Homecoming

The night before we went into the hospital D was woken from a sound sleep by a voice calling "Daddy."  When he got out of bed and went to check the girls they were sound asleep and so his nerves were put in edge. When we woke up and the baby inside was not moving as much as expected, the nerves from the night had him prodding me perhaps more than he would have to just go to the hospital just to be sure instead of waiting until lunch. He didn't tell me this until the doctor had already said we were staying. Thank goodness we went in. For all the complications with the delivery and then after I just don't know.... And can't think about it, I'm so thankful for little voices that whisper something's wrong.

And as it turns out I had to get a blood transfusion.  I'd lost half of my blood volume during labor. My blood volume after my c-section was a 7.5 or so.  By the next morning it had fallen to 5.9, which is dangerously low.  I had terrible time breathing and staying awake.  I was dizzy when I sat up and had a pounding sound in my ears.  My complexion had an awful white pallid appearance, even my lips had no color. Sometimes choices are made for us without us really having any opinion in it.  So I spent 6 hours on Thursday getting a blood transfusion from a donor.  

By Thursday afternoon I had more color, more energy and the room stopped spinning. By Friday morning the pounding in my ears was gone, my chest didn't hurt to breathe in the smallest gasps of breath, and I wanted to go home. The doctors however were not consenting and now Evie was starting to look yellow with jaundice and her bilirubin levels had risen some. 

By Saturday, today, I was ready to leave with strict orders to start piling on the foods rich in iron and to "do nothing" for at least 2 weeks. Evie has been released to go home but a nurse has to visit our house in the morning to check her levels again and she already has a doctor appointment for Monday morning. 

After we signed the discharge papers for Evie I cried. She really was coming home with us. A butterfly flew up to my hospital window and fluttered across the window pane and off again. She'll forever have an angel. In my wheelchair chariot out of the hospital with Evie in her car seat on my lap I cried again. The combination of happiness at the reality of bringing Evie home and memory of leaving Gabraella behind there is something that cannot be given words. How can such extremes of relief, happiness, anxiety, anticipation, sadness, and thankfulness be present in a heart at the same time?

Sitting in our recliners at home with her in front of us sleeping peacefully the relief caught both of us, and the anxiety we had from this week ran for just the briefest of moments down both our cheeks. Nothing about any of the last 2 years has been easy. I'd go anywhere and do anything with him.  

I do want to mention that the care and kindness of the nurses at Sisters Hospital was absolutely beyond any standards I had previously set. 

Evie J Swader, my rainbow

38 weeks and a day.

She was quiet this morning. D and I were nervous. She was moving but not the same. So I called the doctor. 2 hours of trying to kick count and she was so slow. The doctor sent me to L&D. And then they didn't send me home. Not because I was in labor but because my doctor is done. And we are done. She has decided that the risk of keeping her in is more than taking her out. I ate breakfast trying to wake her to get her to move, so we have wait until I've processed it but they aren't sending me home. I'm having a baby. Today. Surreal. It is the same day in pregnancy that we lost Gabbie. 38 weeks and a day.

So they prepped me for surgery.  We sat all day and then the nurse came in and said, "I have to get you ready to go in 10 minutes."  10 minutes!?  I cried.  For 9 months I prepared for this day.  And now it was here. D was anxious too.  His eyes gave him away.    I was to be cut open so they could get her out and given a spinal anesthesia.  The spinal went off ok.  They got me on the bed in that position of the cross.  The nausea arrived, and so did more drugs.  Then D was there.  Right by my head holding my hand.  A procedure that normally lasts a half hour to 45 minutes took 2 hours.

Having an 8lb baby who is squeezed into your insides from hip to hip presents problems.  She got stuck and they, four doctors, had to push down on me to dislodge her.  Four doctors pushed, nearly standing on the table over me but she was stuck and the cord was wrapped 3 times around her neck.  They bruised her leg pulling on her to get her out and for an eternity of a millisecond she didn't cry. The anesthesiologist had asked D if he wanted to be told at just the right moment to look and see her born.  He never told him to look.  He must've known something wasn't right. I heard the anxiety in D 's voice when he asked if she was ok.  It all came down to a held breath while she was given a puff of air when we heard her cry and the doctor said she was fine.  I sobbed.  The most beautiful sound in the world is a baby's first cry.  She was good.  I asked so many times.  But me, I was not so good.  I'd lost a lot of fluids.   She had so much fluid again that it soaked the floor, the bed, and filled the bottles. It all could have been a repeat of how we lost Gabbie.  But it wasn't.  It took over an hour to get me patched back up and an extra day lost to recover before I could get out of bed.  There was talk of the possible need for a blood transfusion because of severe anemia.   I don't want one so it looks like I'm going to be tired for a while.  I have never been so scared before and in so much physical pain after any of my other pregnancies than I am with this one.  And, after all of this, I am done and cannot do any more.

Evie J Swader was born by the grace of God and help from angels, especially her big sister, Gabbie into this world on May 27th.  It was the exact day in pregnancy that we lost Gabbie, 38 weeks and one day.  Evie weighed 8lbs 3oz.  She is healthy and beautiful.  And the rainbow after the horrible storm.  She does not take away the pain but she is a beautiful light in my sky.

and so 37 weeks ends and the 38th begins

My breath escaped me on the way, Thursday, to camping. I thought it was because we towed the trailer in busy traffic and I could see D's anxiety as we tottered and pulled in the wind. But then we got here and I was so worn out I rested some in our bed but couldn't sleep and the anxiety clung to me like most of my clothes, too tight and often just slightly revealing.

And then there was bed. By the time I got comfortable and slept it was late and then D came in and I was awoken because, realistically, who can stay sleeping in a camper when others are moving around. I got comfortable once again and must have fallen asleep because at 2:30 I sat up in bed gasping for air, my whole body wound so tightly. I rearranged my 10 pillows and propped myself up higher but as I drifted off again, more than an hour later, I still could not get it under control. I took slow breaths. I counted up. I counted down. I listened to the rain on the roof. I tried to reason out the "why".  Somewhere between listening to the rain and counting the deep sleeping breaths of D I finally fell asleep. 

Friday went ok with cold and rain and relaxation, at least when I woke up the anxiety was gone and the baby moved.

Saturday our friend stopped by at the campsite to visit her parents and the mass group of campers.  Her twin boys were already there, but in tow she had her baby girl that's 4 months older than this one inside of me and the baby's older sister A. A is one month older than Gabbie would be. She is so sweet. She dances with her little legs baby-bopping to music, feeds the dog ice cubes with little red frozen hands, smiles shyly and shares her snacks with the world. She would have been such good friends with Gabbie. But no. I fought tears back a few times, like when D turned to me after A cuddled up to him for a minute sharing Goldfish with him, and his pout expression said exactly what I was thinking. So sweet and beautiful, a reminder of what we don't have and how precious it is.  Watching her is so painfully bitter sweet.  

Then we had some scares steeped from my own anxiety. Twice it took me a while to get a good kick count and Derek had to wake her with a raspberry blown on my belly. I'm nervous. Kick counts that don't go so quickly make me nervous. Babies who are noticably quiet make me nervous. Movements that are getting less frequent lead me to my to dark places.  Those dark places were pushed away by the beautiful blue skies filled with butterflies fluttering by, a husband who blows sweet raspberries, and the frequent movements of a little baby. 

Sunday was quiet. But the baby was not. She rolled and kicked. And so many friends shared in her movements with me, fascinated by the rolls and and bumps and hiccups.

Today is Monday. 38 weeks. Memorial day.  Ironic, I think, that this 38 week marker should fall on a day titled as such. She was very quiet this morning, and though she was moving it was very hard to feel and had long spans of time between each.  It took until lunch time for me to count ten kicks in an amount of time that made me comfortable. D had even asked me if I wanted to go to the hospital.  He has been holding his breath too.  He doesn't want to take any chances.  Better to go and be sure than not and risk it all.  It wasn't that I couldn't feel her at all, it was that I didn't feel her the same or enough for me.  This anxiety and preoccupation with her movements is powerful.

It is 38 weeks.  I wonder what this week will bring.  I can't breathe in anticipation and I'm ready to get off the edge of my seat.  A week from today they will take her out.  I wonder if then, I'll be able to exhale.  Perhaps when I finally hear that cry.  

I don't think this is about patience

Yesterday, the baby failed her test.  She's not ready to be delivered.  I'd so hoped to hold her and feel her warm body today and touch her soft pink cheeks and count her toes.  I wanted to hear her cry and watch the rise and fall of her little chest with breath.  But her lungs aren't ready.  So even if she came she'd struggle to breathe.  I don't want that. I know.  I'm so scared of missing something, of messing up and losing her because of it.  The longer she's in the stronger she should be is true.... or the longer she's in where we can't see her or help her the more could go wrong.  Good things do not always come to those who wait.  Gabbie never came to us and we waited for her.  And patience is a virtue but the early bird catches the worm....  that's right, in most instances patience is something coveted, desired, but if you could Carle Diem wouldn't you?

I wanted, want still, to hold my baby today more than anything in the world.  I wanted to know for certain I was bringing her home.  I cried all afternoon yesterday for disappointment, until my eyes were big and puffy and were so tired I fell instantly into a dark sleep once my head touched the pillow.  I woke up with tears in them still and puffy eyelids, and even now, as I blog, I cry.  I have never had such prolonged anxiety, and real salty fear.  It is not about patience, it is about strength and stamina.  Everyone who truly knows me knows that the length and encompassing nature of my patience is almost inhuman.  Given normal naive circumstances, I could wait, and in fact can wait even now.  But given circumstances as they stand, waiting requires strength of heart and faith, in the universe, in myself.  This is not a lesson in patience.  This is a schooling.... how much strength and courage does it take to have a baby after you carried the last one to term, her heart stopped in utero, she never took a breath, and you held her, a perfect but silent 7 lb 15 oz tiny person?  How much faith in oneself can be found after the person had a loss like that and "it was no one's fault but happened inside of her"?  I am not naive anymore.  I know I have too much fluid.  I know she still has room to move.  I know there are cord accidents and other causes of death, some that cannot ever be explained.  I know that there are babies that are born at 37 weeks and do just fine.  I also know that she's not ready.  This is not patience.  This is fear of unknown. Fear of what could happen literally inside me with me having zero control.  This is not fight or flight mode, there is no way to run. This is the kind of fear that hurts your knees while you pray like hell, has you counting kicks even in your sleep, knowing your heart will not beat normal again until after you've read the last page of this book, your breath will catch with anxiety maybe forever, has you holding on as tight as you can to the man who won't leave your side and swears that with this you can do no wrong but who is just as invested in the outcome as you, has you hugging your kids closer because you know how lucky you are to have them, has you crying in the shower because the hot water will mask some of the tears, has you taking advice from your four year old: "you have to be big and strong mama, want me to show you how to be brave? Close your eyes hold your breath, count to ten, and let it out... now see don't you feel braver?"

So that is what I'm doing today.... being braver with my 4 year old:  holding my breath, counting kicks to ten, and letting it out.

on the fourth day of anxiety... the inner truth would be....

I slept awful the night before last.  My feet are swollen and D thinks it'd be best to get them higher.  So I sat in my glider rocking chair pushed all the way to our bed, then elevated them by sitting in the chair with my legs up to my knees on the bed.  It only worked for a bit.  I got so uncomfortable I ended up trying to sleep back in the bed.  That worked for a while, maybe an hour or so, then I was back in the chair with the ottoman.  None of this lack of sleep really bothers me.  I still function and I think I'm pleasant.  I am also not complaining.  I'm just explaining.  Last night I slept more, though not soundly, through the night in my rocker, probably because of the lack of sleep the night before, and woke up hurting in my hips.  It's the kind out hurt that requires someone to help me to sitting because I couldn't move them.  Between the pain and the uncomfortableness I've had a plethora of time on my hands watching my husband sleep in our bed from across the room.  I love that man... I can't wait to actually sleep back in our bed with him.  He'll miss the extra room I'm sure.  :)

When one doesn't sleep well the night provides a dark backdrop for memories and worries. Realizing I may have only 4 days until delivery I am finding it harder to think of anything else.  The what ifs tumble out. They are not as bad as the memories. The memory of the last time I had a c-section floods back.  I try to avoid the specifics.  It's futile.  If she isn't ready I will have to wait.  At 38 weeks Gabbie stopped moving.  That's when they MIGHT deliver if she fails her test.  My water never broke with her.  I never went in labor with her.  But saying she does pass her test and I get to avoid that 38th week and the days leading up to it, the c-section thought and inevitability makes my heart palipitate and my breath catch in a lump.

When Gabbie was gone they tried to induce labor.  They wanted me to push her out instead of having the c-section so that the recovery would be shorter.  But, as I said, even with drugs to induce and attempts to break my water it never happened.  What did happen is hours of contractions and a c-section anyway.  Once they got me on the table in the OR I had to sit up to have the spinal put in and all the drugs they'd given to me previously had me so sick, the anesthesiologist had to wait until I could stop throwing up before he could give me anything to stop the pain.  Then I remember the pop of the spinal tapping in.  I hate that sound.  Then laying on the table, I remember wanting them to be wrong. I wanted to hear her come out of me and cry.  I held my breath and waited. But it was silent.  No one spoke.  I could hear sniffling, the sound of people trying to cry softly.  I remember watching tears roll down D's face.  My poor strong husband.  I felt I failed him. The beeping of the machines I was hooked up to was the only other thing I remember hearing.  This is my last memory in the OR for a c-section.  This is what I have inside my head when I go in again.

I know it's necessary and I'm ok with it but the anxiety is so high.  And then if she doesn't pass the test then that anxiety gets put on a back burner and I have the anxiety of the approaching 38 week mark. Here's the thing... you can tell me it's not my fault and the rational side agrees.  But if in these couple days or the following week something were to happen, no matter what, it'd be my fault even if it's not my fault.  Does that make sense? No of course it doesn't, because it's irrational.  It is up to my diligence to protect her and every decision that gets made by me might effect the outcome.  It is a real fear, my greatest fear, that I will fail again. (Even if I didn't "fail" the first time.)  I will feel as though I failed my husband, my girls, everyone.  Please don't get into how it's not my fault... I get it.  I do.  But wasting your breath to convince me otherwise in my irrational hormonal extremely tired and pregnant state would be an exercise in futility.

I try to take these one day at a time.  I look at my beautiful daughters and know I succeeded twice with God's grace to have two beautiful healthy sweet girls.  I know no one blames me for losing Gabbie and that I shouldn't blame myself even if this one becomes an angel.  On most days I have myself convinced she'll be fine.  A part of me is skeptical that I'll actually come home with a baby and then I tell myself that there are handful of doctors who want to succeed as badly as I do in the birth of a baby girl who is healthy.  I am well watched and well taken care of by an excellent team of ladies.  I know my husband has faith in me too.  I know a lot of people have faith that she will come home.  So I really rely on those thoughts to beat off the negativity and deep deep fears of failure.  And in an attempt to not worry I agreed to go camping with my family this weekend.  Maybe nature will be good for my soul. Maybe it'll renew my faith.

So here's the deal with myself... for the rest of the weekend I will focus on positive thoughts as much as possible.  My girls will have fun camping, we finally picked a name, Monday I'll breeze through the amnio and perhaps on Tuesday I'll have a beautiful baby girl to hold.  Right?  Right!

If......

It really is all about time and support.  In less than a week I will have an amino to see if this baby is ready to come out.  Part of me totally believes she will arrive safely.  Part of me is still so afraid to anticipate her safe arrival. The undoing of the nursery after Gabbie didn't arrive safely was so hard.  To think of having to do it again is painful.  Everyone is praying for her arrival, and although I believe in the power of prayer to a degree, I also know prayers don't always get answered.  So while I sort of prep for her arrival, I also steel myself for the possibility that it may not be.  Each kick, each roll (and there are many), each tap are carefully monitored.  The cherry blossom decal is on her wall, her clothes are in the dresser.  She has a cherry blossom and butterfly pattern set for her crib waiting for her to come.  Her crib, however, waits in pieces in the basement for that first cry that tells of her safe arrival.  That cry, the one I dream about hearing, is the one that gives me so much anxiety that I might never hear.  My husband and I decided it best to wait for the crib.  Neither of us are willing (capable?) to take it down if... well just if.

I know that my body has again, inexplicably produced too much fluid.  It is hard to not be nervous.  She, even at 36 weeks and over 7 lbs according to the sonograms, still has too much room to move.  With a sonogram every 4-7 days, she had not yet been in the same position as the one before.  Working her way around my womb in a sort of clockwise pattern she has now spun around nearly two full rotations.  At the last sonogram I asked the sonographer to see if she could tell if the cord was wrapped around her neck, like Gabbie's was.  Her answer was "no" thank goodness.  Had she said yes, I don't know what I'd have done.

Thinking over the past two years, I can honestly say I have some of the most understanding and sympathetic, support network anyone could ask for. And I'm so thankful. My friends provide encouragement and share links and stories with me of butterflies and others who understood the loss of a baby.  And if they have grown tired of my relatively vocal "missing" of my baby girl, no one had voiced any concern.  My family understands what it means to me that she is remembered, acknowledged and talked about.  They know how she affects me still, and most likely forever.  They understand that even when (or if) this baby arrives safely it doesn't mean that I'm "over" Gabbie.  This baby inside has three big sisters.  Just as S, my eldest, will forever have three little sisters.  I will continue to talk with my girls about Heaven and Gabbie, like I do now.  I don't think S and G would have it any other way.   I'm so much closer to my husband than I ever thought I could be, even now, he is my rock.  He worries with me over her.  He scolds me for doing too much around the house but then understands that if I don't stay occupied I worry myself into anxiety.  He talks me down from hysterics, and tells me that I'm beautiful despite the fact that my mascara is often run, my ankles swell in the heat of May, I can't sleep laying down anymore, and my belly is too big to be covered fully by most of my shirts.  He makes me feel beautiful, and makes me laugh, and loves me even when I'm acting irrationally and crazy.  I can't imagine holding anyone else's hand when I get the news about whether she is ready at 37 weeks to be born, or if I'll have to live through the anxiety of 38 weeks if they make me wait because she's not ready.

I am looking forward to meeting this little girl, and although I fear it will not be a sweet pink face that I see, I am beginning to believe it will be.  Mostly.  Maybe.  And regardless, I know I have people around me who will cheer her safe arrival or cry with me and hold me up if by some chance she... just if....

When she doesn't move--- panic.

I'm going to preface this by saying, "She's ok."

Every morning for weeks now, being 34 weeks and a couple days, I kick count before I even rise from bed. Sometimes I could count before I've barely opened my eyes. They are 10 of the most valued movements.

Last night I was exhausted and I slept the best night of sleep that I've slept in weeks. My usual, almost hourly waking was cut to waking just once at 3 am for the briefest of moments. This morning I woke up and her usual movements were absent. Noticably so. 

So I got out of bed, and drank a large glass of juice thinking she'd just needed a boost. Nothing. And then I ate breakfast. Still nothing. And then I began to panic. 

I'd stayed at my in-laws house and D had been gone for the night. I sent him a message. 

"I'm waiting for baby to move. She's quiet this morning."

I went to rest in bed hoping I could coax her to move. Quiet motionless belly.  Tears. Fear. Another message. 

"She's still so quiet. I'm scared."

He started on his way to me. 25 minutes away I'm sure he did at least 70mph.  

I didn't want to scare the whole house. So I sat in the bedroom and stared down at my belly, big tears dropped to my shirt. Please move. Please move. Please move. 

D's mom found me this way, and then she didn't leave me until he'd come. I didn't want the house to panic.

On the way to the hospital he held my hand.  I cried.  I tried not to cry.  He said he was scared too.  I said I just want her to move.  We made small talk.  I talked about how if the flutter I felt when I sneezed was her, it still isn't right.  She's not the same. She was usually so active, moving my whole belly.

When we arrived at the hospital I said I hope they just hook me up right away and tell me she's ok.  He held my hand tightly, told me to breathe. I'd never been to Suburban.  They had no information about me other than what my doctor had told them when she called ahead, and they were great.  

They took very little information before connecting me to the Doppler and sonogram machine, wasting no more time than it took me to get undressed.

The sweetest sound on earth is a baby's heartbeat. The relief on D's face mirrored the flood of it in my heart.  And I cried.  And the nurse got tears in her eyes.  And she reassured me many times that the heartbeat we heard was the baby's and it was perfect.

After a sonogram, the doctor confirmed that apparently in the night, she had flipped completely around.  Transverse, her head was now the only thing not beneath my anterior placenta.  Her position was a "c" curling towards my spine and because of the extra fluid and the nerveless placenta any movements she made were nearly undetectableble deep in my belly.

I cannot explain the fear this morning.  The sheer terror that it was happening again is irrational, consuming, and intense.  The 2 hours of expecting movement and finding none produced a panic that is so raw.

But the instant quick and steady heartbeat of a very alive baby girl in my womb is also equally unexplainable.  Perhaps, it is alike what seeing a glimpse of heaven through the cloud.

This morning was sobering, and perspective drawing.  I've been much more sad lately at the thought that this pregnancy is drawing to an end.  I want to know the ending but have been afraid to skip to the last page.  I've been contemplating being done having babies after this.  But this morning, the decision has been made so clear.

When my husband brought up getting a procedure himself after this (something he's been adamant against), and the smile on his face when he heard her heart too was brilliant and soft and glistening, I knew, this had to be it.  I cannot do this any more, I cannot watch him go through this fear anymore either.  If, and mostly when (I say with trepidation) this baby arrives safely in our arms, she will be our last.