department. Things were definitely not low key in the living room, and I considered returning to bed before an argument erupted between the two prideful performers.

           

            Time didn’t allow me to make that decision, though. Midway through my dry toast, something again felt terribly wrong, and a reluctant but hasty trip to the downstairs powder room confirmed my worst fears. More mucous and blood. With despairing resignation, I walked briskly into the bustling kitchen, stared at Chris and blurted, “We have to go to the hospital, right now!”

           

            My face must have communicated everything since Chris responded without flinching. “Okay!”

           

            Yet doubts and second-guessing waffled through my head while Chris yanked on a sweater, laced his shoes and plucked my winter coast from the upstairs closet. Meanwhile, I paced around our expansive entryway, feeling foolish, wondering if my instincts were playing tricks on me. Hoping they were playing tricks.

           

            “Do you really think you need to go?” my mother questioned with a doubtful gaze from her kitchen vantage point. Doesn’t she trust my judgment on this? Wasn’t it safer to be certain? Why does she have to contribute to my doubts, or does she just want to avoid hearing bad news?

           

            Chris vaulted down the stairs, offering a firm reply before I could respond. “I don’t care if they turn us around and send us home. I do not want to take any chances. I want to find out what’s going on!” His authoritative affirmation and resolve made me feel calm, secure and protected. Thankful for his firm decision—a reminder that I had a strong, loving ally—Chris and I climbed into the car and drove the twenty-five miles to the hospital.

           

            An hour later, after bypassing a standing-room-only emergency room crowd (thank God for the conversation with Dr. Landry’s partner!) and undergoing an examination by a nurse, Dr. Landry stood in my hospital room, presenting options.

           

            For the time being, he wasn’t letting me go anywhere…

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NEXT WEEK: The diagnosis made: Mentally processing your options with an incompetent cervix…

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Until next week,

Thanks for joining me!

Blessings,

Andrea