The Last of December

It's been a long and strange and difficult year, so I made art out of the things that hurt. 

Conjunction

Solstice night, 2020. Along with many other amateur astronomers, I was peering into the western sky, waiting for the planets to appear.

Like the solstice itself and many other things, the conjunction proper had happened earlier that day, out of sight, but not out of mind. In the distance, I felt the last 20 years slip away. The cycle begins again, a little lighter this time. 

I breathe easier, without the weight. I don't know what changes the future holds, only that it holds something I can feel out there ahead of me. 

In the meantime I will watch the patterns, the planets, the stars in the sky, and hope against hope for  happy alignments and the blessings of fate

(And maybe - if I'm lucky - the peace of mind to do a little more blogging next year.)

The First Day Of The Rest Of My Life

Ten years ago today, I woke from an uneasy sleep. A dream-voice rang with alarming certainty through my mind: "your baby will be born dead."

I shuddered and pushed back the intrusive thought. Nonsense. I just wasn't feeling well. The baby was coming along fine, despite it being a surprise pregnancy - such a surprise, in fact, that I hadn't even realized I was expecting until I felt kicking in my tummy. Now I was about 30 weeks along, as near as the clinic could figure. The only problem was anemia, but I'd been given tablets for that. I had an appointment for my checkup in 2 days anyway. It was fine.

Intrusive thoughts begone.

The weather was chilly and becoming chillier as I went about my work. The house was all wood inside and there was a lot of polishing to be done. I had a nagging pain in my side, which made things a bit of a struggle. My husband was an editor on the night desk then, and had to leave for work at 2. He was concerned though, and said he'd call to check up on me later. Luckily my 9 year old was staying with his friend for the weekend, and my 12 year old was no trouble at all. I said I was sure I'd be okay and I'd see him at midnight. The dog would look after me.

I only remember two other things from that afternoon  - listening to George Harrison's All Things Must Pass and taking that blurry picture of the unusually pink sunset at the top of the post. The first should have been a warning. The two times I'd miscarried I'd listened to that album, too, but my urge to hear these melancholy songs just seemed like the result of a bout of winter sadness, not a response to anything happening inside my body.

Later that evening, I settled down on the living room couch to watch television. This wasn't something I did very often, but a movie called Keeping The Faith had captured my attention. I was quite happy there, curled up by the Christmas tree and the dog, despite my physical discomfort.

About 10:30, I hear a loud crash outside. From the sound, I thought there might have been a traffic  accident at the intersection around the corner. I began to worry. Perhaps my husband had got away from work early and was on his way home? I went to the back fence to see if I could make anything out through the pickets, but no luck. It had gotten quite cold by then, so I put on Nick's heavy wool coat and walked with some difficulty around the corner to look. There seemed to be nothing to see, though. I patted my baby bump comfortingly and made my way home, breathing clouds of vapor into the air

I remember this all so well because this would be the last walk I'd take with this baby inside of me, or any baby, for that matter, the last time I'd experience that unique dream-like feeling of not being alone in my own body. I had no idea that by this time, we were both already in grave danger.

I settled back down to watch the film, Jenna Elfman was having quite the affair with Ben Stiller, and Ed Norton was pining away. The story was starting to gather speed when I noticed I was leaking. Leaking? Just a bit, maybe. Perhaps it was my imagination. I sat up and heard a pop as my water broke. How could that be? I hadn't had any contractions. I was only 6 months along. I stood up as liquid poured out of me. Then I saw it wasn't amniotic fluid, it was blood.

It was sometime between 11 and 11:30. My husband would be off work soon, but he would likely go to pick up some things from the grocery store before coming home. I called his office. His co-worker answered and said he had just left, but he might still be in the building. Someone ran to get him while I watched the blood pooling on the Turkish carpet. They caught him at the door and brought him to the phone, where he said that he would rush home right away. These details might seem unimportant, but for me they are everything, because had he continued on to run errands as he planned, neither my baby nor I would have survived.

As it was, by the time he got there minutes later, I was already out of it, crouched in the bathtub, bleeding out. Having seen the state of the house and me, he realized there we were beyond driving to the hospital and called an ambulance.

I can only remember leaning against the railing as we waited on the porch, faint and afraid. Disturbingly warm blood poured out of me with any movement. I listened to the sound approaching siren, clinging to it, urging it closer. Fear was going through me in waves, but had I known what had happened, I would have been more afraid still. The fact is that I didn't know the signs of a complete placental abruption, but I did know the result of one.

While I was taken to the hospital by ambulance, my husband followed along in the car with our older son. He later said that while he had been telling himself that it was really all right, it just looked like a lot of blood. he finally became afraid when he saw how fast we were traveling.

I don't remember anything about the surgery, not really. Only a vague memory of trying to cling onto my physical body and thinking that I couldn't bear to leave without seeing my baby's face. When I came out of the anesthesia, the nurse told me I had a boy, "the prettiest little boy, He looks just like you, with the prettiest poufiest lips,"

It would be days before I could see him, though. In the meantime, they warned me that I was rather a mess. I had suffered a circulatory collapse due to blood loss, they said, and had to receive a transfusion through the jugular vein. Not only was I in a great deal of pain, but I was bruised black and blue as well. Still, I was alive. Two more minutes, the doctor said, and it would have been too late for both of us. Had my husband tried to drive us, we would have died in the car.

What they didn't tell me, and told my husband not to tell me until some time had passed, was that our baby had been born unresponsive and they had worked on resuscitating him for 20 minutes. But they did resuscitate him, and while they couldn't promise there would be no problems, modern methods made it far more unlikely than it used to be. What's more he seemed to be rallying quickly.

The nurses brought polaroids of him so I could see what he looked like, and his dad and brother had been spending time with him and reported back. Our younger son had been brought back from his friend's house and already met his new brother, too. I was glad for this. Still, I felt sad and alone. This was nothing like the other boys' births, which had held so much joy.

Finally, after some days, I was well enough to go to the NICU. to see him.  It's a very strange feeling, to be the last person in your family to meet your own baby, but there we are. He was no bigger than a plucked chicken, but remarkably healthy despite being 10 weeks premature. Finally I was able to hold and feed him, and my sorrow began to lift. 

He had come along before I'd been able to have a sonogram, so his gender had been a mystery. We'd settled on the name Alenka for a girl, but hadn't chosen a boys name yet. My husband bought a book of baby names and we sat looking at him while running down the list. Luckily we didn't have to go too far before finding something suitable. We decided he looked like an Andrew, and that's what he became. 

Within days we were able to come home, to carry on with our lives, Andrew with his new one and me with the rest of mine. Miraculously, outside of a stern warning from my obstetrician not to have any more babies or risk a repeat, we were free from any ill effects. 10 years later, Andrew is a sturdy, bright, healthy child (knock on wood) and his dramatic beginnings seem as alien to him as any old story from my past. 

Me, though, I remember. How I'd pushed aside the warning from my dream. How I'd ignored my symptoms, How little I knew about the symptoms in the first place. I think about what would have happened if my husband's co-worker hadn't caught him on the way out the door. If Dr. Suarez hadn't been on duty that night. If they hadn't been able to perform the transfusion. So many what if's, such a slender thread of possibility that had allowed us our lives. It's not something I'm willing to forget.

Information about placental abruption:

Placental abruption - Symptoms and causes - Mayo Clinic

Worth knowing because the US maternal mortality rate is not good.

The Last Person You’d Expect to Die in Childbirth — ProPublica