A bit of fear

***This is a pregnancy-intensive post with a look back at my delivery of Elijah. If this is too sensitive for anyone reading due to infertility or child loss, please just skip over and come back tomorrow for something different. I had some things I wanted to admit and get off my chest and so I did, but I wouldn't want to hurt anyone in the process.

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Reason #1252 for being married to my husband: he can successfully talk me down off of most any cliff.

I only wished he would have been there late at night when I decided to venture up that cliff. Would have saved me a lot of fret.

I'm not sure what set off aforementioned fret. A movie I guess. I was watching In America and it discussed the perils of grief: losing a child, a child born too early, a friend's death.

After the movie was over, and I had turned off one of the four flat-screen televisions that we have in our little condo (seriously!), I found myself flashing back. Suddenly I was back in the operating room awaiting Elijah's arrival. JB was by my side, but as you would expect, was watching the physicians performing the operation a bit more than a normal husband might have been.

I laid in bed in the dark and before I knew it, I was crying. I don't cry easily or often, and thus, the tears surprised me.

I have such vivid memories of January 31, 2009. I felt tugging. I heard muffled words between physicians. A nurse went running from the room. No crying. Something about meconium. Still no crying. John left my side. He came back. He left again. Still no typical baby sounds. Was that the word intubation? John came back again. I caught his eyes in my own. "Is he okay?" I mouthed.

And then I was yelling. "Tell me he is okay!" I could only see my husband's eyes behind the surgical mask, but in a moment I saw what he couldn't say. My rock. My husband. He was afraid. No. He was terrified. He was trying to formulate words of comfort, but I could tell that there weren't any. He couldn't say anything to me.

That was when things started to go a bit foggy. I began to pull at my arm restraints. I was yelling. Screaming maybe. I am not sure. I heard the anesthesiologist ask if she should give me something. She should someone said. I think it was John. I think she asked him what he wanted to give me. And I remember seeing him shake his head out of the corner of my eye. He needed to just be the husband. The father. Not the doctor. So she made the decision herself.

Something cold laced my IV. Things started spinning. I fought it. I wanted to stay awake. I wanted to know Elijah Luke was okay. Everyone in the room knew the journey to this child. Five years of infertility treatments. A miracle. Suddenly. If he died ... If he died, I would die. How, after all we had gone through, could God give us a miracle only to take him back again? I already felt anger toward God welling up inside me. Deep down inside, both John and I had admitted that we couldn't picture this baby every coming home. It seemd impossible to us that we would bear a child genetically related to the two of us.

It was in those moments that I thought of Isaac. Blonde. Blue eyed. Our eight month old adopted son at home with friends. I would survive for him. He would keep me from going to sleep and never waking up again. If this is how it was going to be -- if a day of labor would result in a c-section and a child that I would never hold alive, I would get out of bed tomorrow morning for no one other than Isaac.

I begged one of the doctors on the other side of the sheet for more information. I knew her. She was our friend. She gave me a clichéd response that I knew she and my husband had learned in medical school. "They are working on him. They are doing their best."

John kept moving back and forth. The drugs kept trying to work. I kept fighting them. The room would go black and I'd force my eyes open again. "Go to sleep," John would say. The doctor on the other side of the sheet would say. The anesthesiologist would say.

I would not. Not until ...

A cry. I heard a cry. Soft at first. Louder. Louder. Louder. Suddenly John was back by my side, the camera in his hands and a photo on the screen. I asked what it was. It was our son he said. He was okay. "Do you mean it?" I asked over and over and over again. He nodded. His eyes, still the only part emerging from behind the green surgical mask, shining with life. More crying. More smiles -- only with our eyes. Elijah was alive.

I slept.

Later my doctor, who had been doing resuscitation on Elijah, admitted to us that she too had been afraid. "I had a few moments that I thought this miracle child was going to die on my watch," she admitted.

How do I prevent that fear from rooting itself as I prepare to enter the operating room for the second time?

The fear extends behind the operating room. Time passed and I was wheeled into recovery. I was bleeding. More than I should. I was asked if I would approve of a blood transfusion. I would. How could I not? They needed to give me medicine to stop the bleeding. I agreed. But something was wrong. I was supposed to have an epidural in place. And yet I was feeling pain. And then doctor after doctor after doctor after doctor (yes, it was at least four times) had to climb up on top of me and push on my stomach to try and stop the bleeding in my uterus. The stomach they had just cut open. I was screaming. Crying. It is the first time in my life that I can say my pain on that little scale they always ask you about hit 10. It was twice as bad as the labor I had travelled through the day before. I was panicking. What if I had to go back into surgery? I had no idea where Elijah was. I was in a fog.

And then it was over. And then I was asleep. I woke up. I ate. And then my appetite dissapeared. A few hours later I would spike a fever. An infection of my uterus was the likely culprit. Endometritis. Then, from there, my bowels shut down. An illeus was observed via xray. When I was finally discharged from the hospital a week later, I had developed another infection: mastitis. I cried on the way back to the hospital, so desperate to not go back into that place so soon. This was followed up just a few weeks later with a diagnosis of: C-diff. Unfortunately, it did not respond to the first antiobiotic. A second antiobiotic was started, and finally, I could begin recovering without complication.

Last night, I told JB the entire story via skype from Germany to Turkey. Told it to him as if he hadn't heard it the first time. I admitted that I was scared. Scared of losing Abigail. Scared of feeling that sort of pain again. Scared of a recovery like last time.

And that's when he talked me down off the cliff. He reminded me that things were different this time. There would be no day of labor. There would be no drugs prior to the drugs used right before surgery. The complications I faced at Eglin were random. Unusual. There was no way everything that happened last time will happen again this time.

And I believe him.

I know I am not the first person to fear a repeat event in their life. I know the Lord has my life in the palm of His hand. It's just that ... when I see Elijah, I can't help but wonder what it would have been like to not see him now. When I see Isaac, I can't help but wonder What if Bri had not chosen us? What if we had not said yes? I know this is just fear. But I feel it.

I'm no longer on that cliff. I feel differently now. Talking to my husband does that for me. He gave me the facts. He encouraged me and reminded me and made me laugh and told me I'm irrational sometimes. He's right. And so I enter week 35 today ... the goal of week 34 now a memory with the knowledge that Abigail is healthy and safe and that she will be okay if she is born now. And she will be okay if she is born at 39 weeks. And I will be okay.

And God is in control.