I’d had a girls’ day with my friend. I remember exactly the old house turned gift shop we were in, the painted muted yellow woodwork and creaking wooden floors. The sample of fancy honey mustard on a pretzel stick tasted like heaven and I bought a jar because it made me feel fancy. I felt tired but, why wouldn’t I? I was 9 months pregnant with my first child. My friend dropped me at home and I pulled out some chicken, peeled some potatoes and put it in a pan for dinner. I set the table and decided to cut the grass while the chicken baked.
Our house was over 100 years old. It sat on a cobblestone street in the inner city of Northern Kentucky. The yard was so small, we had an old fashioned push lawnmower. You could hurry up quick finish mowing the yard while the iced tea was being poured in the glasses and still make it inside in time to wash your hands before sitting down to dinner. It was mid September and the grass was thinner and easy to cut. Neighbors were outside grilling, kids played in the field behind our house. The late summer sun was started to fade. I made it back and forth and back again when I noticed water running down my legs. A beat or two passed before I realized what had happened. I was still two weeks away from my due date, my baby shower scheduled for the next day. I came inside, made the necessary phone calls to family, friends and doctors, changed clothes and waited for my husband to get home from work and my friend to come and wait with me. I was calm as I looked out the window and thought how weird it was that everyone was still grilling, playing, driving by like the most important baby in the world wasn’t imminent.
A few hours went by until the timing was right on target and we packed up and drove the few miles down the highway. I was going to have a baby. I’d gotten so used to being pregnant, I almost forgot this was the end result. It was a glorious pregnancy. Everything tasted amazing. I could out eat almost anyone and yet I looked like a figure out of National Geographic, little spindly legs and arms and a perfectly rounded pot belly. I slept great, felt great, baby was great. All was well. I was wheeled up to the front desk and began the intake process.
“Name?”
Tamara Belanger
“Address?”
“Insurance”
And then I put my head on her desk and rode the wave of the strongest contraction yet.
“Let’s take care of this later,” she said.
Yes, let’s.
The next few hours were consumed with hooking me up to all the things, taking all the vitals, watching my husband eat in front of me and hoping he’d remembered to take the chicken out of the oven. I was given an epidural and found my way to sleepy land for awhile. The clock struck the hour and then another and another until we passed into the next day. At 5 a.m., the nurse came in and poked around a bit and then I saw it. I have the gift or the curse, depending how you look at it, to pick up on the micro-est or micro changes in the atmosphere. The nurse was quiet and calm but I saw her brown furrow ever so slightly. She excused herself for just a minute and brought back a fast moving team of people who entered the room with Star Wars military precision, surrounded my bed and sent me on a ride almost as fast as the log flume at Disney. “Your baby has the cord wrapped around his neck and is showing signs of distress. We’re going to do an emergency C section and he’ll be out in the world in no time.” Being my first baby, I didn’t know enough to feel fear. I was just excited to meet her….or him. I’d saved that piece as an early Christmas present to myself and asked not to be told what the sex was until the baby was born. Old fashioned, I know, but I like surprises.
I entered the operating room, the bright lights a swift change from the comforting light of my hospital room. “One, two, three….Lift” and just that fast I had changed real estate to the table. “Okay, here we go!” said the doctor. And I FELT the knife go in. I tried hard to give the benefit of the doubt and to be really, really brave. “Is it…..should I…..be feeling this??” I’d never done this before. Yes honey, said the nurse who had done this before; there would be a feeling of pressure. I knew what pressure felt like. This was different, WAY different. What no one knew in that moment was that my body was hiding the symptoms of an abruption , a serious condition that had the potential to take my life and/or my baby’s. Once the operation began they not only discovered the abruption but also realized that my epidural had worn off. I was, essentially, experiencing being cut open with no anesthesia.
The last thing I remember is looking up into the face of the anesthesiologist, sheer panic setting in.
“We’re going to put you to sleep”
“WHEN??”
“Now.”
And then I woke up. I looked around groggy, and felt someone put my baby next to me. “It’s a boy! They wheeled me back to my room from recovery and the nurse pulled the curtains back so I could get a good look at him; Caleb is his name, I told her. That’s my grandfather’s name. She reached for my hospital arm band and then I noticed the bruises all up and down both arms. What happened, I wanted to know?? “After they put you under, your body kept reacting and you were banging your arms on the table trying to get up. You gave us quite a scare” It wasn’t until later that I fully understood what had gone on. I could have died that day. Caleb could have died that day. But we didn’t.
We stayed an extra 2 days in the hospital together, the doctor erring on the side of caution to monitor me and make sure Caleb’s jaundice was under control. As the days went on and I learned more about my condition and the outcome that could have written a different story, I savored deeply the miracle of what we’d gone through. It cemented us together as survivors. Three other things happened that day. I learned what it feels like to be stabbed, my baby shower was rescheduled and Caleb got to attend….and the chicken I made for dinner was still sitting in it’s pan on the table when I got home. Thank goodness it didn’t burn.