She's calling me siren-song to tell more of her story.
Post-op, my corporal self was returned to the room. My everything-else self floated somewhere else, transported by visions. Patterns. Another reality.
How to describe, really?
In front of the bits called my eyes range an astounding display: To begin, unknown faces at first fully visible, but quickly becoming indistinguishable as the focus zooms incredibly close so that only portions are there in minute details of pores and color.
Blink. Hard blink, to clear these people and return to the room, the too bright room.
A desperate need for relief, for escape, sending me scurrying down the rabbit hole as closed eyelids bring new impressions: colors whorling and dividing. Vivid blue lines with whisps of thread tendriling about them, evenly spaced around darker squares muted at the edges.
Blink.
Bright, too bright lights of the room. Pain and confusion. Outside myself, outside any self that ever was or ever would be. Outside the very knowledge of self, the possibility of self, the self-importance of self. Distance but more than distance. Nonexistence, neverexistence, realms of nevercreated — not just myself, but the physical race of humanity.
Terror, as reality becomes an abyss, and then is swallowed screaming into neverabyss.
Blink.
More. More wavering blue strings with whispy tendrils and blurryblack edges.
Blink.
Some hint of understanding, of reality comprehension, then finding blessed relief in that rise of terror.
Blink.
More images of humanity, people who perhaps exist in the future or never did at all coming to grossly overinflate their faces too close too close too close to my present. And patterns spinning.
Blink.
No notions of taste, touch, sound or smell. Only vividvision. Irreality. Expansion. Terror dripping steadily, inescapably, in. Understanding coming, flooding flooding flooding.
And then. They come. It is a tunnel that opens in the middle of the toobright room — no, first a circle of dark with hints of blue-orange lightspots that appears on the right side of the room.
An expanding circle that reveals their shadowsilhouettesouls, Grandma and Grandpa standing shoulder to shoulder on the left, Great Aunt Ella on the right.
They float to me, growing larger. And I bury my fears into them, hurl my terror. I begin to beg. I beg them to do whatever they can to let her live. I beg them through custards of snot and gagging tears and screaming desolation to help her live, to watch over her but to not take her with them. I beg my hallucinations to let Ella simply live, no matter the consequence to her own mortal coil.
I cannot breathe through the begging of my hallucinations to let my daughter, at all costs, at any costs, live live live. I am choking on the wads of my desperation, choking on the naive absurdity of doing what would be best for her medically-morally, vomiting inward those resolutions in the savageness of want.
Somewhere in the middle of this, something is injected into my IV, and there is nothing.
Thursday, May 29, 2008
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
A child is born
This weekend on vacation, I finally started to delete some of the photos from my camera's memory card. I have them saved elsewhere, of course, but I kept them all on the camera as well, some kind of talisman. But this weekend, I think I finally started to let go a little. Of course, the problem with doing this blog chronologically is that I cannot really diverge with the here and now. But I have to do this chronologically, to force myself to tell it at all.
As I said, I don't remember the flood of visits before the operation, but I do remember the anesthesiologists' visit after all, mostly because I've been thinking about this post and remembered the role they play in what's coming. I remember them explaining how the epidural would progress, and about the nature of pain control. The main guy was an oddball, with his multi-colored hat. But mostly it's just that he was ... odd. Off, somehow, like crazy but not in an insane OR fun way.
So finally the time came, somewhere around 7, and they hefted me onto a stretcher and away to the OR. When I got in there, several people already were bustling about. Computers, monitors, lights, sounds, sensations filled the space, and I was hefted again onto the actual operating table.
More bustling followed, along with draping, organizing, talking. The above-mentioned anesthesiologists arrived to administer the epidural, which I'd fretted over, but which went completely smoothly. An anesthesiologist-in-training actually did it, and despite the long, thin needle being inserted incorrectly into the spaces in my spinal cord a couple of times, there was really very little pain or discomfort. I suppose it was the shock of it all numbing me in other ways.
Lying me down, draping me, swabbing me, talking, talking. In the background, a rock station playing. Nurses and medical folks talking, me trying to talk to them, unsuccessfully. The sweet nurse from the NICU there, at least for a little while before being called away. Me begging repeatedly for them to get my sister.
Images flashing, snippets of sounds, portions of sensations, smells, understandings.
My sister arriving, decked out head to toe in scrubs and their accouterments. Talking to me, holding one of my hands.
My arms perpendicular to my body, resting on flying supports, making me into a T with a head. Physical numbness spreading through me, without the loss of control sending me into the panic I had expected. Feeling in my arms but deadness in my chest.
Learning to breathe with a new kind of oxygen mask on.
The doctors arriving. The drape in front of my eyes, rising like a blue-weave wall.
Smells.
Sounds.
Preparations, doctors talking.
Numbness.
Low conversation. The announcement that the first cut was being made.
The first cut.
More.
Somewhere, physical pain ebbing upward.
Tears, constant.
Distant understanding.
More pain, beyond the warned-about tugging and odd sensations.
The repeated words to the doctors "Thank you for saving my baby's life and my life," words translated by my sister above my whispery rasp into audible understanding, words that silence the low murmurs from the doctors.
The weird anesthesiologist whispering to the one in training but not whispering silently enough: "Now is the time you comfort the patient. You comfort the patient by saying, 'It's OK. It's OK' and rubbing their arms."
And the anesthesiologist comforting the patient by saying, "It's OK. It's OK" and rubbing my arms.
The overwhelming but somehow suppressed desire to scream at the anesthesiologist in training.
And then more pain. Intense, wracking.
Screaming "It hurts! It hurts!" only to understand I wasn't screaming at all, but muttering. Translation by my sister resulting in boosted doses of pain medication, cold ice flowing oddly upward through my spine.
And still more pain. And more screaming, screaming, screaming. Silently.
The quiet words from a doctor about some organ or flesh inside me being "tough" as the pain intensified.
Begging for my sister's hand to hold, after she had stepped aside, overwhelmed by smell and sound.
Tearing, tearing, searing, ripping. Ripping. Ripping. The baby torn from my womb as the words, at last:
"It's a girl!"
A little girl.
But no sounds from her. And no vision of her, only the sight of the blue-weave blockade inches from my face.
The sewing closed of my ripped-apart womb and body. More pain. The stench of my flesh being burned closed, in layers. Repeatedly.
90 minutes.
No baby. No sounds. No image.
And finally, a rushed glimpse as she is quickly rolled in an incubator briefly into my line of vision, a startling flash of pink flesh, and then she is gone.
There will be no cutting of the umbilical cord by my sister. My son will not tell my daughter her name in a lovingly expressed whisper into her ear.
I will not kiss her welcome into this world. I will not rejoice her first few moments with love and joy.
I will not make her promises, ancient fierce powerful vows of protection and devotion and possibility.
I will not touch her, I will not feel her skin, I will not touch her hair.
I will not smell her.
But I will say her name, as if to make it real. To make her real.
Ella.
As I said, I don't remember the flood of visits before the operation, but I do remember the anesthesiologists' visit after all, mostly because I've been thinking about this post and remembered the role they play in what's coming. I remember them explaining how the epidural would progress, and about the nature of pain control. The main guy was an oddball, with his multi-colored hat. But mostly it's just that he was ... odd. Off, somehow, like crazy but not in an insane OR fun way.
So finally the time came, somewhere around 7, and they hefted me onto a stretcher and away to the OR. When I got in there, several people already were bustling about. Computers, monitors, lights, sounds, sensations filled the space, and I was hefted again onto the actual operating table.
More bustling followed, along with draping, organizing, talking. The above-mentioned anesthesiologists arrived to administer the epidural, which I'd fretted over, but which went completely smoothly. An anesthesiologist-in-training actually did it, and despite the long, thin needle being inserted incorrectly into the spaces in my spinal cord a couple of times, there was really very little pain or discomfort. I suppose it was the shock of it all numbing me in other ways.
Lying me down, draping me, swabbing me, talking, talking. In the background, a rock station playing. Nurses and medical folks talking, me trying to talk to them, unsuccessfully. The sweet nurse from the NICU there, at least for a little while before being called away. Me begging repeatedly for them to get my sister.
Images flashing, snippets of sounds, portions of sensations, smells, understandings.
My sister arriving, decked out head to toe in scrubs and their accouterments. Talking to me, holding one of my hands.
My arms perpendicular to my body, resting on flying supports, making me into a T with a head. Physical numbness spreading through me, without the loss of control sending me into the panic I had expected. Feeling in my arms but deadness in my chest.
Learning to breathe with a new kind of oxygen mask on.
The doctors arriving. The drape in front of my eyes, rising like a blue-weave wall.
Smells.
Sounds.
Preparations, doctors talking.
Numbness.
Low conversation. The announcement that the first cut was being made.
The first cut.
More.
Somewhere, physical pain ebbing upward.
Tears, constant.
Distant understanding.
More pain, beyond the warned-about tugging and odd sensations.
The repeated words to the doctors "Thank you for saving my baby's life and my life," words translated by my sister above my whispery rasp into audible understanding, words that silence the low murmurs from the doctors.
The weird anesthesiologist whispering to the one in training but not whispering silently enough: "Now is the time you comfort the patient. You comfort the patient by saying, 'It's OK. It's OK' and rubbing their arms."
And the anesthesiologist comforting the patient by saying, "It's OK. It's OK" and rubbing my arms.
The overwhelming but somehow suppressed desire to scream at the anesthesiologist in training.
And then more pain. Intense, wracking.
Screaming "It hurts! It hurts!" only to understand I wasn't screaming at all, but muttering. Translation by my sister resulting in boosted doses of pain medication, cold ice flowing oddly upward through my spine.
And still more pain. And more screaming, screaming, screaming. Silently.
The quiet words from a doctor about some organ or flesh inside me being "tough" as the pain intensified.
Begging for my sister's hand to hold, after she had stepped aside, overwhelmed by smell and sound.
Tearing, tearing, searing, ripping. Ripping. Ripping. The baby torn from my womb as the words, at last:
"It's a girl!"
A little girl.
But no sounds from her. And no vision of her, only the sight of the blue-weave blockade inches from my face.
The sewing closed of my ripped-apart womb and body. More pain. The stench of my flesh being burned closed, in layers. Repeatedly.
90 minutes.
No baby. No sounds. No image.
And finally, a rushed glimpse as she is quickly rolled in an incubator briefly into my line of vision, a startling flash of pink flesh, and then she is gone.
There will be no cutting of the umbilical cord by my sister. My son will not tell my daughter her name in a lovingly expressed whisper into her ear.
I will not kiss her welcome into this world. I will not rejoice her first few moments with love and joy.
I will not make her promises, ancient fierce powerful vows of protection and devotion and possibility.
I will not touch her, I will not feel her skin, I will not touch her hair.
I will not smell her.
But I will say her name, as if to make it real. To make her real.
Ella.
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
We now interupt your regularly scheduled reading ...
to keep you in suspense while Ankle Rolls goes on vackay for a week.
Sunday, May 18, 2008
The post before the C-section
It's so hard now to not feel so melodramatic. I'm trying to convey everything to you in the way that I can remember, the way that I remember feeling. But it's seven months later, and while I'm dealing with PTSD from the experience, I keep feeling like I'm so close to that line I first wrote about, that line between ridiculously wrought and true grief.
They're going to end this pregnancy and I can do nothing to change it. There is no going back from here, only forward into a void. Forward into fears and forward into no more decisions and forward into reliance on methology I fought my life against, against the few goals and dreams I'd allowed myself to have about this pregnancy and birth. From the beauty of a natural, drug-free birth where my sister cut the cord and my son whispered the baby's name into his or her ear, I would be physically dressed out with wires running to and from me like an electric box, and strapped to a narrow board with my arms splayed like Christ, unable to move.
Those hours from the visits until the medical staff began the surgical preparations are mostly lost. Maybe they'll surface at some point, but I suppose it's unlikely. The confusion and disbelief have erased reality, blessed compensation for the horror of overrunning nature's plans.
Several times I was told what would happen — I'd be shaved and prepped for surgery — and what would happen during the surgery and after delivery. Several times I was asked if I had support at home. I said yes, of course. I was lying, because although my sister did and does support me, how can you not help but go through something like this completely alone?
I knew my dad and sister would show up as I was being shaved, and damned if I wasn't right. Thankfully my sister came in first, and I repeatedly hollered to keep our dad out! And thankfully he stayed put until the pubes were razored away half way down the top — this totally ridiculous stop spot that left me half woman, half girl.
While the shaving was going on, I could hear my dad and sister and their comments to everyone. My sister kept reassuring anyone who would listen that "I watch 'Baby Story' all the time!" as if she'd be able to jump in and help with the operation:) And my dad. Oy! He had the nurse shaving me in stitches (no pun intended.) He was telling medical staff who walked by how the delivery would progress: After the baby was out, they'd need to slap him or her to make him or her cry.
And the hours progressed past 4, past 5, past 6, past 7. This agony of keeping me waiting, because more C-sections had to come before. And the doctor who wanted to perform the procedure went off shift and couldn't do it after all. How could they do such a thing to someone? Telling me every half-hour or less that it would be soon, very soon. How could they prolong this?
I decided to be conscious for the operation. I had to know if my baby would be a boy or a girl. And I had to know if the baby would live.
They're going to end this pregnancy and I can do nothing to change it. There is no going back from here, only forward into a void. Forward into fears and forward into no more decisions and forward into reliance on methology I fought my life against, against the few goals and dreams I'd allowed myself to have about this pregnancy and birth. From the beauty of a natural, drug-free birth where my sister cut the cord and my son whispered the baby's name into his or her ear, I would be physically dressed out with wires running to and from me like an electric box, and strapped to a narrow board with my arms splayed like Christ, unable to move.
Those hours from the visits until the medical staff began the surgical preparations are mostly lost. Maybe they'll surface at some point, but I suppose it's unlikely. The confusion and disbelief have erased reality, blessed compensation for the horror of overrunning nature's plans.
Several times I was told what would happen — I'd be shaved and prepped for surgery — and what would happen during the surgery and after delivery. Several times I was asked if I had support at home. I said yes, of course. I was lying, because although my sister did and does support me, how can you not help but go through something like this completely alone?
I knew my dad and sister would show up as I was being shaved, and damned if I wasn't right. Thankfully my sister came in first, and I repeatedly hollered to keep our dad out! And thankfully he stayed put until the pubes were razored away half way down the top — this totally ridiculous stop spot that left me half woman, half girl.
While the shaving was going on, I could hear my dad and sister and their comments to everyone. My sister kept reassuring anyone who would listen that "I watch 'Baby Story' all the time!" as if she'd be able to jump in and help with the operation:) And my dad. Oy! He had the nurse shaving me in stitches (no pun intended.) He was telling medical staff who walked by how the delivery would progress: After the baby was out, they'd need to slap him or her to make him or her cry.
And the hours progressed past 4, past 5, past 6, past 7. This agony of keeping me waiting, because more C-sections had to come before. And the doctor who wanted to perform the procedure went off shift and couldn't do it after all. How could they do such a thing to someone? Telling me every half-hour or less that it would be soon, very soon. How could they prolong this?
I decided to be conscious for the operation. I had to know if my baby would be a boy or a girl. And I had to know if the baby would live.
Thursday, May 15, 2008
The descent
I really couldn't believe it, couldn't process what the doctor was saying. I'd been so convinced all along that I'd be stuck on bed rest that her words were incomprehensible. I asked why, and she was very kind, explaining that nothing they'd tried to halt my body's slide had worked. And she explained it repeatedly as I found multiple ways to ask the same question repeatedly.
And all I could think was that the delivery would mean death for my child.
The doctor explained what would happen, how I would be prepped, what the operation would be like, what would happen to the baby (the baby who would die.)
I asked, no begged: "Why can't we push my body to the very brink? Why now?"
And her clearly articulated response: "We're already past that point."
After rounds of repetition failed to stem my tears or the onslaught of disbelief, the doctor said she'd send in various people to answer more questions. She said the operation would happen at 4 p.m. and that she wanted to do it.
Sympathetic glances from the team, maybe some pats, and they left me alone. Alone to process, or begin the attempt to fathom ...
I called my family to tell them. It was late morning at this point.
The various people began to arrive. The gentle nurse from the NICU returned (she'd been by the day before, I believe, and explained the same things, though I couldn't remember the details of her previous visit, wouldn't have been able to remember it for anything.) She gave me the statistics and explained how these cases progress, from delivery and crisis care for the infant to the transfer to the NICU. And those statistics: I couldn't cite them now, about rates of disability depending on X and so forth, but she did repeat that my child had about a 40 percent to 50 percent chance of survival. So I folded into my understanding that statistic and it helped cement the knowledge that my baby would die.
The social worker returned, and I reiterated my fears and grief for my son, and fears about his own grief. How would I explain to him the loss of his greatest happiness? How could I possibly? And how could I begin to survive his grief?
In the end, nothing anyone said or probably could have said would have made a difference. The events played out as they inevitably were meant to play out. Except I suppose I don't actually believe that, considering I know that if only, if only, if only I had done one little, undefinable thing in a different way, I wouldn't be crying inconsolably on a hospital bed waiting for my child's delivery into death.
And all I could think was that the delivery would mean death for my child.
The doctor explained what would happen, how I would be prepped, what the operation would be like, what would happen to the baby (the baby who would die.)
I asked, no begged: "Why can't we push my body to the very brink? Why now?"
And her clearly articulated response: "We're already past that point."
After rounds of repetition failed to stem my tears or the onslaught of disbelief, the doctor said she'd send in various people to answer more questions. She said the operation would happen at 4 p.m. and that she wanted to do it.
Sympathetic glances from the team, maybe some pats, and they left me alone. Alone to process, or begin the attempt to fathom ...
Look at my eyes in this photo. I took this of myself when I realized I didn't have any photos of the "momentous" occasion. I don't know why I smiled, but my eyes tell the real story.
I called my family to tell them. It was late morning at this point.
The various people began to arrive. The gentle nurse from the NICU returned (she'd been by the day before, I believe, and explained the same things, though I couldn't remember the details of her previous visit, wouldn't have been able to remember it for anything.) She gave me the statistics and explained how these cases progress, from delivery and crisis care for the infant to the transfer to the NICU. And those statistics: I couldn't cite them now, about rates of disability depending on X and so forth, but she did repeat that my child had about a 40 percent to 50 percent chance of survival. So I folded into my understanding that statistic and it helped cement the knowledge that my baby would die.
The social worker returned, and I reiterated my fears and grief for my son, and fears about his own grief. How would I explain to him the loss of his greatest happiness? How could I possibly? And how could I begin to survive his grief?
In the end, nothing anyone said or probably could have said would have made a difference. The events played out as they inevitably were meant to play out. Except I suppose I don't actually believe that, considering I know that if only, if only, if only I had done one little, undefinable thing in a different way, I wouldn't be crying inconsolably on a hospital bed waiting for my child's delivery into death.
Friday, May 9, 2008
Here we go ...
At some unavoidable point, we're going to have to get to Wednesday, birth day. You've been very patient so far, and I can't stop the chronological retelling of events any more than I could stop those events from first transpiring. But maybe I'll draw it out a bit more, considering how long my posts tend to ramble. Take it in more palatable bites (been reading Renae du Jour; can you tell, Miss Renae and friends?)
See? Humor. Remember how I mentioned that problem earlier? Humor as avoidance. Screw it.
Wednesday morning after a few more tests Morning Group Head Doctor (known in the previous post as Evening Group Head Doctor; I guess shift change hadn't happened yet) appeared, saw my breakfast tray and very agitatedly exclaimed, "You can't have anything to eat! You haven't eaten anything have you?"
"Um, no."
Calm from Morning Group/Evening Group/All-Around Head Doctor. Preparing me. Softly, now. The air of gentleness.
"We're going to have to deliver the baby."
See? Humor. Remember how I mentioned that problem earlier? Humor as avoidance. Screw it.
Wednesday morning after a few more tests Morning Group Head Doctor (known in the previous post as Evening Group Head Doctor; I guess shift change hadn't happened yet) appeared, saw my breakfast tray and very agitatedly exclaimed, "You can't have anything to eat! You haven't eaten anything have you?"
"Um, no."
Calm from Morning Group/Evening Group/All-Around Head Doctor. Preparing me. Softly, now. The air of gentleness.
"We're going to have to deliver the baby."
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
And Mike Rowe
I promised him, didn't I? I just have been avoiding this place for a bit. Pretending I didn't start this blog and commit to keeping it up.
So you say you don't know who Mike Rowe is? You crazy, crazy person, you. Here, educate yourself, you Luddite: Mike Rowe is a god.
Mike Rowe, to me, is dreamy. More than McDreamy, more than McClooney. I like Mike because he has sweet laugh lines and the slightly-starting-to-sag body of real personhood. He's still strong, a physically drawing strength, and flippin' gorgeous. And he's funny, in that attractive slightly sexual way. Double entendres are the staple of "Dirty Jobs." Well, that along with the dirty jobs.
So. The point of this, and it does relate, is that after I was left alone in my room that Tuesday night after my baby began to breathe, a nurse came in to hang out with me. Either there wasn't much to do or she just didn't care, because she stayed quite a while. We chatted as she cared for me, about how she was a traveling nurse; she'd take a new job every few months and move to a completely new city. She also cared for her husband, whose disability kept him pretty much confined to bed. She sat down to watch TV with me, just as the 100th episode of "Dirty Jobs" was coming on.
At the exact moment Mike Rowe spoke, the baby gave me the absolute hardest kick I'd felt yet. It was startling and vivid. I can feel it now, and suspect it would have been a preview of the activity that was to come had the pregnancy continued to full term. Whew.
I also understood in that instant that the baby was going to be a girl. Now, in the interest of sexual identity fairness, I know there are men out there who groove to the Mike Rowe tune just as strongly. But it didn't enter my mind at the time.
I just had a gut feeling -- pun intended -- that this little fighter still inside me would be like her mama and find more attractive than anything the essence of real personhood.
So you say you don't know who Mike Rowe is? You crazy, crazy person, you. Here, educate yourself, you Luddite: Mike Rowe is a god.
Mike Rowe, to me, is dreamy. More than McDreamy, more than McClooney. I like Mike because he has sweet laugh lines and the slightly-starting-to-sag body of real personhood. He's still strong, a physically drawing strength, and flippin' gorgeous. And he's funny, in that attractive slightly sexual way. Double entendres are the staple of "Dirty Jobs." Well, that along with the dirty jobs.
So. The point of this, and it does relate, is that after I was left alone in my room that Tuesday night after my baby began to breathe, a nurse came in to hang out with me. Either there wasn't much to do or she just didn't care, because she stayed quite a while. We chatted as she cared for me, about how she was a traveling nurse; she'd take a new job every few months and move to a completely new city. She also cared for her husband, whose disability kept him pretty much confined to bed. She sat down to watch TV with me, just as the 100th episode of "Dirty Jobs" was coming on.
At the exact moment Mike Rowe spoke, the baby gave me the absolute hardest kick I'd felt yet. It was startling and vivid. I can feel it now, and suspect it would have been a preview of the activity that was to come had the pregnancy continued to full term. Whew.
I also understood in that instant that the baby was going to be a girl. Now, in the interest of sexual identity fairness, I know there are men out there who groove to the Mike Rowe tune just as strongly. But it didn't enter my mind at the time.
I just had a gut feeling -- pun intended -- that this little fighter still inside me would be like her mama and find more attractive than anything the essence of real personhood.
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