14

Walking Down the Long Hallway

I went to visit my best friend in the hospital yesterday. She just gave birth to her first child; a beautiful, healthy baby boy. I was so excited that I was bursting inside. I had tried to visit on the day that he was actually born but he was born too late in the evening for visitors and, as such, I had to return home to take care of some business the following day. But I drove another two hours back to my parents just yesterday, dropped off the boys and headed to the hospital.

I first stopped at the store and picked up some presents. Why didn’t I already have them purchased? My best friend is a goofus face and didn’t find out the gender! So, I just started throwing things in my buggy. I wanted to buy one of everything for the new arrival. (And a few matching things for my youngest! Cute clothes for boys this season!)

Then I left the store for the Hospital.

And it hit me.

This was the hospital where I delivered the Munchkin. This was the hospital where said best friend stood by my side. And suddenly, I was awash with memories I haven’t had need nor desire to remember in almost five years. As I drove up the last hill to the hospital, I could barely breathe. And there it was. Nothing had changed but the name.

I parked. I realized as I walked into the hospital that I parked at the same angle from the front door as my Dad had the day that I let go of the Munchkin and walked, blinded by tears, out to his truck. As I began the walk down the very, very long hallway (as maternity is the farthest possible destination from the front door), I could see myself being wheeled in the opposite direction holding on to the Munchkin in her little white outfit. The nurse was talking. I felt numb but I kept walking towards the elevator.

And suddenly I was on the maternity floor. I could hear my heart beating. I walked past the nurses desk and remembered shuffling down the hall with my Mom on the one occasion that we walked to the nursery. I remember their pity-laden glances. I remember shooting daggers with my eyes at the one nurse who had been unkind. My slippers were pink and fuzzy. My slippers are always pink and fuzzy even though my new favorite color is green.

I had been hoping, the whole way down, that my best friend: a) wasn’t in the maternity room that I had been in and b) wasn’t on the same side of the hallway. I scored one point as she was two doors down from the room I had spent two days as someone’s mother but I lost in the end. Her room was on the same side of the hallway, and, to boot, it was set up in the same way. Bed on the left side of the room, chairs on the right side. The wallpaper was the same. The clock hung on the wall in the same place. The rocking chair was in the same place next to the bed. It was all so very, very strange.

Thankfully, I was able to concentrate on my best friend for awhile as she struggled with the help of the nurse to get the new baby to latch properly. I gave some helpful tips and helped adjust things as needed. I cleaned out some bottles after she pumped. I held the baby. We talked. She vented about some things as all mothers need to do after labor, delivery, hospital and family experiences. I oohed and ahhed over this new beautiful creature.

But, throughout the process, I kept making the mistake of sitting in the rocking chair next to the bed. Every time I did, all I could see was TheHusbandMan sitting in the same chair. I remember what he was wearing, head freshly shaven for an Army weekend which he had driven away from and had to return by morning. I can see him. So clearly. His heart just as broken as mine. The chair was like ice and fire at the same time. Every time I sat down, I felt physical pain. So very strange.

I didn’t stay too long. Anyone who has ever delivered a baby and then had to live in a small space for three days while people invade it and touch your child with grimy hands and ask uber-personal questions about your crotch and other parts knows when the welcome has worn out. As other family members showed up to visit the newly formed family, I hugged my best friend. I fought back tears for so many reasons.

I am so very happy for both her and her husband. They will be outstanding parents. She was born to be a mother. And watching her husband handle the baby like it was old hat was heart-warming; he’ll be a dad like my own husband, hands-on and loving with a touch of humor to boot. And tears for other reasons. It was so very strange to have roles reversed at that bed-side and situations totally changed and different. This was a joyous occasion as opposed to the one five years ago. My best friend was a mother and she got to keep her title but so very different was the hug goodbye five years ago. So very different.

As I left and walked down the hallway, instead of being wheeled out, I tried to leave the memories behind again. I tried to hang them on the coat rack near the front door. I tried to trap them in the front door. But as I headed towards my own truck, at the same angle from the front door as that walk years ago, they followed me. They’re haunting me today. And I don’t want to or need to deal with them right now. I need to be a mother to my children, a wife to my husband and a friend to my friend(s). I don’t need this. I don’t want this.

Who thinks that I can convince her to have future children at a different hospital? Or my sister-in-law-to-be to deliver future babies in Pittsburgh as opposed to that hospital? Or maybe I should just stay home.

I had no idea this would be such a challenge. I never have any idea what will smack me in the face, what will trigger me. I fly by the seat of my pants with this healing thing and sometimes I crash land in the trees, never fully making it to the ground, caught like a kite that got away from its owner’s hand on a windy day. I’m just trying to make my way through this messy journey of healing. Pardon me while I try to climb out of this tree. I didn’t know this would happen.

6

More Panic

This whole labor and delivery thing is different than all the prior ones. And I’m in a small state of panic.

When I birthed BigBrother, there was little else to worry about at the time. People came and visited. People brought flowers. My Husband only left my side once to run home and grab a few things that we had forgotten since I was sent straight from the doctor’s office to the hospital for delivery due to my health issues. It was a thousand times better than Munchkin’s delivery which involved minimal visitors, judgmental hospital staff, no flowers and, you know, that whole physical relinquishment part. BigBrother’s birth was actually quite wonderful in comparison.

But this time? I’ve got all this anxiety.

Even though BigBrother was my second birth and delivery experience, I didn’t have a child at home to worry about as well. If this new little guy decides to come during the week, we’re really pressed for what to do with his older brother. I mean, we have plans but they aren’t “optimal.” (Read: they’re not what I want.) In fact, one set of plans (as we have many) involves my Husband leaving me at the hospital, alone, at night while he goes home to be with our older son.

Pardon me while I totally freak out.

I’m not scared of alone time with the new baby. No, that’s not the issue. I don’t want to be alone in the hospital. When I was admitted for preterm labor at twenty-six weeks during this pregnancy, TheHusbandMan had to go home to stay with BigBrother during the overnight hours. If it wasn’t for the sleep medication, I wouldn’t have been able to stay. I had a panic attack as soon as they started talking about an overnight stay, knowing that my Husband wasn’t going to be able to stay with me.

It’s not specifically my Husband that I want with me. Okay, that sounds weird! I do want him with me. But quite frankly, if he can’t be there, I’ll take a friendly janitor, posing as someone who loves and cares about me. Because being alone in the hospital, in relation to pregnancy or the actual delivery of a child, is very triggering for me. Memories and bad feelings come swirling back. Being alone in the hospital for multiple surgeries during Munchkin’s pregnancy and after her delivery have left me absolutely petrified of being alone in similar but different circumstances.

Do you know how quiet but simultaneously un-quiet a hospital is at night? I do. And I don’t like it. I don’t like being left alone with thoughts and memories. I want my Husband to sleep, uncomfortably, on the couch/bed next to mine. I want visitors non-stop. I want my baby in my room at all times. I don’t want to face those demons that come out in the quiet-but-not-so-quiet midnight hours.

And so, I’ll just sit around and panic about this particular issue, knowing that it wouldn’t be an issue if this little guy would come out today (as tomorrow is Veteran’s Day). However, he seems to have calmed down the uterus shaking since yesterday. Interesting.

I swear I have song lyrics left. I just got overwhelmed with emotion.

10

It Really Was a Long December (+NaBloPoMo GO!)

Yes. I’m participating in NaBloPoMo on this blog, too. Theme over here? Lyrical snip-its from songs that make me think about our adoption or adoption in general along with explanations. For thirty days. There ya go. It’s all I got idea wise. There are quite a few songs that make me think about our specific adoption. There are others that, heard after or before the fact, also relate in some way. There are still others that speak solely to the loss or other emotions felt in adoption. And so, I’m going to hit on thirty of them. I know you’re excited. Let’s GO!

A Long December by Counting Crows.

Uh, yeah. This song was, prior to pregnancy and relinquishment, one of my favorites. It still ranks as a favorite but now it is smothered with emotion and sometimes I simply cannot listen to it. For those who don’t know, Munchkin was due on Christmas Eve. She was born eleven days early. It was a very, very long December. I had health issues with the pregnancy. The long process of birth. The hospital stay which felt like forever and nothing at the same time. Going home without a baby. The signing of the TPR, even though the first one was null and void due to an error on the(ir) attorney’s aprt. Packing up everything I owned. Moving to Ohio six days after delivering a baby, still with the stitches in my crotch. Christmas, without a baby to celebrate. And then, only then, did the month end.

Some lyrics for you.

The smell of hospitals in winter
and the feeling that it’s all a lot of oysters… but no pearls.

Have you smelled a hospital? In winter? It’s a lonely smell, even if you’re not lonely. Munchkin was born on a snowy night. Appropriate, as I’m a snow lover. The hospital in which I delivered places Mothers and babies on the bottom floor (a billion light years from the front door). I had the blinds cracked and watched the snow fall. Alone. As I wasn’t allowed to have my daughter that first night after she was born (in the afternoon). After everyone left, well, it was just me. And my tears. And the snow outside my window. It was a very lonely night.

Hospitals smell the same to me now. And especially heavy in winter. Which is unfortunate as I seem to deliver all of my babies in the late days of autumn or early days of winter. Walking into a hospital now, smelling the mixture of health and fear and death and cleanliness and germs… it sits so heavy on my soul. I get overwhelmed most every time I’m in a hospital. I try to avoid them. That’s hard when you’re pregnant and have complications, no?

I guess the winter makes you laugh a little slower,
makes you talk a little lower about the things you could not show her.

Ah. The second (and last) night in the hospital. I was allowed to keep my daughter for awhile after everyone went back to warm, cozy homes and hotel rooms (J and D). We sat. Sometimes silently. But often with me talking to her. I explained things as best I could even though they didn’t make the most sense, even to me as I was saying them. She didn’t seem to mind. She listened. She stared at me. Very hard. So serious was her expression. I cried. She didn’t. I tried to explain the “things I could not show her” and how her new parents would do a better job. She kept the same expression.

The snow was still laying outside.

If you think that I could be forgiven… I wish you would.

This line cuts through me. Deeply. Someday, I’m going to have to answer, to my daughter, for decisions made. Whether or not x-person or y-agency or z-societal-pressure made me feel unable to parent, I’m still going to have to own up to what was done. To my daughter. And accept whatever emotion she has at face value. And while I’ll always give her the space to feel however she wants, my heart longs to hear the words, “It’s okay. I forgive you.”

I wonder if I’ll ever forgive myself.

Yes, it was a long December that year. In fact, most Decembers have been rather long since that time. As I sit here listening to this song, I wonder, sadly, if December will ever be able to hold all the joy it used to hold. I mean, I got married in December in part because we’re winter people, in part because we wanted a red/green wedding, in part because that’s when everything was available and in part because I wanted some reason to celebrate in the month of December again. While our anniversary is always a nice day, the rest of the month is simply hard.

Will that end? I don’t think so. The hard parts have changed. For example, now it’s not so much just about the loss itself, the physical separation of mother and child. No. Now I get to watch BigBrother open presents on Christmas morning and I get to feel new pangs of loss. I don’t think this ends. I think it just changes.

I think it just changes.