The Baby We Prayed For - Going Home

part a, part b, part c, part d

Going back home was surreal to say the least.  Our house seemed emptier than before.  Quieter.  Robert and I feel onto our bed and cried.  It was the first time I had ever seen him cry.  He tells me that it was the first time I really cried since this whole ordeal happened.  Cry I did.  My poor eyelids weren't just puffy, they actually bruised a little.  Only one other time in my life have I cried so hard that my eyelids bruised.  During our first hours alone Robert did something that helped glue our young marriage even tighter together.  With the gentleness and care of a nursemaid he helped dress me.  He patiently took waited as I sat on the edge of our bed slowly putting one leg into my dark blue shorts and then another.  He was down on his knees filled with love and care.  It was like nothing else mattered, like we had all of the time in the world.
     Neither of us could escape the constant sound of monitors beeping.  Paige's heart monitor.  We hadn't realized just how present those monitors in the hospital were until then. For the next few days that beep, beep, beep would play over and over in my ears and heart.  It was a sound we wished we could stop.  That same beeping would sound in my eardrums every now and then over the following months.
     My mom and Grandma drove across state lines to come see us.  I don't remember just how long they stayed.  They cooked, cleaned, answered the phone, made sure I ate.    It did me good to have then with us.  They helped as much as they could.  How do you take your daughters pain away?  How do you help heal her grief?  They did it the best way they could, by mothering me.
     Meals were brought over the next week.  Tears were shed over the babies we each had lost and the hope of life moving on was planted.  I can't tell you what we ate, but I remember the faces, the stories and the love.  One of my friends made a small embroidery that said Paige in mint green thread and a heart below it.  She framed it in a delicate gold frame.  That sat on our bookshelf for some time.
     Another thing that sticks with me is the way my body reacted.  I still had post delivery contractions, that were almost as bad a the real ones and my milk came in.  Nothing to relieve them except time.  These were both something no one told me would happen.  I remember sitting on our rust colored sofa telling Doreen about the contractions.  She said they were normal and would go away soon.  My contractions stopped and the milk eventually dried up too.  Gone were any signs that I was just pregnant.  Any signs that we had just had a baby girl.

The Baby We Prayed For (d)

part a, part b, part c

With every visitor that came to the hospital, I had to suppress the urge, the desire to show off our new baby.  To let people ooh and aah over her.  Yet I knew that wasn't appropriate.  People from church, young and old, even single men came.  Each one came uncomfortably into our room. ( They had given me mine own room away from the maternity ward.)  Some stopped by with gifts of flowers cards, almond roca.  All stayed as long as they could and were as comforting as possible.  Some stayed and chatted, making us laugh, which was very needed.  One lady from our church had gone through the exact situation.  She called from our of state, to make sure we were alright.
     A particular group of young folks came in led by a single guy.  James was so uncomfortable.  James was our neighbor.  He was one of those guys you'd leave a plate for because you know he'd be stopping by.  I remember him standing against the wall with tears in his eyes at a lose for words.  I ended up saying something funny that broke the tension in the room.  He replied, "We came here to cheer you up and you're cheering us up."  Where did this funny side of me come from, especially at this moment?  Answer, the grace of God.
     The grace of God and the normal post-delivery hormone high I got was what carried me through those dark hours of lose, grief and confusion.
     My best friend Sophie and her husband spent the most time with us.  They were the ones who walked out of the hospital with us.  That day, those emotions are seared into my heart.  I remember leaving the nurses who started out as strangers became our friends, pushed my tummy, sat with us when they had a few spare minutes.  Being wheeled out with the candy and flowers and feeling like I was leaving something behind.  My baby.  Our baby.  There's nothing like carrying the baby you prayed for, for five months only to leave her.  I don't remember how much I cried those 24 hours, but I do know I cried getting into our blue Ranger looking up at the windows of the third floor.  I wanted to run back and grab our tiny baby and make everything all better, to go back to yesterday when I was still pregnant.  Go back to before it hurt so bad.
  

The Baby We prayed For pt 1 (c)

part 1, part 2

At some point between our arrival at the hospital and the arrival of Paige that early August morning, I remember Robert quoting Romans 8:28 "And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose."  I held onto that scripture many times that night/morning and still do.
     After I was all cleaned up our pastor and his wife Doreen came in carrying a bunch of beautiful red roses, that at some other time I would've oohed and ahhed over.  Doreen was woman with a mother's heart.  Robert and I had watched there two children a number of times. Her daughter felt Paige's first few kicks in my tummy.  And here Doreen was looking at me with such compassionate, caring eyes.  Eyes that wanted to hold me and make it all go away.  She was at my side when our nurse came in and told us that Paige didn't make it.  She was there to comfort and to strengthen.  Paige lived for 7 minutes.  She never cried and never had to suffer.  For that we are forever grateful, grateful  beyond words.  We still hold to the fact that if she had to go, we are glad she passed the way she did.  I can't begin to imagine parents who have to say good-bye to older kids. 
     Even after the devastating news, especially after the news, I wanted more then ever to see our daughter, to hold her, to see what she looked like.  When our nurse brought her in to us she was swaddled in a soft, pastel yellow receiving blanket.  All 1 pound 1 ounce, 11 3/4 inches of her were in that blanket.  We were not prepared to see a baby so, so not yet fully developed, so small.  Yet, I felt the same pride most moms feel while hold their first born.  As they placed her in my arms I noticed how fragile she looked.  Her skin was so thin we were afraid to touch it, but we did.  She had Grandpa's crooked pinkies.  Something every baby in our family gets inspected for.  Her eyes were still sealed shut.  Little brown eyelashes were forming ever so sotfly.  Her fingers and toes were still partially webbed, yet we could tell they would have been long and graceful.  She even had a few wisps of brown hair starting to grow on her tiny head.  It was a special peek into God's handiwork, that even at that very development of a baby, just how everything was perfectly formed and protected.  We also did the normal new parent,  "She has your nose" and so on.
     Though we will never know what color her eyes were or what her voice and laughter sounded like.  Was she a happy child, outgoing or shy?  Did she like to play dress up or play in the mud?  We won't know the answers to these questions, yet I have the answers hidden in my heart.  One day we will get to know.  We will get to hold her talk to her.  And that day will be glorious!

The Baby We Prayed For pt. 1 (b)

part 1 here

The next events were all a blur.  I got placed in a room.  A small birthing room with peach colored wallpapered walls.  Nurses, doctors, people seemed to keep coming and going, in and out.  Hooking me to this and to that.  So little was explained to us.  The nurses only told me to try to remain as still as possible.  All along Robert was by my side, my right side, almost in the recess of the room.
     After checking me and noting that I was dilated to a 2 and confirming that I was indeed in labor Doctor One came in.  With that we were finally acknowledged and things started getting explained.  "It could be this or that.  This could happen or that could happen." Dr. One went on.  "We are hoping the baby will be born in the sac so we can keep it alive as long as possible."
     "Keep it alive...as long as possible."  Thud.  Those words hit us hard.  I looked at Robert with panic in my eyes and pain in my heart.  I willed my body to keep the sac intact, to stop this from happening.  It didn't.  My water broke as I went into full labor a little after Doctor Two came on duty.
     Our midwife left after she had done all she could do.  Leaving us in this strange room with these strange people.  At one point a nurse rolled in a big machine I think it was an incubator.  Then it rolled back on out.  The scene was becoming all too real too fast.
     There was one nurse who stood out.  Kim was a tall, sturdy built woman with short dark brown hair.  I started to look to her as my anchor.  I needed something to hold onto.  She was our main nurse.  Though I don't remember her saying much I do know that when she did speak it was with words of solid, sturdy kindness.  Words that said, "This really sucks and it is hard.  You can do this.  You're going to make it."
     The labor was quick, not painless, but quick.  I only dilated to a 4, but that was all I needed.  I still had to push and to labor to get our baby out.  Once she popped out our nurse with the dark brown hair carried her away.  All we could see was a tiny, very tiny red baby in her sturdy arms.  The way she carried our baby is etched in my mind for all of time.  She didn't cradled our baby.  Her arms were bent, elbows together under her chest. Our baby lying where her arms met.
     Everything in that room the whole time was quiet, clinical, like no one wanted to be there doing this, living this.
     As I watched our baby being carried away to the nursery or wherever they took babies born too early, I remember asking whether we had a boy or a girl.  A girl. Our girl.  I am sure I prayed, we prayed throughout the whole ordeal.  I am sure we held each others hands, talked a bit, trying to make sense of it all.  I know I wanted to see her, to hold her, touch her.  While at the same time I wanted the doctors and nurses to do all they could to keep our baby alive.  To get her stabilized so she could make it.

The Baby We Prayed For pt 1

I got stirred again to write about our kid's birth stories and pour out my heart.  I started this morning and have 5 1/2 front and back handwritten pages done.  And I am not even close to being done!

Here's how is goes.  This is the rough draft that maybe you'll read in a published book one day!  heehee

"Just wait on God", "It's all in God's timing", a couple of ladies would tell me when I told them how bad I wanted to have our first baby.  I was ready.

     I will never forget that day, that night.  As I read and reread through the pages of What to Expect When You're Expecting over and over, looking for answers.  I knew something wasn't right.  I knew it in my heart.  I called our midwife and explained to her what  I was feeling,  I didn't really know what it was or quite how to explain it, other then the tightness in my belly and the urges I in my pregnant body weren't right.  She rushed over, praying as she came to the train tracks that she wouldn't be delayed.
     When she came I was both scared and relieved.  Scared because I knew in my heart what was happening and I didn't want to go there.  Relieved because here was someone who just had her 10th baby herself.  She knew about these things.  I was comforted by her presence, her experience and her being a woman.
     It was night time.  We all, hubby, midwife and I, filed into our bedroom.  The room where I was supposed to deliver out first born.  The baby we prayed for.
     Our rented house was a quaint older Victorian style house.  It had a big green porch and a wide entry way.  Rosettes were in the corners of the trim.  There were three bedroom, one of which we used as a living room.  Our kitchen was the biggest we ever had.  Funny thing was the top cabinets didn't have any doors.  We joke about it all of the time.  "A cabinet makers home has no cabinet doors."  The dining room was the center of the house.  Every room stemmed from it.  The one bathroom was even awkwardly located right off of the dining room.  No hiding there.  Also, off of the dining room was the baby's room.  I little, cozy room with a lot of character and a glass paned door.  Perfect for our coming baby.
     As our midwife got set to check me and to see what was going on I remember sitting on our bed, on the comforter my mother-in-law made for us as a wedding gift.  The colors vivid in my memory.  Peach a green shapes all lovingly stitched together.
     It didn't take our midwife long to determine I needed to go to the hospital.  I was in labor.  I was just 5 1/2 months pregnant, 20-22 weeks pregnant.  Too early to be in labor.
     I don't remember much of what I was thinking.  I don't know if Robert and I talked or prayed or just sat in numbed silence on the ride to the hospital.  I do know the my gut was right all along.  I was indeed in labor.
     Our midwife, who called ahead, met us at the hospital.  She told me to wait for a wheel chair.  Not knowing any better or wanting to stay in as much control of the situation as possible I declined.  There was an uncomfortable silence in the elevator ride up to the top, the third floor.  It all felt surreal.  So much like a bad dream and wanted desperately to wake up from.