i am most unhappy to find myself awake at this hour. i have been steadily getting up later and going to bed later every day for the last nearly three weeks, yet this morning i awoke at 7:46, which is not a time fit for decent people anyway. after lying in bed for exactly one hour i had to face up to the fact that i was not going to get back to sleep, especially listening to the snoring justin was producing; normally when he's snoring while i'm awake i shake him a little to get him to stop, but neither of us has been sleeping properly and i was loathe to wake him if he was actually sleeping soundly. one of us might as well be getting some sleep. so i'm eating oatmeal cranberry cookies and drinking apple cider (leftovers from the memorial party) and listening to the roy haynes trio and trying to be calm and let my daily pharmaceutical cocktail sink in and do its thing.
after i posted yesterday, i felt compelled to offer an apology to you, the reader, for how long my post was and for all of the details that could not possibly be interesting to anyone that didn't already know and love me greatly, and even then i might be pushing it. but it has occurred to me that no one writes a blog who doesn't feel some need to express something to someone, and if you're out there reading someone else's blog you probably have a borderline-unhealthy interest in the secret lives of others anyway. so we all have a role, and i'm just fulfilling mine. or at least that's how i'm rationalizing it.
so i pick up where i left off with getting the story of johannes's stillbirth out:
shortly after i was admitted to the hospital, my nurse brought me a large gray teddy bear and gave some schpiel about it, which i tuned out. i did not want to be given a child's toy; it's not as though ny child would ever enjoy it. later, after the delivery, i was brought another bear, apparently since the nurse on the night shift didn't see a bear anywhere in my room (i had asked that the first one be removed promptly); i did manage to accept the second bear a bit more gracefully before stuffing it in a large plastic hospital bag. i finally got around to reading the tag around its neck a couple of days ago. it's a nice cause (check them out at http://www.sierrasbears.org/) - just not the one for me. i don't think strapping a bear into the car seat would have made things any easier for me.
my mom got through to the room at 11:15 to let us know she was boarding her flight. i didn't know what she knew; all justin told his mom when he first called was that there was no heartbeat. so i asked my mom if she knew that he was gone, and she said yes. my mom is such a rock. if i had just found out that my grandchild was dead, i don't think i could have kept my composure and gotten myself to the airport on my own and spent all day by myself on planes.
let us all now praise the epidural. i had vacillated between wanting one and not wanting one through most of my pregnancy, but since my child was dead all of the medical personnel felt i should have all of the pain relief i wanted, as though it were the least they could do. the anesthesiologist who administered it was congenial in an appropriately subdued way, but the attending anesthesiologist stood in my room the whole time, talking to the doctor working on me and another resident about how they were going to handle the c-section down the hall. if i wasn't terrified of moving even a millimeter while a needle was being inserted into my spine, i think i would have ripped the guy up. even if there weren't all kind of legal problems involved with him discussing another patient in my presence, just basic decency should have come into play, shouldn't it? anyway, i will be eternally grateful for the 1-2 punch of the epidural and the nubain they gave me, which took care of my physical pain and made me hazy enough to not go out of my mind.
justin's grandmother and brother and his fiancee came to keep us company in the afternoon. we watched seinfeld re-runs and were treated to such comedy classics as "we were so poor, we couldn't afford to pay attention" by his grandmother. just one more reason to be grateful for the nubain haze.
in the mean time, justin went out and called most of our friends and broke the news to them. i was and still am overwhelmed by his courage; talking on the phone was the very last thing i wanted to do that day (even now, i'm a little averse to it); i don't know how he did it, but i'm blown away by it. the one person i wanted with me was my friend kath, and justin got that message to her and she came and sat with me and cried with me through the evening. one of the things i love most about kath is that she shoots from the hip with me and i can do the same with her, and it was such a relief to just be brutally honest about how i was feeling with her. then, about 8:00 that night my mom got to the hospital; another huge relief. when i'm in crisis and my mom comes to me, i can just let go and let her be the grown-up. then a little after 11, justin's dad got to us after a day of flight delays. i never knew his dad could be so emotional; i've gotten to know a whole new side of my father-in-law the last three weeks.
a little before midnight, i asked for another hit of whatever they were putting in my epidural, but the nurse anesthetist who was on that night informed me that she could tell by the way i was acting i was ready to push and wouldn't give me a new dose. she was the same person who came to our childbirth class to explain epidurals and she had rubbed me the wrong way with her tone then, which probably didn't help my attitude toward her now, but i don't think i would have appreciated her telling me what i was feeling wasn't pain, it was just pressure, even if i hadn't already met her. she went to get the attending ob (my ob had apologetically left at about 10:00 when i was still only dilated a couple of centimeters because he had been there the previous two nights and was also sick but promised to be back early in the morning) and i begged my nurse kelly (maybe the best obstetric nurse in the history of the universe) to not let the anesthetist back in the room; thankfully i didn't have to see her again other than for the few seconds it took her to pull out the epidural later.
i'm not entirely clear on all the rationale but what i could understand is that they wanted me to feel the pain (or pressure or whatever) so i could work with it to compensate for the fact that johannes couldn't make any efforts toward getting out, or something like that. by now, the epidural had worn off completely, so i had lots of pain/pressure with which to work. justin held one leg and kelly the other while i pushed for an hour. i identified with the sea turtle we had watched lay and bury her eggs a few years ago in costa rica; the sea turtle mother goes into a kind of trance that ensures that nothing stops her until she's dug the hole, laid all of the eggs, covered them and camoflaged the spot. the pain was so intense and exactly what i had feared for nine months and amazingly one of my first thoughts was, i could do that again! absolute insanity.
when johannes's head came out, justin turned toward me and i saw him mouth the words, the cord is wrapped around his neck, although i didn't hear any sound. my mom reported later that she heard justin wail those words at the top of his lungs, and it broke her heart to hear him. with the last push he came all the way out and i felt immense peace and relief. there was no slapping of his backside or first cry, but they quickly cut the cord and wrapped him and put him on my chest, and it ranks as one of the sweetest moments of my life. i find that to be one of the memories i keep trying to conjure up - the feel of his sweet weight against my chest. he looked exactly like i knew he would. a few weeks before, at one of our ultrasounds, i had gotten just a quick glimpse at his face before he covered it with his hands again (he was soooo his father's son), and so i knew his face as soon as i saw it.
he looked so much like justin - the same nose and cheeks and mouth and chin. justin says he sees me in him, too, especially in his mouth, and looking at a few of the pictures now, i can see a little of me around his eyes, but there is no doubt that he is justin's son - not to suggest that there was any reason to doubt - just that you could have walked into a nursery full of babies and said immediately, oh, it's that one!
we spent some time with him and justin took some pictures, then we let kelly take him to be weighed and measured and cleaned up, and our family came in to wait with us. it was a little weird to all stand there waiting together. everyone was so sad but still eagerly anticipating seeing johannes and holding him. the way everyone was gathered around my bed in a semicircle, i felt like i should be conducting them as a choral group, but i don't think anyone else found it as funny as i did. kelly finally brought him back in, dressed in a green gown and cap, and i got to hold him some more and then we gave him to my mother, and each family member got to spend a minute or two with him, saying hello and goodbye at the same time, while justin took pictures. finally, justin's family left to get a little sleep and my mom stayed at my request but gave us some time alone while we said goodbye to johannes.
he turned out to be 20 inches long - a shock because he had been small and short every time they measured him in the ultrasound. he was six pounds, three ounces, which was about what we had guessed he would be, although he might have been even bigger before he died and started to waste away. he had long fingers and long feet and toes - who knows where he got that from - some freaky recessed genes or something. the hard thing was that once he was cleaned up it was easier to see where his skin was peeling and he was coming apart. and the longer he was out, the colder and more bruised and pulled looking he became. but he was still amazingly beautiful.
later, we wished we had unwrapped him and looked at all of him, but i think it might be best that we just have his sweet face and beautiful hands and feet in our memories. according to the preliminary autopsy results, he was in pretty bad shape. i think it might have broken my heart even more to see hm falling apart.
after we said goodbye my mother came back in and the nurses cleaned me up and the three of us tried to sleep for a few hours. i tend to be hot all of the time anyway, but between the delivery and a fever i had during it, i wanted the room to be as cool as possible, which the staff accomodated, but it drove justin and my mother nuts. i slept with a sheet only so my butt would not be hanging out, but justin and my mom each piled on all of the blankets they could score plus all of their sweaters and coats and my robe and my bed jacket, and my mom even wrapped a blanket around her face and head. when i woke up at 7 to go to the bathroom, i took pity on them and asked the nurse to turn the heat back up. it turns out that during the delivery when i screamed for them to make it cooler, they complied by turning the thermostat down to 50. i liked it but i guess not everyone else has their personal thermostat set to match mine - but they should.
after i posted yesterday, i felt compelled to offer an apology to you, the reader, for how long my post was and for all of the details that could not possibly be interesting to anyone that didn't already know and love me greatly, and even then i might be pushing it. but it has occurred to me that no one writes a blog who doesn't feel some need to express something to someone, and if you're out there reading someone else's blog you probably have a borderline-unhealthy interest in the secret lives of others anyway. so we all have a role, and i'm just fulfilling mine. or at least that's how i'm rationalizing it.
so i pick up where i left off with getting the story of johannes's stillbirth out:
shortly after i was admitted to the hospital, my nurse brought me a large gray teddy bear and gave some schpiel about it, which i tuned out. i did not want to be given a child's toy; it's not as though ny child would ever enjoy it. later, after the delivery, i was brought another bear, apparently since the nurse on the night shift didn't see a bear anywhere in my room (i had asked that the first one be removed promptly); i did manage to accept the second bear a bit more gracefully before stuffing it in a large plastic hospital bag. i finally got around to reading the tag around its neck a couple of days ago. it's a nice cause (check them out at http://www.sierrasbears.org/) - just not the one for me. i don't think strapping a bear into the car seat would have made things any easier for me.
my mom got through to the room at 11:15 to let us know she was boarding her flight. i didn't know what she knew; all justin told his mom when he first called was that there was no heartbeat. so i asked my mom if she knew that he was gone, and she said yes. my mom is such a rock. if i had just found out that my grandchild was dead, i don't think i could have kept my composure and gotten myself to the airport on my own and spent all day by myself on planes.
let us all now praise the epidural. i had vacillated between wanting one and not wanting one through most of my pregnancy, but since my child was dead all of the medical personnel felt i should have all of the pain relief i wanted, as though it were the least they could do. the anesthesiologist who administered it was congenial in an appropriately subdued way, but the attending anesthesiologist stood in my room the whole time, talking to the doctor working on me and another resident about how they were going to handle the c-section down the hall. if i wasn't terrified of moving even a millimeter while a needle was being inserted into my spine, i think i would have ripped the guy up. even if there weren't all kind of legal problems involved with him discussing another patient in my presence, just basic decency should have come into play, shouldn't it? anyway, i will be eternally grateful for the 1-2 punch of the epidural and the nubain they gave me, which took care of my physical pain and made me hazy enough to not go out of my mind.
justin's grandmother and brother and his fiancee came to keep us company in the afternoon. we watched seinfeld re-runs and were treated to such comedy classics as "we were so poor, we couldn't afford to pay attention" by his grandmother. just one more reason to be grateful for the nubain haze.
in the mean time, justin went out and called most of our friends and broke the news to them. i was and still am overwhelmed by his courage; talking on the phone was the very last thing i wanted to do that day (even now, i'm a little averse to it); i don't know how he did it, but i'm blown away by it. the one person i wanted with me was my friend kath, and justin got that message to her and she came and sat with me and cried with me through the evening. one of the things i love most about kath is that she shoots from the hip with me and i can do the same with her, and it was such a relief to just be brutally honest about how i was feeling with her. then, about 8:00 that night my mom got to the hospital; another huge relief. when i'm in crisis and my mom comes to me, i can just let go and let her be the grown-up. then a little after 11, justin's dad got to us after a day of flight delays. i never knew his dad could be so emotional; i've gotten to know a whole new side of my father-in-law the last three weeks.
a little before midnight, i asked for another hit of whatever they were putting in my epidural, but the nurse anesthetist who was on that night informed me that she could tell by the way i was acting i was ready to push and wouldn't give me a new dose. she was the same person who came to our childbirth class to explain epidurals and she had rubbed me the wrong way with her tone then, which probably didn't help my attitude toward her now, but i don't think i would have appreciated her telling me what i was feeling wasn't pain, it was just pressure, even if i hadn't already met her. she went to get the attending ob (my ob had apologetically left at about 10:00 when i was still only dilated a couple of centimeters because he had been there the previous two nights and was also sick but promised to be back early in the morning) and i begged my nurse kelly (maybe the best obstetric nurse in the history of the universe) to not let the anesthetist back in the room; thankfully i didn't have to see her again other than for the few seconds it took her to pull out the epidural later.
i'm not entirely clear on all the rationale but what i could understand is that they wanted me to feel the pain (or pressure or whatever) so i could work with it to compensate for the fact that johannes couldn't make any efforts toward getting out, or something like that. by now, the epidural had worn off completely, so i had lots of pain/pressure with which to work. justin held one leg and kelly the other while i pushed for an hour. i identified with the sea turtle we had watched lay and bury her eggs a few years ago in costa rica; the sea turtle mother goes into a kind of trance that ensures that nothing stops her until she's dug the hole, laid all of the eggs, covered them and camoflaged the spot. the pain was so intense and exactly what i had feared for nine months and amazingly one of my first thoughts was, i could do that again! absolute insanity.
when johannes's head came out, justin turned toward me and i saw him mouth the words, the cord is wrapped around his neck, although i didn't hear any sound. my mom reported later that she heard justin wail those words at the top of his lungs, and it broke her heart to hear him. with the last push he came all the way out and i felt immense peace and relief. there was no slapping of his backside or first cry, but they quickly cut the cord and wrapped him and put him on my chest, and it ranks as one of the sweetest moments of my life. i find that to be one of the memories i keep trying to conjure up - the feel of his sweet weight against my chest. he looked exactly like i knew he would. a few weeks before, at one of our ultrasounds, i had gotten just a quick glimpse at his face before he covered it with his hands again (he was soooo his father's son), and so i knew his face as soon as i saw it.
he looked so much like justin - the same nose and cheeks and mouth and chin. justin says he sees me in him, too, especially in his mouth, and looking at a few of the pictures now, i can see a little of me around his eyes, but there is no doubt that he is justin's son - not to suggest that there was any reason to doubt - just that you could have walked into a nursery full of babies and said immediately, oh, it's that one!
we spent some time with him and justin took some pictures, then we let kelly take him to be weighed and measured and cleaned up, and our family came in to wait with us. it was a little weird to all stand there waiting together. everyone was so sad but still eagerly anticipating seeing johannes and holding him. the way everyone was gathered around my bed in a semicircle, i felt like i should be conducting them as a choral group, but i don't think anyone else found it as funny as i did. kelly finally brought him back in, dressed in a green gown and cap, and i got to hold him some more and then we gave him to my mother, and each family member got to spend a minute or two with him, saying hello and goodbye at the same time, while justin took pictures. finally, justin's family left to get a little sleep and my mom stayed at my request but gave us some time alone while we said goodbye to johannes.
he turned out to be 20 inches long - a shock because he had been small and short every time they measured him in the ultrasound. he was six pounds, three ounces, which was about what we had guessed he would be, although he might have been even bigger before he died and started to waste away. he had long fingers and long feet and toes - who knows where he got that from - some freaky recessed genes or something. the hard thing was that once he was cleaned up it was easier to see where his skin was peeling and he was coming apart. and the longer he was out, the colder and more bruised and pulled looking he became. but he was still amazingly beautiful.
later, we wished we had unwrapped him and looked at all of him, but i think it might be best that we just have his sweet face and beautiful hands and feet in our memories. according to the preliminary autopsy results, he was in pretty bad shape. i think it might have broken my heart even more to see hm falling apart.
after we said goodbye my mother came back in and the nurses cleaned me up and the three of us tried to sleep for a few hours. i tend to be hot all of the time anyway, but between the delivery and a fever i had during it, i wanted the room to be as cool as possible, which the staff accomodated, but it drove justin and my mother nuts. i slept with a sheet only so my butt would not be hanging out, but justin and my mom each piled on all of the blankets they could score plus all of their sweaters and coats and my robe and my bed jacket, and my mom even wrapped a blanket around her face and head. when i woke up at 7 to go to the bathroom, i took pity on them and asked the nurse to turn the heat back up. it turns out that during the delivery when i screamed for them to make it cooler, they complied by turning the thermostat down to 50. i liked it but i guess not everyone else has their personal thermostat set to match mine - but they should.
posted by laura at 9:19 AM
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