The Hospital » The Chronicles of Munchkin Land

More Panic

Anxiety, NaBloPoMo, Pregnancy, The Hospital 6 Responses »

Nov 112007

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.

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

Adoption, in General, Firstmotherhood, Holidays, Lyrics, NaBloPoMo, The Hospital 10 Responses »

Nov 012007

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.