SHARE HOME > SHARE YOUR STORY > ALL SHORT STORIES > SHORT STORY ARCHIVES - 2006 |
Claire's Cares
Felicity - 02:05pm Mar 13, 2008 EST
I was 23 weeks pregnant with twin girls when I started bleeding. Not just a little spotting, but a gush of blood that soaked my jeans. My husband made calls to the doctor, the hospital, and my parents. My dad loaded us up in his van and drove us an hour to our hospital. We left our 15 month-old son in the care of his aunt. After examinations, my doctor gave us the bad news that I was experiencing placenta abruption. My placenta was tearing away from my body, depriving my daughters of the nourishment they would need to survive. At this gestation, my babies were called “not viable.”
The most frustrating part was that there was nothing to do but wait. Over the space of two weeks I was in and out of the hospital as the bleeding would stop and start. I was not in labor and the babies did not appear to be in distress, so we just hoped that my body could handle the bleeding long enough for the babies to grow strong enough to deliver safely. In one instance I bled so much that I had to have a transfusion. Three days later, I delivered Claire vaginally because she had already descended into the birth canal before we even realized I was in labor. Her twin sister Ellery was taken by emergency C-section. As I drifted off to sleep in the operating room, someone said, “Your first daughter is trying to cry and breathe on her own, Mrs. White, that is a very good sign. She’s a fighter.”
I didn’t know then how important those words would be.
When I woke up from the anesthesia I didn’t want anyone to tell me what had happened. I didn’t want to ask. I knew as they had wheeled my bed into that brightly lit operating room that I was not going to get good news when I came out. I don’t know how I knew, but I knew at least one of my babies was not going to live. For several hours I kept myself asleep by pushing the pain medication button to my IV. Finally, my family wheeled me to the NICU where I met Ellery. It is a blurry memory, but I know the doctors were asking if I wanted them to stop taking extraordinary measures to keep her alive. I just asked, “Is she really alive right now?” Several people in the tiny cubicle shook their heads.
Finally, my husband and I agreed to take Ellery off the machines. The nurses put her in a peach colored dress and wrapped her in a blanket. She still felt like the smallest doll I had ever cradled. Our families surrounded us while we prayed and sang and took turns saying goodbye. I threw up and my mom wheeled me back to my room to sleep.
After the experience with Ellery, it was difficult for me to connect initially with Claire. She was fighting for her life but I felt like all I had to offer were some barely filled containers of breast milk that she was too small to even drink. In the meantime, our family members took turns sitting with our tiny newborn. One afternoon, when my husband and I walked with the usual trepidation into Claire’s NICU room, we found her with a red bow glued to her head. Something about that simple gesture by the nurse assigned to her that day made Claire into a baby. I stopped waiting for her to die and started willing her to live. That day we read her a storybook and cried tears of cautious hope. We took a picture with my husband’s wedding ring pushed all the way up to her shoulder that we would show to her when she was older to remind her of how small she had been.
Our journey through the NICU took 115 days and uncountable hours of frantic emotional swings. Claire endured surgeries for intestinal problems, stomach problems, eye issues, and hydrocephalus (from brain bleeds in both hemispheres). She weaned off the ventilator only to have to go back on during a bout of pneumonia. Sepsis followed. More IV lines, more antibiotics, more consultations. When we finally made our way to the door, Claire weighed 6 pounds and was yellow from liver problems. She was fed exclusively through a feeding tube. Looking back at the pictures of us leaving the hospital that day, I am surprised they let us out the door at all.
Today, Claire is a healthy 5 year-old. She lives with mild CP that affects her left side, but she doesn’t slow down for much. She loves ballet class and riding her tricycle. She is a social bug who is always on the go. Her current goal is to be able to write her name by herself before Kindergarten starts next year. We walk as a family of six now (we’ve been joined by two more daughters, both born full-term and healthy) in the March for Babies event, because we know so much of Claire’s success is thanks to their research and funding.
I was 23 weeks pregnant with twin girls when I started bleeding. Not just a little spotting, but a gush of blood that soaked my jeans. My husband made calls to the doctor, the hospital, and my parents. My dad loaded us up in his van and drove us an hour to our hospital. We left our 15 month-old son in the care of his aunt. After examinations, my doctor gave us the bad news that I was experiencing placenta abruption. My placenta was tearing away from my body, depriving my daughters of the nourishment they would need to survive. At this gestation, my babies were called “not viable.”
The most frustrating part was that there was nothing to do but wait. Over the space of two weeks I was in and out of the hospital as the bleeding would stop and start. I was not in labor and the babies did not appear to be in distress, so we just hoped that my body could handle the bleeding long enough for the babies to grow strong enough to deliver safely. In one instance I bled so much that I had to have a transfusion. Three days later, I delivered Claire vaginally because she had already descended into the birth canal before we even realized I was in labor. Her twin sister Ellery was taken by emergency C-section. As I drifted off to sleep in the operating room, someone said, “Your first daughter is trying to cry and breathe on her own, Mrs. White, that is a very good sign. She’s a fighter.”
I didn’t know then how important those words would be.
When I woke up from the anesthesia I didn’t want anyone to tell me what had happened. I didn’t want to ask. I knew as they had wheeled my bed into that brightly lit operating room that I was not going to get good news when I came out. I don’t know how I knew, but I knew at least one of my babies was not going to live. For several hours I kept myself asleep by pushing the pain medication button to my IV. Finally, my family wheeled me to the NICU where I met Ellery. It is a blurry memory, but I know the doctors were asking if I wanted them to stop taking extraordinary measures to keep her alive. I just asked, “Is she really alive right now?” Several people in the tiny cubicle shook their heads.
Finally, my husband and I agreed to take Ellery off the machines. The nurses put her in a peach colored dress and wrapped her in a blanket. She still felt like the smallest doll I had ever cradled. Our families surrounded us while we prayed and sang and took turns saying goodbye. I threw up and my mom wheeled me back to my room to sleep.
After the experience with Ellery, it was difficult for me to connect initially with Claire. She was fighting for her life but I felt like all I had to offer were some barely filled containers of breast milk that she was too small to even drink. In the meantime, our family members took turns sitting with our tiny newborn. One afternoon, when my husband and I walked with the usual trepidation into Claire’s NICU room, we found her with a red bow glued to her head. Something about that simple gesture by the nurse assigned to her that day made Claire into a baby. I stopped waiting for her to die and started willing her to live. That day we read her a storybook and cried tears of cautious hope. We took a picture with my husband’s wedding ring pushed all the way up to her shoulder that we would show to her when she was older to remind her of how small she had been.
Our journey through the NICU took 115 days and uncountable hours of frantic emotional swings. Claire endured surgeries for intestinal problems, stomach problems, eye issues, and hydrocephalus (from brain bleeds in both hemispheres). She weaned off the ventilator only to have to go back on during a bout of pneumonia. Sepsis followed. More IV lines, more antibiotics, more consultations. When we finally made our way to the door, Claire weighed 6 pounds and was yellow from liver problems. She was fed exclusively through a feeding tube. Looking back at the pictures of us leaving the hospital that day, I am surprised they let us out the door at all.
Today, Claire is a healthy 5 year-old. She lives with mild CP that affects her left side, but she doesn’t slow down for much. She loves ballet class and riding her tricycle. She is a social bug who is always on the go. Her current goal is to be able to write her name by herself before Kindergarten starts next year. We walk as a family of six now (we’ve been joined by two more daughters, both born full-term and healthy) in the March for Babies event, because we know so much of Claire’s success is thanks to their research and funding.
|
(No messages yet.)
|
