It's Not Me, It's You: Subjective Recollections From a Terminally Optomistic, Chronically Sarcastic and Occasionally Inebriated Woman (17 page)

November 26, 2007

B
esides the fact that I almost had a stroke when I found out I was pregnant with twins, the first half of my most recent and final pregnancy was fairly uneventful except for an unstoppable craving for bananas—I was buying bananas like a monkey with an allowance. “You must just need the potassium,” a well-meaning nonparent friend once said as I hoovered my eighth banana of the morning.

“How much potassium is too much?” I asked. “Can you OD on potassium?”

“I don’t think so. I once ate ten bananas when I was really, really high because I heard it helps you come down,” my friend told me. Clearly, this was a question for someone with a medical degree, not just a girl with a prescription for medical marijuana due to cramps.

About twenty-eight weeks into my pregnancy, I went to my high-risk doctor for my latest of countless ultrasounds—which, by the way, I never took home in the form of a DVD, much to the surprise of the technicians. What was I going to do with it? Pull it out at parties and say, “Gather ’round, folks, time to watch some weird gray forms floating around on the screen that could be
Braveheart
or midget porn for all you can actually make out. But this ultrasound was different. First, the technician checked all the major anatomy, while I lie there asking what I thought were pertinent questions, such as, “Do you see a modeling career in their future? And if so, since they’re not identical is there one whose career we should be focused on more?” But the tech had some disturbing news. One of the girls was quite a bit smaller than the other one. Like half the size. She couldn’t discuss with me what that meant, so I had to lie there on the table and wait for the doctor to come in and explain what was going on. I really wish I hadn’t picked that appointment to tell Jon I didn’t need an escort.

Leaving me alone in a room with nothing but my thoughts is never a great idea—which is one of the many reasons I’m vehemently opposed to meditating—but it’s an especially bad idea when I’ve been without Zoloft or alcohol in my system for almost seven months. The doctor waltzed in a solid forty-five minutes later in a great mood. I could swear he was whistling “Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah” and there may have been an animated bird singing on his shoulder. I was in a full-blown panic attack already at that point. “Why, hellooooo,” Uncle Remus greeted me.

“So one of my babies is only a pound,” I said, failing to keep the rising panic out of my voice. “That sounds bad.”

At this point, despite my fear that parenting twins would loosen my already tenuous grip on sanity, I had grown quite attached to both my unborn daughters and the idea that something could be wrong was terrifying.

“Hey, now. Calm down there. There’s really no way to know what this means, if anything, right now. It just depends on how they continue to grow.”

“But at my stage of pregnancy it’s not normal for one of the babies to be this little, right?”

“Perhaps Baby B is going to be naturally small.” You have to respect doctors for their vagueness. I mean, sure, part of it is simply a God-given gift but it has to be exercised, like a muscle. The word “absolutely” has no place in a doctor’s vocabulary. The only words that are used with any frequency are “perhaps,” “possibly,” “potentially,” “depends,” and “what kind of insurance do you have?”

I was given the advice to lie on my side for four hours a day to increase the flow of oxygen to Baby B, and the doctor would see me again in three weeks.
Three weeks?
That seemed way too long to wait if something was wrong. “And I should probably eat a lot more too, right?” I asked, hoping against hope that corned beef on rye was going to be part of my prescription.

“No. This has nothing to do with what you’re eating or not eating. Your weight gain is fine.” I did detect a slight “you’re fat” vibe in his “your weight is fine” but I decided
to be the bigger person and ignore it. I also decided to eat
a lot
more just to err on the safe side—McDonald’s chocolate shakes made perfect sense since I heard somewhere that that’s what Renée Zellweger did to gain weight to play Bridget Jones. If that was good enough for her, it would be fantastic for Baby B, whom I named Sadie. Since Jon and I had already chosen the name for one of the girls, I decided to give it to Baby B because I found out Sadie means “mercy” in Spanish. Turns out Sadie also means “princess” in Hebrew and happens to be a very popular name for a cat, but I chose to focus on the “mercy” part.

Everyone loves an obviously pregnant woman, so during those next three weeks it was a common occurrence for women to stop me on the street or in the grocery store or in the ladies’ room and comment on my belly. “How far along are you?” they’d ask. To which I loved just to stare at them quizzically and say, “Huh? What do you mean?” Ah, the looks on their faces would be absolutely precious. But then if they hadn’t run off, I’d answer.

“About seven months,” I’d say and attempt to continue walking or shopping or peeing.

“Seven months?” they’d repeat incredulously.

“With twins,” I’d say. The women’s faces would inevitably go from admiring to worrying.

“You can’t be having twins. You’re way too small. Are you sure? You barely look pregnant.” Luckily, most people who stop you on the street to comment on your pregnancy are licensed obstetricians, so they definitely know what they’re
talking about, which is comforting because otherwise a comment like that could make you feel
bad.

“Nothing to worry about. I’m smoking a few packs a day to try to keep ’em slim,” I’d say deadpan.

After a few encounters like that, I just stopped telling anyone I was having twins. It was too depressing.

Twenty-one days later, I was back in Uncle Remus’s office, this time with Jon by my side to help fend off any wayward animated critters. I was feeling fairly hopeful that all the excess calories I’d been sucking down had gone straight to Sadie’s hips, but, no, this was not the case. In fact, she’d only gained a couple of ounces and was still under two pounds. Baby A had gained a pound and I had put on roughly twenty pounds. If Uncle Remus tried to put a good spin on this, I swear I was ready to shoot the bluebird right off of his shoulder. Thankfully much less cheery, the doctor went to discuss his findings with my obstetrician over the phone while my husband and I sat and waited…and waited…and waited.

When he finally returned, the news wasn’t good. “Sadie’s placenta is too small, and she’s not thriving in your uterus. It’s not likely she’ll grow any more, but we’re going to try to keep you pregnant to buy Baby A more time in the womb.” I was to go straight to the hospital to be given steroid shots to help the babies’ lungs develop and to be monitored with the idea that I may have to deliver the babies in the next forty-eight hours. My head was spinning. But even if Sadie stayed stable, I would deliver the babies in two weeks. That’s when it hit me that there was no way I would be taking my babies home with
me when I left the hospital because in the best-case scenario, my twins would be six weeks premature.

My life was
so
not going as planned.

As usual, I kept my dignity intact for a solid three seconds and then sobbed like a twelve-year-old at a Jonas Brothers concert.

My new digs at the hospital weren’t so bad. I wasn’t in labor, which meant I wasn’t in pain or on any kind of medication that can make you shake or feel muddled, so I spent my time trying to come up with a second baby moniker. I Googled baby names and emailed them to my husband, who emailed right back, “I am not naming my child Delancey. What about Katherine?” Clearly one of us was drinking and it wasn’t me.

A couple of days into my stay, I developed a massive headache. I couldn’t figure out what was going on, so after a few Tylenol and no relief, the nurse offered to get me a cup of coffee to see if a little caffeine would help. “Oh, thanks so much, but I already had a cup this morning with breakfast and I only want to drink one cup a day,” I said, startling myself with my responsible attitude.

“Um, that’s decaf they bring from the cafeteria, hon,” the nurse said.

“Yeah, no, I
specifically
marked that I wanted regular coffee on my menu. They give you a choice of regular or decaf and I mark regular every day.”

“I’m sure you do mark off the ‘regular’ box, but the cafeteria does not deliver caffeinated coffee to the pregnancy
unit no matter what you ask for,” the nurse said gently.
Were these people trying to kill me? I couldn’t believe I fell right into their trap. What would be next? Would the morphine drip post-C-section be switched with Folgers to see if I noticed?
I would have to be on guard from now on. Caffeine-withdrawal headaches are a pretty nasty breed. “But I will sneak you some from the nurses’ station,” she added kindly. I instantly put her in my will.

The worst part of being in the hospital was not the boredom, the food, or even the coffee prohibition—it was being away from my almost three-year-old daughter, Elby. My heart ached for her all day every day. I’d never been away from her for more than one night at a time, and I’d never missed a day of taking her to preschool or picking her up in the short time since she’d started attending.

My husband would bring her to see me every day, and every day I’d get up, get dressed, and try to pretend everything was normal so that she wouldn’t be frightened by all the monitors and wires. But each time she entered the door to my hospital room, she was scared. Sometimes she would give me a hug but then barely look at me. She asked her dad questions incessantly as if I wasn’t there: “What’s wrong with my mommy?” “Why isn’t she coming home with us?” “Where are the Sun Chips?” My daughter became obsessed with Sun Chips, which either means she was hyperfocusing on something tangible to help her cope with the fear and confusion of a situation she didn’t have the capacity to fully comprehend
or
she just really,
really
enjoyed the cheddary
whole grainy goodness of a Sun Chip. Either way, totally understandable, but no matter, it broke my heart. I’d put on my bravest face when it was time for her to go and then I’d cry and start counting down the minutes until I could have my Ambien, the only recreational drug they give to pregnant ladies.

Amazingly, during the days and nights I endured mostly alone in my room, I spent very little time trying to imagine what it would be like to have a two-pound baby. I was worried—but my worry still didn’t have a concrete base. It was like worrying about an alien invasion; it felt scary but distant, removed, shapeless. And I had no proof that Sadie was in fact two pounds; maybe she’d pop out and be five pounds—surprising the hell out of everyone. I’d heard ultrasound measurements could be off anyway. Maybe not by three pounds but, hey, if
The View
’s Sherri Shepherd could believe the earth is flat, I could believe my baby might be huge.

“This is Doctor Banks. He’s one of the heads of our neonatal intensive care unit,” a nurse announced to me one afternoon as she brought in a man dressed in a white coat over a pair of Dockers. He had oversize glasses and very sensitive eyes like a golden retriever, and I liked him immediately. I did want to get him fitted with some hipper frames, but I figured that could wait until after the babies were born.

“So, do you have any questions about our unit?” he asked, taking a seat in the one chair in the room and leaning forward. I had no idea what to ask. I’d never even seen the inside of a NICU.

“Um, well, if my baby only weighs two pounds, and that’s a big
if,
because I’ve been eating dessert here with every meal, even the Jell-O. But if she does, how long do you think she’ll have to be here?”

“I can’t say for sure, but I’d expect them both to be here until their due date.”

“Mmhmmm, that’s a long time.” Those sensitive eyes were not helping me keep it together. I stared at the television, which was showing a marathon of
Project Runway
, with the sound off. I noticed how the TV just hung there from the wall with just those small metal brackets to support it. It seemed so precarious. “And, um, a baby that’s…um, really small…” I swallowed hard. “Is she going to be okay?”

“Yes. She’s going to be fine. This is one of the best NICUs in the country. We’re not a teaching hospital.”

“Okay. Good.” This was actually a huge relief because I had imagined an ugly scenario with clumsy
Grey’s Anatomy
interns shoving each other out of the way in their overexcitement to learn the correct placement of an IV in a microscopic vein.

“Your babies will be in good hands. Not only that, but babies who are stressed in utero are better prepared for life outside of the womb. The stress hormones help their lungs develop faster.” And then I got a tour of the NICU, where I got to see my first two-pound baby. And then it all became very real.

About ten days into my hospital stay, it was determined that because Sadie had remained stable, I would be allowed to
go home for Thanksgiving, which was in two days, provided I came back the day afterward to be checked and then again on Monday, and if all was still okay I’d be scheduled for a C-section the following Thursday, right at my thirty-four-week mark. I was feeling upbeat. I packed my bags, watched one more episode of
Project Runway
, which I was now addicted to, and even passed on my evening Ambien. But then I thought better of it and took it anyway.

On Thanksgiving, my brother, Michael, my sister-in-law, Racquel, and my husband and I celebrated my homecoming by cooking a huge turkey with all the trimmings, making butternut squash soup from scratch and, naturally, my famous candied pecan pie. Okay, we ordered the entire meal precooked from the supermarket, but it was still incredible to eat food that didn’t get delivered on a plastic tray with a warm diet soda by a surly hospital worker.

That night I read my daughter as many stories as she’d allow me to.

“Mommy, no more hos-pit-able, right? Are you all done?” Elby asked, in the middle of our third reading of
Froggy Takes a Bath.

“Almost, baby. I have to go one more time but only for a couple of days when they take the babies out. Then I’ll be home and I don’t have to go anymore.”