There were the bowling ball (candlepin not tenpin) sized fibroids that were
removed along with a hairy and toothy dermoid, there were two caesarian
sections, two vbacs, nine and a half years of nursing, and then there was the
time that I was pregnant for two whole years (nearly) straight.
I emerged from
these two years of gestation with one live baby and one dead baby. Born 378
days apart. Both girls with full heads of raven hair. Blue eyes, well-formed
and voluptuous limbs, clear skin, ten fingers and ten toes. Perfectly defined
lips and delicate noses.
They were my fourth and fifth pregnancies.
The fourth was nauseating, I was vomiting
through the ninth month. I knew right around 9.11.2001. It all ended 5.3.2002. This was in the South Carolina low country, much of that time was so hot.
The AC was broken on both the cars. The room I was teaching in was in an
ancient grammar school with high ceilings and massive west facing windows. No
blinds. One small window unit. I thought that I was being proactive when, in
November, I started asking the principal to put some shades up. It never
happened, and by late February, every day at about 10:30 am the AC unit would
short out and turn off. At which point I’d climb up on a chair to flip the
fuse. Often the custodian would be walking by and react with alarm as nothing
freaks people out more than seeing a woman in late pregnancy standing on a
chair. Despite these daily events, nothing changed and I sweated through every
afternoon ministering to the needs of my students. No blinds. I was sure though that I would emerge from
this torture with the big prize: a healthy baby. Because I was confidently
carrying the third child, it would therefore be the last pregnancy. “Enough!” I
thought, triumphantly.
Zap. In week 39, I went in for my weekly
ob/gyn appointment, and watched with horror as my doctor frantically tried to
find a heartbeat, then listened to her as she declared the baby dead. And then there was labor and delivery; much
easier to tolerate with the idea of a live baby as the carrot. The thought of a
dead baby was a terrifying stick.
If I hadn’t been scarred by the previous
events, the next pregnancy would have been a breeze. Relatively little nausea,
high energy, I looked great, we had moved north, it was winter and early
spring, I wasn’t hot. During the final two months, I went to the local hospital
for bi weekly non stress tests. This in order to make sure everything was fine
with the baby’s heart and movement. I was accompanied by my 4 year old daughter
Sammy. We’d get a chocolate shake from Burger King in order to get the baby
moving. At the hospital, I’d be set up in a room, fetal monitors covering my
stomach; Sammy and I would proceed to watch TV and drink shake for an hour.
Although the back story was tragic, this was a fun mother/ daughter outing.
Two communications from Sammy framed the gloaming
of this interminable era of pregnancy with eloquence:
*At about week 38 of pregnancy 5, Sam said,
“I am so sick of going to the bathroom with you.”
* After her sister Lucy was born, Sammy
wrote a note, meticulously printed in her preschool handwriting:
EVOL EVOL EVOL. SO SWEET AND NEW.
CONGRATULATIONS YOU’RE ALIVE!
