One Year Later

I have decided that there is nothing better than a sick baby to give you some perspective on life. Last night as Scott and I took turns holding Kevin so she would sleep through her first-ever ear infection and accompanying virus, I realized that there is something majestic and rather beautiful about that quiet moment at 3:30 am, when you look out the window and the city lights sort of look like stars on the ground and your baby's hair tickles your nose as she snores away on your chest, her fever finally broken, and Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck are quietly running across Rome and the black and white of the film just makes your heart happy because it fits your mood.

And in that moment, I am grateful. Grateful that I decided to forego being grumpy about not getting any sleep. Grateful that I have a moment of quietness to appreciate the wonder of being still. Grateful that, 11 months later, that nurse I kept expecting to show up at my door to take my baby away from me never came. Grateful to have time to remember.

One year ago tomorrow my water broke. I am going to make Brown Sugar Muffins to celebrate. Because that's what I did right after my water broke and I didn't realize it. I made Brown Sugar Muffins to take to a family in our neighborhood who had just had a baby. I didn't know I was about to be in the same boat. Bless those Brown Sugar Muffins though, because I think they are the only thing Scott ate for the next 24 hours as the craziness set it.

50 hours of labor. Back labor. The kind that doesn't register on the contractions monitor so your nurse just keeps trying to give you tylenol and you keep looking at her like she's crazy and saying you hurt and need to be checked. Because, after all, if the Ambien hasn't helped you sleep for more than ten minutes, tylenol isn't really going to do anything.

Kevin kicking off the monitor they had strapped to my abdomen to keep track of her. The nurse has to readjust it every ten or twenty minutes or so. It was an omen, we recognize that now, that this girl was never going to passively do anything she was told until she was good and ready to do it. She wanted to come now, and come now she would.

Scott sleeping on the little couch in the hospital room. Me trying to watch Anne of Green Gables and the Chronicles of Narnia. He has no idea I'm in labor. Like for real labor, not just the pains they told us would be there as they try to keep me pregnant for two more weeks. I knew I wasn't going to last that long. I gave myself two days, and now, on the morning of the second day, I finally wake him up and make him hold my hand and count with me through the contractions, which the nurse is still oblivious to. After hours of me begging for a doctor, he seconds my opinion and voices concern and she gets on it. 90 minutes later they finally come.

Dialated to an 8. Show time. Somebody get this woman an epidural.

I wonder now if I could have made it through without one. I was so close. I'd already done the hard parts all by myself, transition pains and all. I only needed an hours of worth of meds to get that baby out. But I was so tired. And I hurt so bad. And after two days of labor, I probably would have passed out in the delivery room without one. I realize that now.

Forty-five minutes into the pushing, the doctors are surprised she isn't here yet. They told me it would only take a few pushes to get her out. She'd be small, barely over four pounds. Do you like hair? The doctor asks, playing with the fuzz on the top of her head before it crowns. He is wearing a Texas Longhorns lanyard. I like him immediately.

Only a few more pushes, they tell me. Hurry up or your epidural will wear off. I look at the clock on the wall.  At precisely noon, she comes. Wow! She's big! The doctors are surprised and totally caught up in the size of the umbilical cord. This doesn't look like a 32 weeker. I've been saying my dates were wrong all along. I wish my regular OBGYN could be here to hear them now, but I'm grateful he isn't, because I never really wanted him to deliver her anyway.

She cries immediately. And I look at Scott and our first thought is not, "what a beautiful moment, look what we created, I love you so much." Our first thought is relief. She's crying. Her lungs work. She'll make it. We're going to be okay.

They lay her purple body on my chest. She looks more like an alien than a baby, but I don't care. She reaches for my finger. Grips it hard. And I realize two things: one, she is a fighter. two, she needs me.

They take her away. I have a job to finish. I tell Scott to go with her and the two nurses and I all remind him that he needs to take pictures. Details are beyond him at this point. How much does she weigh? How long is she? What is her APGAR score? I ask when he comes back to me. He has no idea. He is simply mesmerized by her.

They let me hold her on my chest for a few seconds, then they take her away. And I am wheeled up to a recovery room. My family is here: mom, sister, aunt. Dad and brother on their way. In-laws waiting with them. I have no baby to show for all my hours of work, just pictures. I finally get to eat something. I try to take a nap. I can't. Something in me knows that I have a responsibility now, one that means I have to make sure she is okay before I can sleep peacefully.

I make Scott wheel me to the NICU before I am probably ready for it. Adrenaline is the best recovery agent there is. I don't feel anything except concern for her and concern for the fact that my hair hasn't been washed in three days.

The nurse lets me hold her, just for a few minutes. I cuddle her close. The wires and tubes and monitors are invisible to me. I adore the little red bow in her hair. I am grateful it isn't pink. I run my fingers through her hair, stroking it, feeling it's softness, which reminds me of a baby chick's feathers. She seems to like it, even though the nurses tell me that premature babies don't like being stroked. She responds to my voice. She lets out a small sigh and settles into my arms.

And here we are, almost exactly a year later, in much the same boat: she responds to me. I am beyond tired, but not noticing because my needs stopped coming first a while ago and I can't sleep until I know she is okay. My hair hasn't been washed in three days. There are more important things. Is she breathing? Is she sleeping? Is she feeling better? She lifts her head, looks at me to make sure I am still there, and breathes little sighs of relief as she settles back into my arms, her little fingers reaching for me and gripping my shirt. The wires and monitors are gone now. She's been miraculously fine since we brought her home. Her pediatricians can't believe how well she has done, being so early. I can. I learned that long ago.

One. She's a fighter.

Two. She needs me.