Toby, Eleanor and Callista,
Two years ago today I woke thinking, “I’m still pregnant! We made it to 28 weeks!” Two hours later, the contractions started. Twenty-four hours later, you were born – three miracles, each separated by one eternity minute.
Two years ago, the what-ifs tucked me into bed and hovered while I prayed.
Last year, the what-ifs loomed like dark clouds, bursting with showers throughout an otherwise sunny day. You were barely still premature by the books (they told me one month for every week born premature), but I didn’t drop the “corrected gestational age” distinction and count you as fully mature till the one-year anniversary of your due date. So many milestones lay ahead of us, and I couldn’t celebrate your triumph over prematurity just yet.
This year, the what-ifs will dance in and out. They will try to hurt me – they always do – but two years have given me more peace than I thought possible. This year, I’ll chase the what-ifs away with What Is. Prematurity will continue to threaten certain aspects of your growth and development, but those risk factors are less terrifying than the mountains of possible diagnoses you’ve eluded. For all intents and purposes, you beat prematurity.
Take that, What-Ifs.
All my love,
Mama
When you have a premature infant, there is no flourish of excitement waiting to have your fresh baby settled onto your chest. Even term c-section mamas get the pleasure of a close-up view of their baby, often snuggled by a proud daddy.
We were lucky. We only had to wait four days to hold our babies. I held Toby while Rob held Eleanor in the chair next to me, then we moved onto Callista’s area, and I held her. The next day, I held Eleanor while sitting next to Rob holding Toby.
Kangaroo care, they call it. You sit in the NICU and bare your skin and wait while a nurse unravels wires and tubes, tells you how to sit with all the equipment without disturbing it, then, bliss.
My babies weighed between 2 and 2.5 lb. when I first held them. They were around 15 inches long, but they curled up against me and spanned from their heads tucked perfectly under my (ducked) chin to just below my breast line.
I cupped their little bottoms with my hand and was able to stroke their upper backs with the thumb of that same hand.
I stayed as still as possible and reveled in the tiny impressions Toby’s fingers left in my skin that first time.
Kangaroo care is magical. It heals the mother as well as the baby. I don’t doubt that Eleanor’s turn for the better didn’t coincidentally coincide with the start of kangaroo care.
I lived for the hour I could hold one of my babies each day (early on, our care team set us on a one-baby-a-day-for-one-hour schedule, so they were held once every two days).
Then it got old.
Kangaroo care means holding a baby on your chest, and your view of said baby – the closest, clearest view you’re afforded in NICU – is limited to hands and tops profiles of heads and faces. You can’t really see your baby, and suddenly seeing through touch just doesn’t cut it.
It was four weeks before I finally held my babies in my arms, “Just like I’m supposed to,” I remember saying that night. It was a happy accident. The nurse bathing Toby needed to change his wet bedding and had to run to get a replacement piece. It was easier to have me hold him while we waited. He was wrapped in a standard hospital receiving blanket with the blow by oxygen positioned near his face, and I melted.
She let me do the same for Eleanor, who came next in the bathing rotation, then Rob got a turn with Callista, who was third.
Holding my babies for the first time as tiny kangaroo joeys was soul-centering. Pieces fell into place, and I was home. Holding them for the first time in my arms was explosive. While kangaroo care felt magical, holding them in my arms just felt right.
World Prematurity Day is today, November 17. Learn how you can help give all babies a healthy chance at life with organizations like WHO, March of Dimes, Bliss.
November is Prematurity Awareness Month. It’s also the month Toby, Eleanor and Callista were born and the month I actively fought from Nov. 3, 2010, till Nov. 22, 2010, to keep them safe from battling the dangers of premature birth.
We all know my story has a happy ending, but none of us knew that then. The dangers were very real. The fear still haunts me. The experience has changed me forever. Part of who I was before then was completely erased and replaced with who I am now.
I sympathize with the pains of pregnancy. I was measuring at 34 weeks pregnant when I was only 22 weeks into my triplets’ pregnancy. That was the last fundal height I had done, so I have no clue how much I grew by 28 weeks when I actually gave birth.
The pains of pregnancy are very real and very difficult. Being pregnant while doing all sorts of Normal Life things is painful, exhausting and frustrating. Your mind remembers what your body is otherwise capable of, but your body screams NO.
I’ll sympathize with the pain, the frustration, the feelings of being whittled down to being more than a vessel than a person, but I absolutely cannot support people wishing a pregnancy would end before 38 (maybe), 39 (I’m closer to sympathetic), or, on my worst days, a full 40 weeks.
It’s far more difficult to watch your premature infant live in a box, undergo a battery of tests multiple times a day and have tubes and wires going every which way. It’s more difficult to wait to hear the results of brain ultrasounds, echocardiograms, blood-cell counts. It’s more difficult to see your baby and know that his or her wellbeing is no longer your task, that it’s now in the hands of total strangers you must instantly trust. It’s more difficult to have whatever faith in God you’ve believed thus far be put to the ultimate test.
If you’re thinking, “Gosh, I wish my baby were here already!” when you’ve still got weeks or months left in your pregnancy, by all means, think it. You’re entitled to impatience. Say it if you want.
Just don’t say it to me. Chances are I won’t bite your head off, but my eyes will glaze over, my mouth will tighten, and I’ll have to turn away.
One in eight babies in the USA are born premature. Don’t ask to join our club.
World Prematurity Day is November 17. Learn how you can help give all babies a healthy chance at life with organizations like WHO, March of Dimes, Bliss.
I’m not sure how to explain the amount of work I put into my days, but I saw just how taxing it is when my best friend Sarah was in town and stayed with us for a few days. Sarah’s a runner, training for her second marathon. At the end of the day when my kiddos were in bed (but not asleep yet!), Sarah collapsed on the couch and asked how I do it all the time.
A marathon runner, folks. Someone please explain how I’m hanging onto the last of my pregnancy weight!
Parents of newborns live in survival mode. We did, too, when our kids were in the neverending newborn stage for preemies. Then survival mode turned into just-get-the-shit-done mode. The sleep deprivation settled into a new normal, and while I wasn’t a basket case, I still called my days a success when my kids were taken care of despite me still in last night’s pajamas and unbrushed hair at the end of the day.
I hear some moms of multiples call it the two-year fog.
Finally, I feel like the fog is lifting. Toby, Eleanor and Callista will turn 2 years old this month, and it feels like life is getting more normal. I get up earlier than them most days and shower, get dressed, do my hair and think about breakfast without interruption. It’s about that time that they wake, so I still have a goal I’m working toward. I even bought new makeup and have a Christmas wishlist that caters to the idea of looking good, not just like I am surviving.
Someday, I’ll add exercise back into the mix, but I can’t wrap my head around working more when I honestly work toward getting the chance to relax while awake instead of only resting when it’s time for bed.
You really never know how much you’ve been through or how difficult it was or how exhausting things are until you’re over the hump.
Or when a marathon runner crashes on your couch and looks at you in awe.
I hope I have the courage to tell my children some of my most embarrassing stories.
Some are stories I’ve shared with no one, not my closest friends and not even my husband.
I hope I can tell them about the pain other people can cause, about the scars words you hear or say can leave, and about the feelings we all have – whether we’re on the basketball team, the chess team or on no team at all.
If I can’t bear to disclose the embarrassing details, I hope I can figure out an anonymous spin that’s equally or more effective than the raw truth.
I hope my failed childhood friendships and embarrassing incidents can do more than haunt me. I hope they can save my kids from feeling unnecessary pain – or worse, causing that pain in others.
