ten months ago today

Sitting quietly in my office this morning, enjoying the much-needed, long-waited lull in work, I glanced up at my wall calendar. My eyes landed on the 11th. Tomorrow. In one day, my daughter will be ten months old. Ten! I had been so busy these last several weeks that I didn’t even realize it was almost here! Every monthly milestone has been emotional for me – I both marvel and mourn how quickly she’s growing, I delight in her new developments, I recall the time we’ve shared so far, and I always, always, always remember the period surrounding her birth. Sometimes I feel triumph - I went through so very much to bring her in the world and was so much stronger than I knew I could be; I dipped into the deep, dark pools of post-partum depression and have finally started to come out on the other end! Often, however, I feel defeat and regret. Nothing about her birth went as I had hoped. Indeed, it was my worst nightmare. Today, the day before her ten month mark, I find myself mired in those memories.

Ten months ago tomorrow, my treasured, beloved daughter entered this world and forever transformed my life. Ten months ago today, I was in the throes of labor. I was reaching the halfway point. At this time during that day ten months ago, everything was good. While the labor had been difficult, we didn’t yet know that something was wrong. I was tired, but optimistic. I was unafraid and excited for that final, climactic moment when I would meet and hold my daughter in my arms. I envisioned holding my precious bundle at my chest, gazing into her eyes, weeping with joy and relief as my husband held both of us close. I – and everyone there – felt that moment was near. But then the hours slowly rolled past…

I don’t remember the moment things “got bad.” Upon reflection, there was a very distinct transition, though. While everything seemed beautiful and normal on the outside, around mid-day ten months ago something was wrong on the inside. Fear bubbled up inside of me, threatening to drown out my confidence and excitement. I tried to push it aside. During one surge, while I was reminding myself with gritted teeth “I can do this,” a still, small, crystalline voice spoke in my head – “Something is wrong. You can’t do this.” Never before had I entertained such a thought – never during the pregnancy and never during the labor. But it was as clear and pronounced as someone quietly speaking in my ear. I fought it, arguing with myself that I could do it. I told myself that it was just fear and kept trying to push it away.

That voice wouldn’t stop. During periods of confidence and strength – when I was saying and truly believing “I can do this!” – it would come out of nowhere – “Something is wrong. You can’t do this.” This is when things “got bad.” The labor got increasingly painful. While I had no illusions that labor would be painless and easy, I knew it wasn’t supposed to feel like that. My pelvis felt like shattered glass. I was in agony, beyond agony. Something WAS wrong. But I wouldn’t listen. I kept pushing, kept fighting, kept screaming. No no no no no! Nothing is wrong! I WILL have this baby! I HAVE to have this baby. But she was stuck – shoulder dystocia, though we didn’t know that at the time. It took her going into distress, screaming the only way she could that she needed help.

So at 1 am, ten months ago tomorrow, Squirt was born via emergency cesarean in the hospital I had shunned several months prior. She was pried free of my pelvis and lifted from my belly. I couldn’t see. But I could hear. She was screaming. She was terrified. She was cold. They immediately took her into a corner out of my sight and roughly cleaned her and suctioned her. I heard machines, I heard talking, and above all, I heard her screaming – I will never forget those screams. I will never forget that I wasn’t allowed to hold her, my beloved girl. That beautiful birth I envisioned, that beautiful transition into our new lives together, was gone. At the most important time when we should have been together, we were separated. There was no bliss, no joy, no ceremony. There was fear, defeat, and isolation. My husband stayed with our daughter as they whisked her into the NICU and I laid quietly in the operating room as the surgeon put me back together. At a time when I should have been blissfully intertwined with my daughter and husband, I was in a stark, cold room alone. While the room had been a buzz of voices and activity moments before, it became deathly quiet. I felt cold, empty, alone. I was left alone with my thoughts, which I quickly choked out. They were too much, too loud in that empty space. My feelings were too much, too intense. So I laid in silence, no longer connected to my heart, my daughter.    

So, tomorrow marks the tenth month since that day. In two short months it will be a year. The anniversary of Squirt’s birth – her birthday. It is, most certainly, a joyous occasion! But I know, at least within me, it won’t be just joy. The day of her birth was not the joyful experience every mother deserves. We lost our beautiful rite of passage – her birth into this world and my birth as a mother. I have this in mind as I begin to think about her upcoming birthday. I want to do something very special to commemorate such a sacred day. I want to do something that will symbolize that transition we lost. I want to do something beautiful and treasured to overlay positive, joyful memories on top of the fearful, negative experiences of her birth. I just don’t know what… She is the most precious creature, the most beautiful human. She deserves a truly happy, happy birthday.

So bright-eyed and curious.

one sick bean

Poor Squirt is sick. She has never been so sick. She has been tossing her cookies (wait... she's been eating cookies?) and running a pretty high fever over the last several days. She's been in and out of her pediatrician's office as we've been trying to find some relief for her. She has been so sad and snuggly (read: clingy) - she hasn't let me put her down since last week and daddy (poor daddy) just won't do. She's cutting her two top teeth now, too, which isn't helping. We were starting to get really concerned when we couldn't get her fever down and she wouldn't keep anything in her tummy - medicine, breastmilk, cookies... (Seriously, though, she doesn't eat cookies.) The antiemetic the doc gave her last night has helped, so she's able to drink some and keep her medicine down. Hopefully, this will help give her the strength to kick this bug somewhere really sensitive... I've never seen her so miserable and it's heartbreaking. She's usually such a tough little cookie (again with the cookies!); it's uncharacteristic for her to be so inconsolable. Poor bean.

 She even makes fevers look good.

smile and wave

Something new happened yesterday when I picked up Squirt from daycare at the end of the day. She smiled and waved at me. Correction: she grinned ear-to-ear and waved so enthusiastically she almost fell over. It was delightful! I remember being overjoyed the afternoon she transitioned from her usual sobs when I came to pick her up to frantically crawling straight for me. But this takes the cake. She has, for a couple months now, been waving in response to someone waving at her, but now she waves on her own as her way of saying "hello" or "goodbye." It is positively heart warming. It can also be pretty amusing. Sometimes when she's playing and crawling away, she'll pause, turn around, wave, giggle, and then resume her escape. "See ya!"

The "hi, momma" wave in action.

One more time.

one little box

This weekend I packed up the last year of my life. I neatly folded and packed away Squirt’s three-month clothes, then her newborn clothes, then her small cloth diapers, then, finally, my maternity clothes. It all fit in a small diaper box. It hit me pretty hard. This, the most important year of my life to date, fit into one little box. Yes, it is just clothes, but it's more than "just" clothes. To me, that little box symbolized that year, holding all of those memories and feelings. This is what I lived in while I was carrying my daughter. These are the pants I wore almost every single day as my belly grew, a gift from a dear friend. That is the top I wore, took off, put on, tore off, put on while I was in labor. This is what she wore in the hospital. This is what she wore when we brought her home. These are the teensy socks she wore when she was brand-new, before the grippers on the bottom mattered. These are the soft diapers that covered her hiney for months. That little box holds the tangible reminders of a year of experiences – a year filled with joy and regret, excitement and depression.

Closing up that box flooded me with the feelings I had over the past year.

I remembered peeing on that stick, already knowing in my gut what the result would be. I peered anxiously at that little drug-store test as two lines slowly appeared. Positive. I was pregnant. I sat on the floor in the bathroom for quite some time, feeling butterflies tickle my insides. I was excited. I was nervous. And that’s how it stayed throughout the pregnancy. About halfway through, I got tired of feeling like a number, of being treated like one in a million at the hospital. The hospital midwife never remembered me from one check-up to the next and didn’t seem to truly care about me or my little bean. It was just her job. So, about halfway through the pregnancy, I decided I was done. I began looking into alternatives and, finally, after a lot of soul-searching and research, decided on a home birth. My last “real” pre-natal appointment was the day I found out the baby’s gender. Up until then, I’d been so certain it was a boy, though I’d always wanted a girl. Having watched a friend be bitterly disappointed when she found out that the girl she always wanted was going to be a boy, I had decided to embrace the possibility of Squirt being a boy. So when I found out she wasn’t a “he,” it took me a while to wrap my head around it. But then I was elated. A girl! YESSSS!

I remembered going into labor. It was two weeks after my due date. I wasn’t afraid. I was excited. I was so very ready for it. I had read the books, I had talked with other moms, I had watched the videos. With every surge I was so excited that it was happening, this was the real thing! Game on. I was so excited about having Lily at home with my husband and our midwife – a woman who remembered me appointment to appointment, who got my sense of humor, who respected me AND my baby. But the labor was long. And hard. I remember, after being in labor for over a day feeling that something was wrong. It wasn’t supposed to feel like that, it wasn’t supposed to be that hard. But I was so determined. I remember flip-flopping for hours – thinking one moment “YES! I CAN DO THIS” and the next knowing that I couldn’t. My guts kept saying “something isn’t right, you can’t do this,” but I kept pushing that aside, convinced it was just fear. But as we dipped into the second day of labor, it became apparent that something was wrong. Then Squirt got stuck and went into distress. Game over. A hush seemed to fall on the house. I could hear my heart pounding in my head. Everything was still, including the baby. I was terrified. Then, in an instant, the house was filled to capacity with strangers, men in smart pants and crisp white shirts. Their loud voices broke the hush. I vividly remember the flashing lights outside of our house as I was wheeled into the ambulance. I remember the quivery, quiet alien voice that came from my mouth as I answered their questions. I remember being terrified, so terrified I could barely speak. I held by belly - my baby - tight, knowing that I could lose her, knowing that I didn’t want to, no, couldn't live without her.

I remembered the hospital. That’s a host of terrible memories and nightmares. I remember the feeling of defeat and desperation as I signed the paperwork before being wheeled into the operating room to have my beloved daughter sliced out of me by a cold, indifferent stranger. I remember the feeling of relief as the anesthesia embraced me in its cottony soft arms. I felt myself sinking – it was over. I didn’t do it. I didn’t see my daughter born. I wasn’t allowed to hold her. I heard her scream. And scream. And scream. The lump in my throat was too large for me to speak and I couldn’t breathe. Strapped onto the table, completely immobilized, I tried desperately to catch a glimpse of my little girl as she screamed. And screamed. And screamed. They presented her to me for a fleeting second – she was bundled so tightly, I didn’t really see her. Then they whisked her away. I felt sick. I had never felt so completely alone. My husband went with our terrified daughter as I lay, sliced open, explosed, and defeated in that empty, eerily silent room.

I remembered my stay in the hospital – my recovery, my baby’s time in the NICU. I remembered being humiliated and debased at every turn. I remember the pain - the sharp, debilitating physical pain and the shattered, broken emotional pain. I remember being the joke of the maternity ward – the woman who “tried” to have a home birth, those last words uttered with contempt. I remembered being denied a wheel chair when I needed to see my daughter, being told to walk, even though they forgot to bring pain medication. I remember almost always needing to remind the nurses that it was time for those pain killers, even though I only wanted the weak stuff, just enough to take the edge off so I could trek across the hospital to see my beloved girl. I remember the humiliation when I found out about the betting pool the residents had about me – they had money on whether I was diabetic because my daughter had been large. Every day felt like a fight for survival. I felt alone. No, I felt abandoned. I was living my worst nightmare and my beloved daughter was two stories below me across the hospital. And I could only see her for one hour every three hours. And I could only hold her if they said I could. I was in hell and felt I had to traverse it to steal my daughter back, to take her home.

I remembered those awkward first days at home. I remembered getting to know my daughter and learning to be a mom as I recovered from the birth trauma. And this is where my memory grows increasingly foggy. I struggled with post-partum depression and had frequent flash-backs to the nightmare at the hospital. I lost much of those first months to the gray haze of depression. I needed help I didn’t have. I needed support I couldn’t find. I needed to not be told to just be happy because I had a healthy baby. Birth is an experience a woman carries with her throughout her life and will never forget. Those first weeks should be a blissful time for mother and baby to bond and discover their new lives. Our first week was lost to the hellish hospital, where we were treated poorly and kept apart. I struggled with that greatly those first few months and will never forget that pain or sense of loss.

Yes, all of those memories, those giant feelings, came gushing up as I closed that box of clothes. It was difficult to move through their intensity. But I made it. I made it through those experiences, through that last year. The past is behind us, but will always be with us. I will never forget this last year and, because of it, will be fiercely bonded to my beloved Squirt. I almost lost her and fought through my biggest fears to just hold her in my arms. I will never let her go. She has my heart, my soul. She is, and always will be, a part of me – the best part.

Resting together for the first time after coming home, April 18, 2011.

outside

Squirt is nine months old today. She has now been on the outside as long as she was on the inside (well, minus two weeks and one day, but who's counting?...). These last eighteen months have been amazing and terrifying and exciting and wonderful. We went from being just a couple of quirky people to a family with the most precocious, precious little girl. I am so excited to see what the next several months bring for our wee family. The future is bright.

night terrors

Poor Squirt has night terrors. For almost a week now she has "woken" in combative hysterics several times a night. She would scream and sob and aggressively push me away when I tried to soothe her. It seemed like my attempts to comfort her - soothing words, snuggling, nursing, or giving her the pacifier - only heightened her hysteria. I couldn't figure it out and it broke my heart. I thought that it might be teething pain, since she went through a similar phase when her two pearly whites poked through. But it wasn't THIS bad. Finally, Daddy did some research and figured out that she's having night terrors, which are akin to sleep walking. She's having very scary dreams and waking up, but not fully waking up, terrified. And, because she's not fully awake, she doesn't understand what's happening, so she perceives everything as part of her dream. So her binkie is really an angry, snarling badger, and mommy is actually a giant monster trying to tear her in half... or whatever it is little beans are afraid of... It's terrible, though. Nobody is sleeping. Heck, with the pitch of some of her wails, I'm sure most of the block isn't sleeping. I'm trying to figure out what could be causing, or at least contributing to, this problem. I can't change Daddy's work schedule or make the motorcycles stop tearing past the house. I can control her bedtime routine (as much as she lets me) and the environment in her crib. So, we're starting a new routine. I will take her into her room and talk quietly as I change her into her jammies and lightly massage her little legs with a chamomile-infused oil. Once that's done (and there will be screaming involved, because she HATES getting changed), we will sit, snuggle, and rock in our chair. I initially hoped to sit and read to her quietly as she wound down from her day, but, at least lately, that seems to only further excite her. She loves the books and wants to play with them and flip through the pages... so we'll have to reintroduce reading a bit later... We have only just started our routine, so it's not truly "routine." I hope it helps. I miss the nights when Squirt would sleep like a baby.

Sweet dreams (hopefully).

holidays and how time flies

My, oh my, how the time flew by at the end of the year! Daddy started a new job as a super hero (well, as an EMT) and I was working like mad to finish off an impossible number of reports that were due by the end of December. I set up a play yard in my office and brought Squirt with me when I had to work extra. She became a big fan of my shred box and liked to scoot up and down the halls, squealing and giggling at the echoes. We tried to spend as much special time together as a family as we could during this hectic, stressful time as Squirt just kept growing and growing. Looking back, she has changed so much over the last few months. She went from barely crawling (instead she insisted on rolling) to almost walking, from only eating strawberries to cleaning up her plate full of liver. And she talks. And talks. And talks (in her extra special, top secret baby language, that is). This little girl is full of "go"... Here are some snapshots of the 2011 holiday season for the family that Wendt.

My pun'kin with her pumpkin.

Victory! We will eat your brains!!! Happy Halloween.

Eating leaves in the yard on Thanksgiving morning.

My two loves at the River of Lights at the BioPark shortly before Christmas.

Getting ready to open a surprise present (that's bigger than her) from her Momma T. 

Not a fan of my wrapping skills...

Obviously excited to discover what was under that mass of paper.

Glædelig jul og godt nytår.