Eight Years Ago I Gave Birth 11 Weeks Early - Part 2

Part 2 coming atcha a week later than I intended, if only this baby would have stayed in like that!

Siesta Key Beach - the world’s best. Photo credit: My dad.

“Do you want us to come home?” my mom and dad asked as I updated them from the hospital bed once I got admitted and hooked up to monitors and IVs. They were on their annual trip to Florida. We told them no, no need, we don’t really know what’s going on yet and there’s nothing they could do. Might as well worry on the beach instead of at home. 

I lasted at the first hospital for about an hour before my ob-gyn decided to transfer me to the big time hospital with the level four NICU. They hooked me up to IVs, injected me with a steroid to boost the baby’s brain and lung development and ultimately decided I was better off up the street at University of Cincinnati. 

The steroid shot would play a crucial role in the timing of events over the course of the next 60 hours. 

“They have better ultrasound technology, and we want to get better imaging of what’s going on with the baby,” we were told. They also have one of the best NICU’s in the region and that’s where my team wanted me to be in case I delivered. I think they all knew I was going to deliver, they just didn’t come out and say it. It was couched with a maybe, and we will have to see, but let’s get this other ultrasound so we can really see. 

So around 5 PM on Monday, May 16, I took my first ambulance ride. I had been in the back of an ambulance on account of getting a peppermint from TGI Friday’s lodged in my throat as a kid, but never took an official ride. 

The room that night was dark and seemed off the beaten path. The ceilings were low and I was in a lot of pain. We were largely left alone that night and awaiting the big ultrasound the next morning. This was going to tell me that it was going to be okay - they could put in a cerclage, order bedrest! But in that dark little low-ceilinged room with my husband cramped in a chair next to me I started to feel scared. This out of body experience also started to settle in - this idea that this was happening to someone else, that I was observing it from a distance. It didn’t always compute that I was the one hooked up to the IV drip. 

I made it through that first night with a lot of morphine. The next morning I was wheeled into the ultrasound room. The room was big, the machine was big, and it didn’t tell us good news. I still held onto my hope for bedrest. Just in case! 

At this point the parade of doctors started to talk to us about the potential outcomes of what could happen if I delivered early, and what the plan would be. The list of potential complications was long. Losing our daughter was a reality we faced. My husband went home and cried in our shower. I continued to put positive thoughts about bedrest out into the universe. 

We were moved to a bigger room, and the plan kicked into action. I was loaded up with magnesium and given a catheter. Catheters are for old people! What? Then it hit me like a truck - the magnesium. Designed to help tamp down contractions and reduce brain inflammation for the baby, it felt like my body was being flooded with a warm liquid. I wasn’t allowed to get out of bed because of it. Hence the catheter. I remember wondering if this is what a bad acid trip would feel like. 

“Should we come home?” my parents and sister asked every hour. 

“No,” I upheld. “You’d just be sitting around the hospital wringing your hands might as well do it at one of the world’s top ten beaches.” 

I drifted in and out of sleep and entertained myself with wine documentaries. Somm, A Year in Burgundy and A Year in Champagne made the list. My husband held my hand and manned the communication station dispersing updates to our vast network of family and friends. Doctors and nurses streamed in and out - watching, checking, and hedging their carefully chosen words. My husband said he knew they knew a baby was coming even if they didn’t say it. 

I don’t know if it was the effect of all of the medication I was on or if this happened in between dreams, but I could see my grandparents circling my bedside. Even the ones I never met in person but knew through stories. They showed up as they did in our family’s most beloved pictures of them. I could hear the laughter of the ones I knew in person. The ones I didn’t know I couldn’t hear but I could feel their presence and their smiles. My dad’s dad, with his Lilly Pullitzer pants, golf shirt and booming laugh. My dad’s mom standing proudly in her petite frame with her coiffed hair. My step-grandma in her caftan, rings, Dior glasses, and mischievous chuckle.  My great grandma with her good nature and jolly laughter. My mom’s grandparents dressed in their Sunday best, including hats. My mom’s dad in the suit he’s wearing in the picture on our mantel. Even my grandmother who was still alive in a nursing home, holding on at 88, teleported herself to me. 

I knew they were there, I knew they had me, and I somehow knew that it would all work out how it should. 

We made it to 5 PM that afternoon when the second precious steroid shot was injected in me. The key to the steroid shots we were told is to get two doses over a 24 hour period and then hopefully have another 24 hours after the second shot in order for them to be most effective. Shift change took place bringing in new sets of doctors and nurses for the night, the hospital lights dimmed and I drifted into sleep, awaiting what could happen next, catheter and all.