You see, this is the first ' Big Girl' birthday . She is starting to want more time with her friends and acting more like a 'big kid' every day. She is growing up, right before my eyes, literally in a flash it seems. And amid the chaos and special hell that is party planning , somewhere between the balloons and cake and the face-painter/juggler/ whatever the hell , there is another milestone to be celebrated . For while it is the anniversary of HER birth , it is also the anniversary of the day I became a MOM.
For me Motherhood has been a lot like the Lord of the Rings. It began as a simple trip to Mordor ( i.e, just get knocked up , it can't be that hard, right ?) And then it turned into the ACTUAL trip to Mordor. In other words, you can't drop the damn ring into the fiery-ass volcano of Mt. Doom until you have survived RingWraiths , Orcs, Uruk-Hai , A Kraken, a Balrog ,there have been several casualties, and you have been stalked by some creepy precious-obsessed little dude in a glorified diaper (ok, my ex-husband wasn't quite that bad, but you get the picture , right ?) Not so simple.
The first time I conceived was with a Boy , I named him Jacob. I lost him after his abusive drug-addled father kicked me down the stairs.( When you end up on your own with no parental supervision long before you are ready, you make a LOT of dumbass decisions, he was just the first of many.) A few years later , another Boy, Issac . At the time I was homeless and I believe I lost him due to mal-nourishment and stress. A couple years after that , twin girls , Rachael and Rebekah. Casualties of an accident at work , through i should specify that I had just started and did not disclose my pregnancy because I needed the job , and feared they wouldn't hire me if they knew, so I am the one to blame for that one. Two years later , six years total since my first failure, I conceived little Chrissy . Due to my history , I was a total spaz through the whole thing, I was so worried I would lose another baby. I literally called my boss the second the test was positive and informed her and her superiors of the situation , to make sure my workload would be amended , and history would not repeat itself. Then I ate every single thing I ever craved the entire way through ( and gained almost 150lbs). I also vomited almost 24/7 until the end of the second trimester, but that made me happy because I knew she was a girl ! ( testosterone makes me angry and confrontational, estrogen makes me weep and puke ) but it also made me a little miserable because , well , there is only so much puking one person can stand.
I waited with baited breath all through the first 16 weeks , I slept with my hand on my belly and prayed myself to sleep that this one would make it , relaxing only during checkups when I could hear the heartbeat . The previous losses had made me suicidal and almost landed me in the nuthouse, and I knew I just couldn't mentally take another loss. Finally the day came when we were past that awful milestone , and I could feel movement ! There was now a daily reminder that she was literally alive and kicking ! Things started to feel real at last , and I started to plan ! The rest of the pregnancy was blissfully and blessedly normal, and I talked to her ALL the time ! My hands were CONSTANTLY on my belly, and everyone who knew me remarked that they had never seen ANYONE so happy to be pregnant ! And they were probably right . Then midway through the third trimester I managed to contract a nasty stomach virus at work , and got so dehydrated I couldn't pee , so I had to spend a night in the hospital getting TONS of I.V fluids . After that things went back to normal until my Stepmother , who had been battling a rare form of extremely aggressive cancer for roughly four years learned she just wasn't getting any better , and asked me to select her hospice . Not long after , she became ill enough that caring for her at home was no longer an option , and we were forced to put her into a nursing home , where she died a few short days after. The last time I got to see her alive was the day I admitted her . The only decent nursing home with and immediate opening was a long drive down a highway with bad cell service and almost nowhere to stop , and no one wanted me driving out there ' in my condition'. I am still more than a little pissed at them for that. She died Janurary 22nd. I still remember her funeral vividly. She was Jewish , but most of her family wasn't , so the two Rabbi's had to explain Krea ( renting ones clothes as a sign of mourning) to the masses, among other things . Their eulogies were beautiful , and thought provoking , and there was a lovely slideshow to "Somewhere over the rainbow " ( the song still makes me cry ). I remember crying then and pawing my belly ,wishing there was some way my daughter could know her Bubbe. At the graveside, I became enraged because no one was shoveling . It had been so important to her to have a traditional , textbook Jewish funeral , but all the goyim family was just staring at the mound in horror. I wanted her wishes to be honored , so pregnant and overdue as I was I started shoveling , and I kept on shoveling until my Ex drug me away from the dirt pile . Back home , there was a proper Shiva , friends , family, members of the community , all came by to pay their respects and offer condolences and pray. At the end of the day , my ex went to work, and I spent the night crying and trying to find the strength to have a baby and be a Mom without my ' touchstone'. The end of that week my blood-pressure went crazy, and I was diagnosed as pre-eclamptic which made me no longer eligible for the homebirth I had planned with her help.
Fast-forward to February 4th , I was headed to the hospital for an induction , but first I had to stop at the Polls so I could vote for Hillary Clinton in the primary :-) Then stopped at Bourbon Street Cafe , for what I figured would be the last decent meal I would be getting for a while. I arrived at registration at 5pm sharp , and by the time they had me all gowned up it turned out I was already a 5 ! Things were cooking better than we thought , and I was totally oblivious ! By midnight though, SD was getting bored and was upset that the baby had not been born yet , and upset that he had taken the night off work to watch movies with me at the hospital. After verbally berating the nurse for not " speeding things along", he decided to leave and go hang out with his friend the bartender for a bit . A few hours later he returned , and when there was still no baby, said "screw this , i'm going home to sleep . Call me when she gets here." And that was that . I was on my own . He stopped by briefly, long enough to watch the placement of the epidural, and then went to work. My Dad came to show his support, but was still so racked with grief and exhausted he couldn't do more than sleep on the couch the whole time. Then they started the pitocin . Hours later they stopped it because it had created a contraction that wouldn't un-contract. Once that contraction was finally loose, they started it right up again. I tried several times , unsuccessfully to wake Dad for company. I was still alone. That evening SD showed up with his sister, and her husband and three kids , and they all stood at the foot of the bed and gawked at me for about 20 minutes, asked a couple of vague questions , and then they all left , and I was again abandoned with a lifeless Father-lump on the sofa.
This was when one of the nurses got the bright idea to sit the bed at a right angle , and basically throw the top of my torso over the top and leave me squatting for a few hours. This is a particularly horrid idea when one has been on epidural for that long. It is incredibly hard to maintain that position without constant support , when you have no feeling in your frigging legs , and no control over them either . I held on to the bed for dear life, and eventually my screams were loud enough that my Dad at least woke up long enough to go get some nurses and get me down. This was when they decided to place two internal monitors , so I now had more hoses and wires dangling out of my vagina than I ever cared to imagine . They checked me again , and informed me that I was almost a 10, but there was a bit of cervical lip that just wouldn't budge. About two hours later , it still hadn't gone anywhere, some swabs were taken , and a nice Doctor named Kim came in and told me I needed an emergency C-Section to save my baby . Scared to death , I signed . I called SD and told him what was going down. His response was , "I'll be there when I get off work." That was hours from then.
They wheeled me down to the OR , and all the while I was scared and praying that she would be alright , that God had not brought us this far just to take her now. I had never had surgery before. I was terrified. Dr. Kim kept saying it would only take 45 minutes and then I would meet my baby. The anesthesiologist was wonderfully reassuring , and talked to me all the way through the TWO HOUR procedure. During surgery I had an adverse reaction to the spinal block and lost feeling/control of my upper right quadrant /arm as well, which just heightened the fear . Then suddenly , I could feel the doctors hands inside my body, and little Chrissy struggling to get away and stay inside ' just five more minutes', it was like an over-sized catfish being fished out of a water balloon with two hands, essentially , Dr. Kim was 'noodling' in my belly. Finally there was the announcement , " it's a girl" followed by the sound of her first cry. Okay, I thought, if she's crying, she's breathing ! And I tried to relax a little . Then suddenly, everyone in the room except the anesthesiologist and the folks sewing me up migrated over to where my baby was, and my heart sank . Somethings wrong, I thought , and the panic began to set in . Then one of the orderlies exclaimed , " Holy Shit ! its like she gave birth to a three month old ! Ten Pounds even ! " Oh, i thought, she's just big . Well I knew she would be ! She was born at 6:22 am on February 7th , and at 7:15 am they walked my cleaned and wrapped little bundle to the door of the OR and handed her to SD. I still had not seen her yet , let alone held her . It did not occur to him to come inside the OR and offer any kind of support , or show me the little person I had put so much love into creating.
When they got me back to the room , SD brought her to the bed and gave me a five second peep at the corner of her forehead, then he put her in her plastic crib and left . I was still under the effects of the spinal blocks and could not move. I had to stare helplessly across the room , through that plastic box at my baby . I watched as the nurse gave her her first bath , envious that she could hold her and bathe her and I could not.She was nearly 5 hours old before I finally got to hold her for the first time, and snuggle her skin to skin , look into her little eyes, and promise her the best I had to give her for the rest of my life. It took me breaking into tears and begging a nurse to get this first precious moment . They moved us up to the 2nd floor to a regular room not long after , and at least I was allowed to snuggle her all the way . When we arrived , they started the first of several bags of blood and fluids.and I learned that her little ass was too big for the newborn diapers as well, they had to send out to the pediatric ward to get ones that were big enough. I began trying to breastfeed her when she was fussy , and it calmed her considerably . When she was 8 hours old , the various Aunts and Uncles began pouring in , and I finally got the first ( and only ) pictures ever taken of me holding my baby !
The room was full of people , and while they were playing pass the baby , Mama tried to take a nap , Then the baby got fussy , so she was handed right back to Mama. The next six years would all be very similar in this way , lol !
After the family had left ( and SD had left too) the Doctor came to tell me she had jaundice. I say Doctor , but it was a teaching hospital , so it was more like "recently-graduated-med-student-who-played-connect-the-dots-in-the-shape-of-Donald-Duck on his finals" who had the tact and bedside manner of a menopausal badger. He informed me that if she didn't eat enough to shit , her billirubin levels would not go down , and she would die . They put their little blindfold on her , and put her under the " Billi-lights", and I tried to breastfeed her every chance I got . I asked for the breastfeeding educator , and got the most bumbling and inept should-be-retired-nurse I have ever met ( and that is saying something , considering that my career for 15 years was NURSING !) if they had provided a 're-lactation kit' at this point, things would have been very , VERY different. After enough time had passed , and she still hadn't crapped, Dougie Howser-Fucktard returned and lathered me up into a panic the way only a menopausal badger could. At no point did he mention that for every hour older the baby is, the acceptable level of Billirubin is higher, no shithead left that out. So when my Rabbi called to see how things were, I lost it and told him my baby was dying because I was dry and I was alone and could he come say a blessing over her before she died ? I was literally hysterically sobbing . When the Rabbi arrived I was relieved , because I was no longer alone, but saddened even greater because it made the probable dying real. As he was praying and I was wailing , one of the nurses came in ." What is going on ?" she wanted to know .
I wailed , " My Rabbi has come to bless my baby and pray with me before she dies because I'm not making enough milk ! "
"What ?" She asked , incredulous. " Your baby isn't going to die !" , " She's not??" I began to dry my eyes, and that was when THE NURSE, not Dr. Dougie Asshat , produced a chart that showed me the acceptable level for billirubin for every hour after birth, and she was well within that realm. We all breathed a collective sigh of relief , and I handed Dr. Asshat his ass on a platter the next time he came in , but by then , I had already started the formula , since it was the " only way she will live ! " and that my friends , like shit , rolls downhill. February 10th came , and they decided it was time for us to go home. I was escorted home and helped to pack by one of her Godmothers and one of her Honorary Grandma's . They drove me home , and helped me up the many, MANY stairs to our apartment. They helped me unpack and settle in, and then it was time for them to be on their way . Then I was alone again, just me and her . Two hours later , I realized I forgot to get my pain pills at the pharmacy on the way home, and I had no car. I called Aunt Joann, and she came and brought them to me . Then A friend , Susan , who was due in 16 more days with a boy came to keep me company , and bring me dinner . She was so sweet ! It was about then that SD got home. I spent the next couple of days sleeping on the couch because I couldn't get in and out of the bed without hurting my staples. She slept by me in her little carseat .Thanks to the miracle of Paxil I was able to still be chipper as all hell during every late night diaper change and midnight feeding. I could awake at any hour and go straight to goo-goo noises and smiley faces . I truly believe that Paxil saved me from what could have been the worst case of post-partum depression ever in recorded history. I remember looking at the Doctor with tears in my eyes and explaining , " I just buried a parent two weeks ago , i have little to no support, and my hormones are crazy. Please for the love of God do not send me home without an Anti-Depressant, and a damn good one at that ! " He said that was one of the smartest things he had ever seen a new , first time mother do. I have never regretted that decision.
February 13th, they re-admitted her to the hospital because of unacceptable billirubin levels that still hadn't really budged. I spent Valentines day there with her , singing her songs, and drawing red hearts on her diaper with a sharpie , sleeping when I could , crying when they had to prick her or give her a shot. Eventually I had to bribe a nurse to remove my staples because I wouldn't leave her long enough to walk across the street to my O.B's office and have it done. There was no one to stay with her, and what if she needed me ? February 18th we were finally home for good, But we were right back in the hospital April 4th , when she caught a super-virus they couldn't identify. After a week of I.V's and two kinds of antibiotics she was okay. And I never left that room for a minute !
The years that follow are full of milestones , first teeth, and first steps trips to the ER in the middle of the night (seems it was always something weird )we lost two more babies in the quest to give her a sibling and SD a boy . SD worked nights, so she and I got very used to sleeping together. Even after he became unemployed he still stayed up all night , so nothing much changed. Then He took to sleeping on the hide-a-bed downstairs, and then after some infidelity on his part , we separated just after her 3rd birthday. We moved in with my Dad, a less than desirable or comfortable arrangement, but things remained the same , me and her against the world. We were a team , and there was nothing we couldn't face together. Then June 28th , my best friend , who had been my rock through everything , confessed that he was in love with me and ask me to marry him . I quit my Job , and said yes and I began moving into his place after July 4th. I know this sounds a little sudden, but he had been my best friend for YEARS prior to the divorce , we had no secrets, and it wasn't like i didn't know what I was getting into.Little Chrissy had known him her whole life.He just went from 'Uncle" Bill, to "Stepdad Bill". That was also the first time in her life she was ever asked to sleep somewhere other than with Mommy , ( something she still resents to this day ).
Her birthday is the Anniversary of the day I fought the battle of the ten pound baby AND WON! And what did I win , you might ask ? I won a lifetime of tickle-fights, a fridge full of finger paintings, Kissed owies , little pony band-aids, bubble-baths, inside jokes, a thousand and one nights of reading and then RE-reading Harry Potter , A buddy to sit on my lap and watch Dr. Who with , the right to be called Mom, the greatest adventure of my life , and above all, I got the most amazing damn near six year old on the planet ! ( she was also the prettiest and best baby,the funniest toddler, the best dancer in three year old ballet, and the smartest kid in her pre-school , and i'm not the littlest bit biased ! lol ) Every year , as we approach this date, I realize just how far we have come, and it floors me every time . Then I see how much we have to look forward to , and I am filled to the brim with happiness. I dream about what she will be like at 10, and 13, and 16 and 18, and 21 and what will she do ? Will she marry ? Will I have grand kids to spoil ? And I remind myself enjoy this age , and all it brings, because this year will never happen again, and it will come and go too fast , and all too soon , I will miss it . I remember my battle, and I every time can't help but conclude that she was worth it ! Every second, every pang, every stitch, every staple. I look at her and I can't help but smile , because she is my magnum opus, the best thing I will ever do, and she is my greatest treasure .I delight in her sarcasm , and her dramatic flair , her odd fashion sense and her desire to always be with me . I hope that I deserve her, and that I can live up to what she needs. She is really a pretty damn awesome individual ,and I like to think I had a LITTLE something to do with that , lol !
Now if you'll excuse me , its time to listen to ABBA's " Slipping through my fingers " for the millionth time and go through another box or two of Kleenex .
Thanks for reading , and I will try to keep the next one a little less blubbery :-)
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