Day 110: One year

One year ago, I took a personal day for an afternoon to check out a few daycares. I knew she wouldn't be born in time to need one just yet, but I wanted to get a head start. I figured that daycares would fill up fast for fall and I wanted to have my choice, not be stuck with somewhere I wasn't happy with. I checked out a few and actually had one that was my front runner which is where she is now.

First picture - too many wires

I got home just in time to see my husband put on the finishing touches to his dress uniform for the military ball. He looked so handsome that I instantly regretted my decision not to go. I told him so. He said, "How fast can you get ready?" and I sprang into action. Thirty minutes later my hair was pulled up, make-up touched up, and I was hastily adjusting a gown that had been hanging in my closet from a few years prior.

I knew I would be tired the next day, but we had already paid for the tickets. Our friend Josiah drove us to the hotel in Austin that was hosting the ball. We took pictures and paid exorbitant sums for cheap wine. We sat down to eat and listen to the guest speaker. Some pictures of that night were ones I lost in my phone update last week. I had taken a picture of the program with my phone. I can't remember who he was, but just before he came up to speak, we were asked to turn off our phones.

I looked at my phone. We had six weeks before our baby was due, but every minute I was prepped and waiting for the phone call. I had a feeling she might be early. I decided to make a big deal of leaving my phone on would be silly, we had six weeks to go. Little did I know, during that speech our daughter was being born.

Holding her hand for the first time

We didn't get the phone call until the next day. I was very tired. It had been a long afternoon after a late date night at the ball. My phone rang at 3:55. Adoption Alliance came up on the screen. I answered and quickly stepped into the hall. Nikki told me that our little girl had been born the night before in an emergency C-section. She had very few details about the condition of our daughter. The birthmother had been depressed and decided that one line of cocaine would make her feel better. Between the drugs and moving some heavy furniture, her placenta abrupted.

The baby was in distress, so the doctor had to perform a C-section that was pretty drastic. At this point I realized the baby might not be ok. The drugs, the premature birth, the C-section all could have hurt my baby girl. I started shaking and my knees gave out. I sank to the floor. One of my teacher friends noticed me upset in the hallway. I was alternating between tears and panic. It took a few very tense hours of running and planning and packing to get ourselves ready to be gone for who knows how long.

We raced up to the hospital, several hours away. By the time we got there it was very late and because the baby was in the NICU, we weren't allowed to see her right away. We had to get wristbands and be approved to visit. It was hard to leave the hospital without being able to see her. We saw the birthmom and talked with her. She said she would take us down to visit in the morning. But she felt pretty rough after such a difficult delivery and had such a large incision.

I was so excited and nervous. We didn't know what to do or what rules we were supposed to follow. She took us down to the NICU, we washed up and gowned. They showed us our baby for the first time. She was almost two days old by the time we got to see her, but she was still so terribly tiny. Less than twelve hours after I got to hold her tiny fingers for the first time, she was legally ours (in guardianship).

It was a long week of gowning and washing to go into the NICU every three hours. We did let the nurses take over at night. I figured that I would be getting sleep deprived soon enough. We finally took her home 8 days after she was born, tiny and struggling with feeding issues, but growing.

Lil Bit was so tiny and fragile looking, but it was impossible not to fall in love with her. She was so bright eyed and aware from the get go. She stole my heart the first time I saw her and never let me go. Daddy melted too. Babies aren't really his thing, he likes when kids get older and have more personality, but he couldn't help falling in love with her. She had him wrapped around her finger before our first visit was over.

Those first couple of weeks and months had some really rough patches of sleep deprivation and exhaustion. She and I gradually figured it out together. I can't imagine life without her anymore. She was the most precious gift and blessing in my life.

I struggle everyday to make it through the hours I am away from her. While there were tough minutes that seemed to last a year, I wasn't prepared this year would fly by in a minute. She is already changing so fast. I just wish I could slow it down a little and have more hours to enjoy her. But today she is an infant no longer, instead is one year old and will be for all too short a time. I plan to spend every second I can this summer just memorizing her face and watching her learn and explore. But I know next year, her two year old picture will be almost as different from today's as this one is from the first ones last May.

It is hard to believe how precious she was to me in those first few second of seeing her face and impossible to believe that she grows more and more precious to me daily. The wonder of a mother's love is that it is boundless. I just wish my energy were too. Ha! 

Day 336: My parents

I could spend years discussing my parents. They are so much a part of who I am. But today I was writing an example of creative writing for my students. They are working on stories about events that had they happened differently, would have prevented them from being here. My students are struggling with showing a story using creative language and sensory images rather than telling me what happened. They are writing things like this:

The day I was born was the day I might not be here if it happened differently. It was my due date and my mom went into labor early in the morning. She didn’t rush to get to the hospital because she didn’t think it was so bad. When I was born I was very small and sick. The doctor didn’t know what to do, so they decided to let me die.  My parents were very sad.  Finally they decided to try to save me. An ambulance took me to a hospital downtown Chicago. I had a surgery to close my stomach and was fine. 

Obviously this is an interesting story, but isn't told in such a way to to inspire curiosity. I am giving that to my students to look at tomorrow - and then giving them the one using figurative language. 

The first day of my life was almost my last.
    Penny rubbed her back. She wasn’t sure if this was labor or not until her water broke.
    “Bill, it’s time,” she said more calmly than she felt.
    Bill’s eyes grew wide as he flew into action. He grabbed the car keys and a small suitcase Penny had packed two weeks ago in anticipation of this moment. Holding Penny’s elbow, he guided her carefully down the steps and into the wood paneled station wagon. The day they had been waiting so long for was finally here. The birth of their first baby was imminent. Bill wondered if he would have a son or daughter by the end of the day. Little did he know that it might be neither.
    Later, in the delivery room, the doctor stood poised to deliver the baby who seemed to come too quickly and easily.  He looked down expectantly, but what he saw defied any of his expectations.
    “Doc, what is it?” Bill asked, holding Penny’s hand. She was groggy from the sedatives they used to ease the pain of labor. The doctor didn’t answer. He and a cluster of nurses whisked the baby away without saying a word.
    The doctor carefully cut away the umbilical cord so the tiny girl could breathe, but that was the least of her problems. The skin covering her abdomen had not developed. She wouldn’t make it. Sighing, he gave the worried father the news that his little daughter wouldn’t survive the day.
    Bill hovered over the bassinet, watching the tiny chest struggle to rise and fall. Tears streamed down his cheeks as he waited for the inevitable, but it never came. She just kept fighting to breathe.
    “Doc, she is hanging in here. Isn’t there something we can do?” Bill pleaded.
    Finally the doctor decided that if this itty bit of a little girl could fight so hard for her life, she deserved any effort they could make. He picked up the phone and called Children’s Memorial Hospital in Chicago and arranged for an ambulance. Within minutes he had set the right people in motion to save my life.

While I have taken some liberties with the details and shortened the account considerably, this is the story of my first day on earth. As I wrote this example for my students, I was able to put myself in their shoes for the first time. When I spent eight days watching my comparatively healthy daughter in the NICU, my heart was in my throat repeatedly. Every little positive sign gave me immeasurable joy, but every new concern or test was terrifying. I watched when they performed a head sonogram, knowing they were looking for whitening around the ventricles in her brain that would signify the birth mother had abused drugs during the pregnancy, but not knowing what her brain was supposed to look like. Every time they stopped to freeze an image, my breath felt wet and heavy. I was almost in tears by the time it was over without having any idea if anything was wrong (all good btw). 

I can't imagine seeing this little tiny person I love so much struggling to survive. The love and fear they must have felt overwhelmed me. I found myself near tears in empathy for the twenty somethings (more than ten years younger than I am now) watching their baby girl nearly die and face a critical surgery and a month in the 70s equivalent of a NICU. They were all alone. I don't think either of my grandmothers were there. My mom was left an hour away while my dad rode with me and waited for the outcome. 

Then my mom could only visit every few days when my dad could take the time to drive her into the city. When Lil Bit was across the street from my hotel, I was standing at the NICU door every three hours and nearly hysterical if I couldn't get in to see her. Penny left the hospital without her new daughter and still unsure if she would live.

I have thought about that day before and thanked God for all the pieces that fell into place in order for my life to be saved. I have understood before that my parents were worried and scared, but my perspective has changed. As a mother today, my heart understood those fears. I also am able to appreciate more the choices they made for me and the childhood they gave me. It is too bad we always appreciate the really important things in retrospect. Thank you, Mom and Dad. I love you, too! and am starting to finally understand you were just kids trying to make it through each day too. I miss you both. Wish we lived closer.