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Part of: Musings and Memories... This is it. |
Date Posted: 03-12-2006 at 02:59 PM Comments(0) |
| Not wantng to be any trouble and get Joan all alarmed, I kept quiet and acted like any other day. We went food shopping to my favorite Starr Market. I adored Starr Market. It was the first uber supoer market I had even gone to. They had eveything and it was so clean..non of that rotting produce smell like the "been dead do long I can't remmber its name store" at home. King Kullen?? Anyhow, they had this conver belt and after you bought your stuff, they bagged it and gave you a number, then you got into your car and the grocery boys loaded up your trunk outside. It was so civilized. We had to get a great dinner for that night as it was the big Friday night for TV watching. I can;t remember the rest of the line up but it included Dallas. I had not been a fan of Dallas, but I watched now not that I had a clue still what was going on. Most important for Dallas was dessert, so we got a brownie mix of Turtle brownies. Forever etched in my mind was making brownies while in the first stages of labor. In any case, I had my first baby contraction in the Star Market while choosing an ice cream flavor. I kept on thinking that I should have a jar of pickles to drop incase my water burst forth, but nothing happened really so I stayed quiet. So I made the brownies, ate the dinner, and sat to watch TV and pig out on the brownies and ice cream. While watching, I had a few more contractions, but nothing huge nor egular. I kept on looking at my watch, discritely, but there was no pattern. Three in a row, then nothing for 30 minutes, then one, then nothing, then two at ten minutes apart. Rather confusing, but I knew it was getting close. After TV was done, Ken and Joan went of to bed, but I decided to take a shower since I knew what was to come. I washed my hair and French braided it so it would be out of my way. I shaved my legs as best I could considering I hadn't been able to see the top parts of my thieghs for months. And I started packing my still unpacked bags. It was at that point as I rumbled about in the bedroom, now upstais and closed to Joan's, that she came out ans inquired as to what I was doing up at 1AM. And then relizing what I was doing asked," Are you in labor?" "Yeah, I think so. Maybe" "Oh my God!" she smiles, she is excited.."should we call the doctor?" "I guess so? Nothing is happening but I think my water broke." 'When?" "Umm, this morning" So we call and they tell us to come in. We got to the hospital around 2 am and went into the labour room and got all set up. One of the first things I did was promptly throw up my rich dessert of turtle bronies and ice cream. Aparently, when your body knows it is about to do a great feat such as giving birth, it has no need to worry about things like digestion. Buh bye Brownies. Right into the handy bed pan and time to change the lovely hospital gown. I had a fierce collection of music I felt that I needed for birth, real mellow pretty stuff..Cocteau Twins, This Mortile Coil. I know I spent some time in the shower just trying to relax. All and all, the timing was pretty good as when we got there, my labor had strated to kick in. Then came the back labor. It wasn't pretty. In fact, it really, really hurt. Back labor pretty much sucks, and all I wnated was Joan to literally pound on my lower back with the Thank God we Packed them Tennis Balls. She was so good.... I think she rubbed my back for hours. Eventually, she talked me into having some pain relief and the nurses gave me a Demerol injection. I am not a good medicinal drug kind of girl. My system is very sensitive for whatever reason and a normal dose of Demerol makes me a zombie. I didn't know that then as it was my first time with that drug. I went into lala land. By now I had been up all night, and I was pretty **** tired. What the demerol allowed me to do was pass out between contractions for some needed rest. At one point, I remember thinking how much I really didn't like all this and that the nurses were annoying me. Not that they were doing anything wrong and were, for all intents and purposes, a good bunch. They were aware of the circumstances and I would assume had had somesort of training to deal eith the births of us agancy girls. For I was treated probably kinder than even a typical mother. More baby and coddleing. But they irritated me and somewhere in my drug induced brain I decided to "hide" my contractions from them. So I pretended that I wasnlt having every other contraction. Which ment that I willed myself to physically ignore very other one, no tensing up, no verbal warnings, no cleansing breaths. And I was pleased when the nurses reported to Joan that they were getting father apart rather then closer together and I knew I was confusing them. Now anyone who has phyically had a baby, knows that the key to quicker labor is to relax into the contractions. When you tense up then you are fighting the work of the contraction to get the baby OUT as your tense muscles hold that baby IN, so my "plan" actually worked for my benefit, though I had no idea of that at the time. In anycase, as daylight found us, I was told that it was indeed time to push. And I was not having any of that at all. Still drugged, annoyed, and just dog tired, I was not feeling like doing what they said. Nope. The demerol had really done nothing for real Pain, and pushing stings like heck!! WHat I recall most, was at this time all modesty was gone out the door. I was basically butt naked in a room full of strangers and I did not care. They were moving me about in all sorts of positiions and holding me up..in fact, I had one woman on either leg, pushing my knees up to my ears. Hurt, hurt, hurt..and all of them commanding me to push and me being very sure that I just could not. I guess I did though, for at one point his head was coming out and Joan excitedly peeked and reported joyfully about "So much Black hair!!" And then it happened, the feeling of release, then the quick shoulder push, and then the swoosh as he slid ot of my body. I can still feel that. It was the most amazing feeling I have ever experinced. Quickly went the crys of, "It's a Boy!!" which shocked me, as in the days before ultra sound, I was convincd to his femaleness. A boy?? WHo would have thunk? ANd then in the requisite white recieveing blanket with pink and blue stripes, donning his blue hat, I held my son for the first time. His eyes were open and he was very calm, just taking it all in. Big blue eyes, looking about with his hands folded in front of him, fingers intwined. He looks much more together than me in the pictures as I still looked terribly stoned, but that was it. He was born. After a bit, they took him away to clean him up. And I had to sit still for the sewing. I think the sewing of me took longer than the birth, and I kept on asking "What are you doing down there??" Turned out I had suffered a stage five epsiotomy and still had torn. All that stinging was the ripping of my flesh open. He was weighed and measures...8 lbs, 3 ozs, 20 3/4 inches long. 7:35 am. Not bad for a first baby and young momma. He was perfect. And not at all a squishy banana head..perfectly round and so, so much thick black hair, He looked exactly like the baby pictures of me. When I got into a room, the took him to the nursery for the first and only time so I could "rest". Joan went home to shower, call the agancy, get some sleep, take Kari so Ken could go to work, etc. I immedialty called Laura at FIT, but she was out still since while I was in labor, she was at an Aerosmith concert he night before. I also called my mother and spoke to her for the firs time in months. She was up and according to her had woken up extra early that AM and had "known" that I was in labor. We talked briefly and while it was strained, it was good too. I think she was proud that I had done it, proud that it was quick, proud that he had the black har and of a heafty size. The she had to go to work. I tried to get some sleep, but all I could to was lay there in the amaziment of what had just physically happened to me. I was in shock and in awe of myself, and that feeling of him coming forth, slipping out of my body. I replayed it over and over again. Eventually , I did sleep and woke up to be checked and was asked if I wanted to see him. He came back to me and did not leave until he was to leave forever. The next 48 hours were nothing but the most intense hunger for my child. I burned ever monment into my brain forever. I looked at every inch of him, marveled while he slept. Checked out his fingers and toes, took endless pictures, dressed him, feed him, changed him, undressed him. Took pictures of his tiny hinee, him sleeping, him crying, and held him close. Eventually, I was asked to fill in the information for his original birth certificate. Being that he was certainly not Asia any more, I had to think quick. And I decided that he would be Max. Max from "Where the Wild Things Are" a book of my childhood. The inspiration of Maurice Sendack as a children;s book author and illustrator was a gift I could give my child. Being part of a traditional childood memeroy and to have his own book to which was an orginal part of him was a gift I could send hi forth into the world. My Max. Ken and Joan came to visit, Jeanne called and promised to come. I think she did when I was sleeping?? I know she saw him and gushed to me how beautiful of a baby he was. He really was. All the nurses complimented his hair, and his quiet stillness, his alert eyes, his round head. He was called the most beautiful baby ever. One nurse was particulary kind and came in and sat with me in the evening hours. I suppose she pitied me, alone from everyone, about to do what I was about to do. I can't recall if she supported or questioned the adoption, all I rememeber was her kindness and we talked when she had a break in her duties. I hav from that time, and outfit that I had purchased for him before hand. A littel baby bunting with a hood that I dressed him up in and took pitctures. He promtly spit up on it and I have kept it, never washed, the stain now brown, ever permentant mark of it's singular brief tennent of it's warmth. I have a bottle of water and disposable hospital nipple tha he was fed. The water long evaportated, but perhaps his residule DNA remains. I have this silly blue bear stuffed animal that came form somewhere...One of the nurses, found me sissors and we carefully tied off a lock of his hair and snipped it off for me. Still tied in a bit of blue embroydery floss from all the silly bracletes I wove, it has that baby softness and delicate shine. It has never seen the sun, nor shampoo..always lived it's existance in a pure white envelope. I made the most of my brief time with him. Talking to my new son, loving him beyound all reason, trying to expalin what must come to pass. Only recently have I recalled the words I whispered as I held him close, " I am so sorry. I have no choice. This is what must happen. But I will never forget and I will find you again my baby. I love you. I am so sorry" It was all too brief and soon over. I was discharged after 8 hours and so was he. State law was that I could not sign until 72 hours after birth, so Max was to go from teh hospital to a quick stay at a foster care home until I signed the relinquishment forms and his parents had the call to pick him up. They didn't even know that he had yet been born. They were under the thinking that they were still waiting. Before they could even get excited I had to prepare to say good bye to our son forever. Leaving that hospital was the single hardest thing that I have ever had to do in my life. Joan was suppose to come and get me, but I think at the last minute she realized how horrible it was gong to be. She sent Ken instead. I was dressed, showered, and ready, but sitting in the rocking chair having my final moments with my baby. I know that I did not feel that I could physically manage to do it. I had no clue on how I was going to be able to walk out of that room and away from my baby. I think I said something to that effect. I doubted if I really could. We took some last photos, an I knew that they were all waiting for me to do it. There were people watching, but they were trying to let me find the moment and strenght. Finially, one of the nurses got the basentte for me and brough it in. I am thinking she was kind of pushy and brightly insistant on my puting him in. I held him and I cried now. No longer strong, no longer brave, just broken. And somehow, I walked over to the bassinette and placed him in. SOmehow I communicated that they could walk him out. And somehow I stayed within the confines of my bedy and managed to hopd myself upright as she psuhed him out and closed the door. The click of the latch still rings in my ears. Final. Somwhow, after that, we left, Ken and I. He took my bags, and I left the only place I had known my child. Our cocoon of safty and miracles and love. On the way home I just stared and cried, tears silently rolling down my cheeks and when we go back, I just layed down and sobbed. Found and lost, my child, my love..in just 48 hours. |
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