"Hesitating Sharing of the Joy"...or "The Fragility of Life"...or "How I Almost Died Giving Birth": Not Your Typical Birth Story

I almost died giving birth to my daughter Gabrielle on December 16th.  

There, now I've said it.

When my other daughters were born, I shared every detail.  I am a compulsive "over-sharer" on Facebook.  I have had this blog (and mostly written regularly) since 2009.  I am not one to keep my mouth shut (or, I guess it'd be keep my computer keys clickless or something).

But I have been very reluctant to talk about that day despite people asking (and being a bit bewildered by my recalcitrance, I suspect) because frankly I have never been more scared in my life.  Also, it feels wrong to talk about a day of such great joy as being terrible and scary.

Virtually all new mothers have that "first pic", the one where they are holding their baby for the first time.  I have one, too.  

The difference is that Gabrielle had been born some time before this picture was actually taken.  In fact, I'm pretty sure that my husband captured this moment--the first one of my newborn and I--just after her second bath.

I've been struggling with how to write this piece, grappling with whether I should do a play-by-play of Gab's birth or just focus on the strange and intense feelings the extremes of that day brought forward in me, which is of course the philosophical bend that I try to find in everything that happens.

Forgive me if I go too far one way or the other ...

My water broke around 2:30 a.m., and we headed to the hospital pretty quickly as it was almost an hour away and we already knew that I would need to have IV antibiotics during delivery.

The doctor decided to start pitocin right away because I was only 2 centimeters dilated.  I was very upfront about wanting an epidural as soon as possible; this was my third go-round with childbirth, after all, and I saw no reason to suffer agonizing pain needlessly.


The epidural started off okay, with the cold wash, the burning lidocaine, and the need to stay completely still. However, it started to hurt as the anesthesiologist moved the needle then the catheter around. A lot! She seemed to think I was being something of a drama queen as I got lectured on the difference between pain and pressure. I didn't care as long as the contractions stopped hurting.

All of a sudden, my bottom felt ridiculously hot, I couldn't move my feet, and my blood pressure started dropping. The anesthesiologist seemed to think I wasn't trying hard enough to move my feet at first, but I was too scared to be angry as my blood pressure continued to plummet...and Gabrielle's started to follow. I got dizzy and faint and started throwing up with an oxygen mask hooked onto my head...it was terrible.

The scariest part was that the nurses, the anesthesiologist, and my OB were clearly alarmed. I later learned, of course, that my blood pressure had dropped dangerously, had nearly disappeared for a moment or three, that I'm very lucky that ephedrine exists.  

They restarted the pitocin, and I was very quickly in agony.  If you've ever given birth, you know what "it's time to start pushing pain" feels like, and that's what I was feeling.  When the OB checked and I was only at 4 centimeters, I knew something was going on.  4 centimeters just didn't mesh with the frequency and intensity of my contractions, so she did a quick ultrasound. Turns out Gabrielle was facing outward (called "sunny side up" on birth boards), which explained the pain and the lack of quick progress.  (Not to put too fine a point on it, but the back of a head slides down the birth canal a lot more smoothly than a face)

I was kind of at the end of my rope (okay, I was about to scream in pain, with tons of dilating still ahead of me), so the OB said the only option for pain management was reattempting the epidural. Because of the epidural/blood pressure debacle, they did not want to give me narcotic pain medicine.  

The cause of the drama with the first epidural attempt was a bolus, and I was assured that it was incredibly rare and the odds of it happening again were astronomical.  In other words, there's no way I'd have another screwy reaction to an epidural.

Until it happened again...same dizziness, same blood pressure drop, same vomiting into the oxygen, and same fear.

When the OB reluctantly said a C-section was becoming increasingly likely, I was glad. I just wanted it over and the pain and fear to be gone.

This was my first C-section after having two pretty much uneventful vaginal births with my other two daughters. It was scary, to say the least. I was still freaking out over the two epidural attempts, and trusting that there would be no to minimal pain was hard to believe considering the way everything seemed to be going wrong.

They started the C-section, and my husband sat next to me and was very reassuring. I was dizzy and dozy from the medicine, and then my blood pressure dropped yet again and I had yet another round of puking into the oxygen mask.

It was only then that they realized that Gabrielle's shoulder was tightly lodged in my pelvic bone.  They could not get her out for awhile, and finally they had to get very aggressive.  As a result, my uterine wall tore and the OB had to call for backup and order blood for a transfusion...and everyone was very scared again, which of course freaked me out all over again.  I lost a lot of blood, and there was some concern that parts of my urinary system had been damaged.
Once Gabrielle was delivered, she was perfectly fine.  I heard her cry, and I wanted to see her more than anything, but they took her away while they tried to figure out how to solve the problem of me.  They called my husband over and gave Gabrielle to him.  He cut the cord, and they were ushered into a small room where they got to bond and hang out while my blood loss was figured out and remedied and I was stitched up.
It was only later that it occurred to me how serious the situation was as they literally left my husband alone with a newborn baby for an extended period of time.


This was over three weeks ago, and here is my beautiful baby next to me as I write this.

Trying to reconcile this beautiful miracle with the abject terror of that day is just ... well, difficult.  I feel like I should just forget it, get over it, say, "Well, that was interesting, guess she's going to be the kind of kid that keeps me on my toes", but I'm finding that it's not that easy.  

There is absolutely no connection between Gabrielle Rose, my surprise miracle baby, and the terrible events of that day.  But the events are still in my mind.  I have nightmares pretty much every night.  They just aren't connected to the baby.

Which I realize is a very good thing. 

What I can't figure out is where that space is.  Forgive me, I am having a very hard time articulating this, even to myself.  Basically, those hours of labor culminating in the C-section are lost in the Twilight Zone or something.  As soon as it was over, as soon as Gabrielle was okay and then I was okay, the fact that I almost died, almost disappeared from this world, could easily have left my other two daughters motherless ... it is just gone.  Except it's not.

I have these pics of my husband and older daughters with the baby.  We are all very happy.  It's a joyous occasion.  (And I am being 100% serious and non-sarcastic).

 Is it just that I have a better understanding of the fragility of life now?  Am I just struggling to get over an experience that was traumatic and suffering guilt because who wants to say, "The day my daughter was born was one of the scariest days of my life"?  

You see, the bottom line is that I was forced to gain a sudden awareness of how often that "almost" happens.  I think about my oldest daughter driving home from work late at night and just missing a tragic encounter with a drunk driver, my sweet 9-year-old getting into a car with a murderer, my husband getting attacked while walking downtown, and the zillions of other potential disasters the people I love encounter on a daily basis.

It's a scary world we live in, on so very many levels.

But I am so very, very fortunate to have this <3 div="">

When You Realize Your Kids Are Growing Up ...

Motherhood is, without a doubt, the highlight of my life.

My daughters are both good, kind, bright, beautiful, amazing people, and I couldn't be more proud of them.  There is nothing I would rather do than spend time with them, to bask in their company, to enjoy every second with them ....

Except ... well, they're growing up.

Addie is in France right now.  Even before she left for her latest European venture, though, I got a taste of what the future holds.  We had plans to hang out, to go see a movie, to just spend time together, and so on right before she left.  On both occasions, she got better offers (friends, the boyfriend, and so on).

I am happy about that, believe it or not.  Addie coming out of her shell and becoming a confident young woman has been a joy to behold.

But there is a bittersweet aspect to it.  Every day that passes, every new adventure and experience, leads her further away from me, so even as I am increasingly proud of her and love her just the same as I always have, I miss the little girl who questioned how snakes were able to move when they don't have legs and who had a propensity for streaking as a toddler (she asked me recently why she's naked in so many childhood pictures ... I told her that she started every day dressed).

Of course, there are still these kinds of moments that I can reflect fondly on when she leaves for college ...

And then there is Belle, who has suddenly become "Miss Independent".

I was looking forward to spending a lot of time with Belle this summer, and when I told her this, she thought for a long moment then said, "No offense, Mommy, but I'd rather go to camp."

While she still requires our bedtime routine (which is comprised of reading books and snuggling) and we spend a lot of time together after camp gets out, Belle is clearly starting to grow up ... and it seems to be happening very quickly.  She loves to spend time with her friends, and I think that's great ... but I am starting to really miss her, strange as that probably sounds.

Belle is a character, without a doubt the funniest kid I've ever met in my life.  She also has a tremendous work ethic, which I am very proud of.  It's meant, of course, that this week of home repairs has resulted in us getting to work together on things, seeing each other in a different light.  For me, it's seeing her in a more grown-up light.

Henry even got her using the power washer, which she has a real knack for.

And so I've stopped wondering why people get the urge to have later-in-life children, why that rumor about ticking biological clocks exist.  If life circumstances were different, I would love to have another child, to be able to extend my lease on motherhood.

Except it's not really a lease, is it?  As I've learned with my own mother, it's a bond that never goes away.  It is sometimes strong and sometimes a bit frayed, but the ties between mother and child are forever.

I am more grateful than words can say for whatever higher power saw fit to bless me with my two girls.  They have made me a better person, made me laugh, made me realize the importance of appreciating every moment in life.

So even as the realization that my amazing daughters are growing up and learning to make their own ways in the world makes me sad in a way, the joy I feel when I look at them, spend time with them, even just think about them totally trumps that.

Addie and Belle, I love you more than anything in the world ... and always will.

I'm Sweet and Versatile ... and Full of Random Facts ;-)

I love receiving blog awards.  I really do.

I'm not always great about passing them along, mostly because it's so hard to choose from so many deserving blogs, but this one has the added bonus of allowing me to explore random facts about myself (which is something I enjoy doing, for some reason or another), plus Richard at Writing and Living by Richard P. Hughes is such a cool person that I just can't not go for it.  (Yes, I know that last sentence is an English teacher's nightmare ... heeheehee).

Plus, the timing is right on this once since tomorrow is my first day back at work and I never sleep the night before school starts up again, so this is as good a time as any to occupy my time (and better than reading this horrible chick lit book I'm in the midst of, which is horribly lame and predictable but I still want to know what happens, or watching NCIS reruns).

Also, there's the added privilege of this being a "two for one" blog award event ...

According to Richard, I'm deserving of these two titles:

And he also, in his wonderful post awarding these two very complimentary honors, referred to me as a survivor ... which is something I really needed to hear.

So, the deal is that I share seven random facts about myself then pass this dual award on to five deserving bloggers.

Seven Random Facts About Me
1.  I get skeeved out by really weird things.
Like everyone, I have some odd fears (snakes, thunderstorms, airplanes, feet), but every once in awhile I'll get completely freaked out for odd random reasons.

A few weeks ago, my dog Sonja's invisible fence collar stopped working, so I had to walk her on a leash.  I happened to be in the middle of reading 'Salem's Lot by Stephen King, which is about vampires.  I've read the book probably twenty times and it's never once scared me, but while I was out there in the dark by myself, I got totally freaked.

Then tonight, when I got home, I was walking up the brick path to my house and a toad hopped out in front of me.  Now, I'm not scared of toads at all, but the suddenness (and the fact that I almost stepped on the poor thing), completely threw me for a loop.

2. I am an excellent teacher and 100% comfortable talking to classes of 25-30 kids, but I stutter and sound like a rambling idiot when I try to speak in front of adults.
I hear this is a fairly common problem, actually, but it still bothers me.

Most interesting, though?  How my students react after an adult has come into my classroom.

"Why were you stuttering?  Are you afraid of him?  No offense, but you sounded like a moron.  You turned magenta when you said the word 'balls', and we weren't even going to laugh until you started to."

It does lead to some good discussions on how teachers are human, too, that we have weaknesses and fears and stressors and so on.

3. I have become something of a Tweetaholic.
I started using Twitter in earnest as a writing tool, actually.

If you read my blog with any regularity (and if you're at this point in my "list" of seven random facts), you'll note that I have a tendency to go on.  And on.  And on.

I have never been a concise writer, despite the many accolades I've received, and I realized this summer while rereading my finished novel that this little issue of mine might be part of why I'm still unpublished.

So Twitter, which holds me back with a character count limit, has forced me to just spit it out.  Simply.  It's been invaluable, all joking aside.

And that simple, tell-it-like-it-is mentality has allowed me to share and explore my pathetic short story repertoire and recognize this as an area in need of work.

4. I can't cook.
I don't know if I've ever mentioned this on here, but I cannot cook.  I've completely ruined macaroni and cheese out of the box, set oatmeal on fire in the microwave, and destroyed a pan boiling water ... and those are the ones I'll admit to publicly.

I have many other skills (I can do a split, tie a cherry stem in a knot with my tongue, write about any topic, and so on), but it's very interesting to me that a skill that pretty much any fifth or sixth grader can do is beyond me.

5. Motherhood is my greatest adventure.
My kids crack me up.  In fact, sometimes I wonder how I ever laughed before my daughters were born.

I am incredibly proud of both Addie and Belle, and I would not change either one of them for anything.  They are beautiful, brilliant girls with their own thoughts and ideas; they are polite and respectful (well, at least in public); and, just to emphasize the point, they are freaking hilarious.

If you are my friend on Facebook, you know ...

I also have to note that becoming an aunt to my two nephews is also an unspeakable, enjoyable treat.

6. Sometimes I find it hard to solve a problem, then a very obvious answer will appear as if from a bolt of lightning.
*  I couldn't figure out how to charge my old iPod Nano (which, although it's been replaced by an iPod Touch, still contains 3,000 of my favorite songs that I can't access on an account which I paid for ... it's kind of a long story).  I'd been using a speaker dock as a charger, but I accidentally dropped it, and it's for some reason stopped charging.

It finally occurred to me that I could just plug it into my computer.  Success!

*  The mouse on my work computer sucks balls (actually, it still has a ball, which is the majority of the problem).  I sat there for an hour fighting with the stupid thing, then it occurred to me to put in a new mouse ball.

*  I can't think of any more examples off the top of my head, but I guess the gist is that I have a tendency to miss the obvious, then feel pretty cool because I figured it out ... before realizing that it wasn't exactly a difficult problem to solve.


7. I am so lonely sometimes.
Following the irreparable marriage dissolving into divorce, I enjoyed being single for a long time.  I really did.  I hadn't had random hook-ups like that since college, and it was pretty good for my ego.

After a really traumatic incident last spring which I will probably never write about on this blog since I can count on the fingers of one hand the people I have told and that it's something that hit me harder and more viscerally than rape, divorce, or anything else, I realized that the problem was bigger than I'd thought.

I am a kind person that loves to help other people.

I'm told that I'm smart and funny and have a great personality and so on.  I don't like myself enough to come up with a list of my own adjectives, but those are the ones I hear a lot.

I have the capacity to be pretty.  When I'm in gym-going mode and lay off the Barq's Root Beer and Milky Ways (and Big Macs, who the heck am I trying to kid?), I can look pretty good for my age.

(well, at least not totally disgusting ... lol)

I have a good, solid job and many enjoyable hobbies.

I am hygienic.

And yet men either want one thing from me, or they want to be friends.  I can't seem to find a situation where those two expectations are not mutually exclusive, and it's very frustrating, very daunting.    

It makes me wonder what the heck is wrong with me, why the occasional Friday night hook-ups (or Monday night hook-ups, as the most recent case may have been) are the only way to salve my damaged ego.

And yet I would give a great deal to be able to have "a real boyfriend", which sounds pretty ludicrous when you're 34 years old.

But it's true.  I get so depressed watching couples everywhere, hearing love songs, observing body language in a restaurant.

I know that patience is a virtue, but I'm not good with patience.  If anyone knows any nice single men in the New Hampshire/Massachusetts/Maine area, give them my e-mail ;-)

Okay, pity party over ... time to share the love I feel for five sweet, versatile bloggers that I enjoy ... and bear in mind that "sweet" and "versatile" can be taken a number of ways ;-)

1.  Half Past Kissin' Time

2.  Anything But Theist

3.  Just Another Blog

4.  Peaceful Reader

5.  The Frisky Virgin (who, I should note, also gave me an award ... and I'm working on that post :-))

I hope you check out these five amazing places in the blogosphere.  You will not regret it :-)

Anyone Want to Be a Guest Blogger? Read for Details ...

I've noticed a lot of "guest blogging" going on lately, and I figured I'd try out the idea.

Somehow, my blog has accumulated over 200 followers (thank you all so much <3), which is pretty exciting.  What I was thinking would be even more exciting is for an occasional guest post, which will allow me to participate in discussions that don't originate with me.

I started this blog to share my thoughts on the world and on the philosophy that exists in everyday life.  It's become more (my aspiring writing career, motherhood and other details of my personal life, and the field of education are all directions I hadn't planned on going in but somehow have), but that's still my underlying goal.

If you'd like to write a guest post on a topic that generates thought and discussion, please let me know.  I'm not picky about specifics beyond getting people to think and talk about the different directions capable of moving by the human brain.

Send me an e-mail with "Guest Blogger" in the subject line or leave a comment here with questions or queries (heh heh ;-)), and let's get this thing cracking.

I look forward to hearing from you ... and to moving this blog forward in new and interesting directions.

<3 KL

Parental Intuition

Parents seem to have a magical sixth sense when it comes to their children. This is a good thing, of course ... but it can be very frightening at the same time.

Addie, Belle, and I spent the Fourth of July at the beach house with my mother, my brother Adam and his fiancee Colleen, my niece and nephew, Colleen's brother and his little girl, and Pythagorus, who came down for the afternoon and early evening (I'm afraid to put it in writing, but we seem to be back on the right path ... hope this doesn't jinx the progress that's been made).

Anyway, I was holding Belle at one point and noticed that her eye was a little red, almost like she'd bumped it on something. I asked her about it pretty closely, of course, but she said she didn't recall hitting her eye on anything. I was a little bit suspicious of this because Belle often claims that she didn't fall down and hurt herself if she was doing something she wasn't supposed to be doing (such as spinning around in circles or running amok with the dogs). Still, because I'm paranoid, I showed it to my mother and was assured that it was probably a bug bite or something equally innocuous.

Belle's eye got progressively worse yesterday afternoon. It almost looked like she'd had a stroke or something, which scared me to death, as you can imagine. Here's the picture I took yesterday afternoon to send to my mother for her input:



I didn't end up sending it to her since I called her instead and she reassured me that it was more than likely just a bug bite. She suggested that I continued giving Belle her Claritin and think about getting some Benadryl for her. This was when I was really freaking out since Belle is on Sulfa for a bladder infection (Belle is almost never sick but, when she is, it seems to come in tidal waves) and I was afraid she was having an allergic reaction to it.

When she woke up this morning looking like this,



I took her to the emergency room. I'm very glad I did. They weren't sure what started the swelling (they agreed that it was probably a bug bite), but it was starting to cross the line into cellulitis and maybe a more serious eye infection. Because Belle was already on an antibiotic, the doctor had to check and see if the Sulfa should be fighting a cellulitis kind of infection (turns out the answer was no, so Belle's on another round of antibiotics, this time Augmentin). They also checked her vision since she couldn't open one of her eyes (this was a little funny, actually, since they used a chart with pictures instead of letters and, being Belle, she got said "nest" instead of "apple" and "horse barn" instead of "house"--my kid is an odd duck, let me tell you :-)) and gave her a coloring book and crayons for being so brave.

Today was my first day of summer school, and I was actually scared that I was going to be late. Belle's day care was closed today because of the holiday, so Addie was on babysitting patrol. I was really worried leaving the girls (not because Addie isn't a great babysitter--she is--but just because I was worried sick about Belle's eye), but it all turned out fine. Interestingly, Addie read the discharge papers from the emergency room and put warm cloths on Belle's eye per their recommendation, so she actually looked better when I got home than she had when I left.

What fascinates me about this whole event is that I had a bad feeling on Saturday, back when Belle's eye was just a little bit puffy, that there was potentially something really wrong. I felt this even more strongly last night, and of course this morning I knew that I had to take her to the doctor as soon as I could. Fortunately, Belle is on the road to recovery, but the doctor said it was good that I'd brought her in because it could have been very bad if she wasn't treated.

Part of me is beating myself up, of course, because I had that feeling that I needed to bring her back on Saturday and I didn't. Still, it really didn't look bad on Saturday so I probably would have been laughed out of the doctor's office, but parental instinct is a powerful thing.

What are your thoughts on the intuition of a parent? Do you find that the "gut feeling" of a parent is usually right?