She said, he said…

This is the first year since Eliza’s birth that the days of the week are the same as they were that year. Her birthday this year is on a Tuesday, and she was born on Tuesday. I always think a lot about her birth and the events surrounding that time in our lives. Makes me a little sad, brings up some latent guilt. But mostly, it makes me so grateful for the little sparkly birthday cake stickers on my sheets and for the fact that I’m here to see them and she’s here to stick them.

Most of you haven’t been reading my blog long enough to know what happened, so I thought I’d give you a bit of an Eliza history lesson tonight. And it seems like it’s only fair that you hear about it from both sides… (now’s the time when you hum a little tune while I try to convince Mike to play along… shouldn’t take long, he’s usually pretty agreeable).

Here goes…

She said… Five years ago yesterday, I had this horrible pain in my stomach. I was seven months pregnant, and Eliza hadn’t been exactly easy to carry to that point. At first, they were concerned that I had placenta previa and would have to deliver a couple of weeks early. At various points, they thought she was going to be too big or too little. Given that, I wasn’t just real surprised to be hurting. More annoyed.

I finally called the doctor and he suggested some options, and we tried them, eventually going to sleep.

He said… When your wife is seven-plus months pregnant, you get used to a certain amount of “I feel like crap.” That wasn’t what Chel was doing Saturday night. More like “It feels like something is stabbing me with a steel sword that has been sitting in a white-hot fire for an hour.” It was frightening, concerning and an awful feeling when you don’t know what to do about it. Thankfully, the doctor gave us some advice to get us through the night.

She said… Five years ago tonight, Mike and I were sleeping in separate beds. I was lying in a hospital bed being pumped full of IV fluids of undetermined strength or intent. I was huge and swollen, happily watching the first few moments of the Trading Spaces $100,000 make-over before falling into a sedative-induced sleep.

Mike was home with Griff.

He said… When we went to the hospital, things didn’t seem too bad. I recall we just sort of stayed in a room with a monitor on Chel and hung out. They wanted to monitor for a certain amount of time, which meant Chel had to stay over night. Given the previous night, I was not all that crazy about leaving her. At the same time, I didn’t want to leave Griff at Mandy and Josh’s because I was concerned he might begin to worry himself. But leaving Chel was one of the more difficult things I’ve done.

She said… By Monday morning, I had enjoyed a good night’s drugged sleep and was waiting for my doctor to release me to go home. They had run a ton of tests while I was there and finally let me go early afternoon. After hearing that I’d been admited to the hospital, my mom decided to drive down from Arkansas to see us, so she arrived at our house not long after Mike and I got home. We spent what I recall to be a very pleasant evening with my mom and Griff.

She went with me and Mike to my regular appointment on Tuesday. I have to admit that it’s all a bit fuzzy for me from here. I remember snippets of things. I remember my doctor insisting on an ultrasound (which I now know was to determine if she was big enough to be viable). I remember him asking me to go get some bloodwork done and to then come back after lunch.He said that the Sunday bloodwork showed a few things he wanted to check further.

I was really completely detached from reality at this point. Mom and I went to lunch (shrimp bisque with cornbread) and she was kind enough to overlook my refusal to see what was going on. I had even sent Mike back to work to teach his classes.

When we went back to my doctor’s office, he asked to see me in his personal office. Never good. I never wanted to see his office. he asked if Mike was with me & then had me call his cell and tell him to meet me in labor and delivery immediately. Still, not convinced this was happening.

I was so swollen the nurses couldn’t get an IV in me, and the anesthesiologist had to come take care of it. My doctor came in and told us Eliza weighed about three and a half pounds and that she was going to be fine but that I had HELLP and my platelets were falling to dangerous levels. He said they had to take her right away or I would bleed to death on the table. Nice, huh?

So they took me to the ER, and they laid me out there with all of these people milling about… and I had my gown around my neck. I remember being completely humiliated. And some precious, unnamed nurse came over and covered me up. Bless her for trying to give me a bit of dignity in that moment.

And I don’t remember anything until later, when I work up. I remember vague things… my friend, Linda, coming over after her son’s first birthday party. How weird that Eliza, Harrison and my dad share a birthday? I introduced her to the nurses as my boss, and that seemed to upset her. I remember the meds they were giving me hurting. I remember asking everyone if they had seen Eliza. I remember Josh and Mandy keeping Griff, though I never remember asking anyone if that was true. I just accepted that it was.

After about 11 p.m. Wednesday night, I finally got to meet my daughter. The time between the two points not so clear for me.

He said… Everything seemed great on Monday. I dropped Griffin off at school and went to the hospital and Chel was released. Chel’s Mom left Monday morning early (really early) after hearing that Chel was having to spend the night in the hospital. When she got there, we all kind of laughed that she had driven six hours and now everything seemed fine. But Chel had a regular appointment the next day and Chel’s mom decided she stay a few days since she was down. Chel and her mom went to that appointment, I think I met them there. After waiting a bit, Chel came back and said the doctor wanted Chel to get some blood work done and have lunch, and the come back to see him and he’d have the results. I went to teach my class while Chel and her mom had soup. I worried that I should get back, but there was no indication that there was anything up. As I was driving to pick Griffin up, I got a call on my cell phone. Chel said that I needed to come to the hospital and meet them in labor and delivery. It was then that I got worried. I think the whole time I was worried that something was wrong with Eliza. When I got there, the doctor came in and everything seemed to get serious. I was sort of confused until Chel tried to tell the doc that Eliza was too little and she couldn’t give birth this soon. Then the doctor explained that her platlettes were so low that if they waited much longer, her blood would be unable to clot and she would bleed out on the operating table. And I said, “Go Now. Shut up Chel.”

The doctor had said the baby would be fine. But, in all honesty, that wasn’t my biggest concern. As awful as it sounds now, at the time, I didn’t know Eliza. I loved my wife. I couldn’t live without my wife. Do the surgery now, doc. And he did. And they wheeled Eliza by me in an incubation chamber, pausing long enough for me to look at her, before they rushed her to the NICU. And when I saw her, she was so tiny, so helpless. Then I worried about both of them. This wasn’t my first C-section, and it took longer than it was supposed to for Chel to get out of surgery. I kept asking what was taking so long, and to this day I don’t know if it really did take long or if I was panicked, but it seemed excessive. When she finally got out, Chel was on serious drugs. Lots of people came by, I went down to see Eliza and so began several days of treking around the hospital from NICU to labor and delivery and back. And feeling awful every time I left either one.

Today, I am grateful for both of them, that God set in motion a bizarre set of circumstances that allowed the doctor (who is fairly close to divine, in my book) to know what needed to be done, for a mother-in-law who just happened to be there and helped calm my stressed nerves and for my wife for whom I am more grateful each day.

Eliza’s first day, a 3 lbs, 10 oz.

Eliza and her daddy in the NICU.

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Tagged with: Eliza • fear • love • Mike • NICU