A Scene from Our Script

CHARACTERS

CHARLIE: A four-year-old going on fourteen. Too smart for his own good. Does not know what curiosity did to the cat.

MAMA: Thirtysomething sleep-deprived mother of two. She has been worn down enough that “Just go with it” is her new motto.

Act I, Scene 492

           

(CHARLIE goes to his room for afternoon nap. MAMA tucks him in, hits “Play” on his CD player, and leaves room. Five seconds later CHARLIE flies out of his room screeching and whining.)

CHARLIE: It’s not working!

MAMA: What isn’t working?

CHARLIE: My CD isn’t playing!

(MAMA goes back in room, inspects CD, tries playing it again with no luck.)

MAMA: It was working last night. Why isn’t it working now?

CHARLIE: There’s cookie crumbs in it.

MAMA: Why are there cookie crumbs in the CD player?

CHARLIE: Because I put a cookie in there to see if it would play.

MAMA: Did it play cookie music?

CHARLIE: No.

(CHARLIE turns radio on and returns to bed. MAMA tucks CHARLIE in again and is seen shaking her head while muttering unintelligible sounds as she closes the door.)

FADE OUT

Grateful Mess

I look around the house and see so many messes. Messes that I’m grateful for.

Snips of paper and twine scattered under the table. So thankful for a crafty little boy who buzzes by the table to color or cut or glue for a few minutes before buzzing off to his next adventure.

Clothes piling up in the laundry basket. Thankful that we have more clothes than we need. And thankful for little boys who get dirty.

Plates with crusted remains of dinners past. Thankful to have more than we need. Thankful for clean water and soap that will be there when I find the time to tackle the dishes.

A bathroom that needs a good mopping, a tub with more toys than space to bathe.

Toys invade every room. Waking up to discover that you’ve slept with a stuffed gorilla, a picture book, and a few wooden trains hidden in the bed.

A neglected blog. A sign that we are busy. But not in meaningless busyness, but deep in the throes of everyday life with little ones. I’m thankful to have these demands on my time.

Our NICU Stay

So, Baby Jack turned eight months old yesterday! And I’m still trying to finish his birth story. There’s so much to say about our NICU stay, and it’s impossible to fully describe its impact and all the things I learned. I’ve written this post half a dozen times. It’s still not hitting the mark for me, but it’s time to move on. In other words: That’ll do, pig. That’ll do. (Name that movie!)

Baby Jack went to the NICU soon after he was born so doctors could check out his little heart and look for any other congenital anomalies. I think the poor little guy was scanned, x-rayed, and examined from head to toe. Doctors did find a couple of other things, but nothing they seemed concerned about. Which leads me to the strangest part of this whole experience—I didn’t know if I should be worried about him or not.

Some of this haziness I can blame on hormones, but I just didn’t have any sense of perspective on the severity of his issues. We had been so concerned about him before he was born, and now here he was, doing great and not needing any interventions. Yet, he was in this place with other babies who needed constant intensive care. Plus, we were sent home with six pages of diagnoses and appointments with specialists, and I just didn’t know what to think. I just kept telling myself that they wouldn’t have sent him home if he wasn’t okay.

So in the following weeks and months, we had many visits with the pediatrician and other specialists, and with each one, my anxiety lessened. He even had surgery to repair a couple of things and has a few more specialist visits, but he’s just doing great. And along the way, I’ve learned to identify and confront my fears in order to stop worrying about him.

My appreciation for life in all of its variations was so enriched by our NICU experience. And we were only there for a week! You might read these and think “Gee, what a bunch of clichés.” And you’d be correct. But now I understand them so much more than just repeating them as platitudes. I could write pages about these, but how about some handy bullet points instead?

• Life comes in so many variations and shades. Life can be heartbreaking. And heartbreakingly beautiful. And people are amazing in their capacities to care.
• NICU nurses are superheroes. I cannot imagine what they see on a daily basis. The nurses we had were amazing. And they really do care and connect with babies when it might be so much easier to emotionally detach.
• There are no guarantees in life. Things can really suck, but to worry about the future is to waste the present. I have so much more motivation to do things because this moment is all I’ve got.
• It’s my job and honor to see these boys into the world and out of it if need be. If anything should happen to them, I’ll disintegrate into a pile of ashes and be swept away by the wind. But to fear illness and death or to be anxious about the future is a waste of time. (See also The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying. It will straighten out your priorities in a hurry.)
• No regrets. Live with a Saturday mentality. On Saturdays, you indulge yourself--maybe you sleep a little later or do fun things that you’ve put off. Do more “Saturday things” every day.
• Be kind. We met so many people in the hospital and who knows what challenges they faced. Everyone has a secret struggle. Turn a trivial encounter (talk to a cashier, hold a door open, let that car merge, wave at a child) into something positive. Make “nice” your default setting.

Extra Precautions Taken

So Dave made a quick trip back home to pack his bag and pick up my bag. And he also stopped by 7-Eleven to pick up snacks.

If there’s anyone who needs sleep, it’s someone who is about to be the caretaker of a newborn. Trying to sleep in a strange place is no fun, especially with the excitement and anxiousness of knowing you are giving birth the next day. And then there’s the fetal heart monitor that wouldn’t stay in place. Every time the monitor couldn’t find Baby Jack’s heartbeat, it would beep loudly. This happened all night long. At first, a nurse would arrive to adjust the belly-monitoring belt and reset it with each beeping session. Then later, the beeping would occur and no one would check on us. Having watched nurses hit the reset button, I just started resetting the monitor myself. Baby Jack had been doing fine and our vitals were taken regularly, and at 3:30 a.m., all I wanted was to sleep.

A little before 6:00 a.m., we were moved to labor and delivery for the show to begin. I was hooked up to the IV and was pleasantly surprised that the meds didn’t burn when going in. I had complained earlier to my doctor that the worst part of Charlie’s labor was the burn of penicillin going in. It was so cold going in each time, and my hand hurt for weeks afterward. This time, however, was great and I didn’t even notice it.

Let me say that a good labor and delivery nurse is worth his/her weight in gold. We had a great one. She treated us like real people and was a great advocate. Case in point, that afternoon as contractions started to intensify, I was managing okay, but she told me that if I was going to have an epidural, I should do it now. She said there were a couple of people who were at the same stage of labor as me. With one of the anesthesiologists occupied with a complicated Cesarean, it might be awhile before another one could get to me once I was ready. So I’d better not wait until I really needed it. That's valuable insider information. Also, our nurse had small hands. You ladies know what I’m talking about.

The only excitement with Jack’s labor and delivery was that my epidural was completely different from the one with Charlie. With Charlie, I didn’t feel a thing. It was awesome. With Jack, the epidural dulled the sharp pain, but not the dull ache of bones pulling apart. The idea that an epidural might not stop all of the pain was news to me. (Surprise!) I started feeling pain across my thighs and then my back with each contraction. And then things got ugly as the aching pain just kept coming with no end in sight. I’m talking groaning like a dying cow ugly.

I think it’s that “no end in sight” thing that makes labor so mentally challenging. If the doctor could tell you that you’re going to be in moderate pain for 5 hours and then severe pain for 1 hour and then you’ll be done, you could prepare and deal with the pain. But when the contractions come rolling in a little stronger each time with no end in sight, it makes you grateful to have drugs in your spine.

An anesthesiologist came in and turned the epidural up a notch, which seemed fine for a little while. When the dull pain came back, he returned with something in a syringe and put meds directly in the line. When nothing gave me relief, a different anesthesiologist came in to assess the pain level and see if they needed to redo the epidural. Redoing the epidural was not at all what I wanted. I knew how still you have to be and now with these contractions, it was not going to be pretty. But I also knew that it might mean eventual relief.

While considering redoing the epidural, however, my saintly nurse suggested checking me to see how far along we were. She, of the small hands, checked me and laughed saying, “He’s right there!” She asked me to do a practice push and quickly told me to stop saying that it was delivery time. With that statement, I suddenly had relief from the pain! Knowing that the end was near, I could handle it now. See what I mean about that “no end in sight” thing?

My doctor arrived along with a neonatologist and a team of assorted assistants and nurses. Jack had tolerated labor well with no dips in his heart rate. But the maternal fetal doctor thought that there was some enlargement of his heart with possible pulmonary stenosis, so extra precautions were taken.

I literally pushed three times, and there he was. Which leads me to believe that he had been ready for some time and his low position was the cause of the bone-cracking aches. Jack gave a sweet and hearty wail--such a beautiful sound.

The medical team checked him out, and then Dave and I got to hold him. He was such a sweetie and looked so much like Charlie. Everyone remarked that his color was great. Some babies with heart issues come out blue, but Jack was just as pink as could be. I later learned that his Apgars were 9 and 9 which is fantastic.

They put him in his infant Pope mobile and wheeled him to the NICU to check him out further. And as luck would have it, Granny, Granddaddy, and Charlie had arrived just in time to see him before he went to the NICU.

Stay tuned for the next episode: Our NICU Stay