There’s a new Open Adoption Roundtable prompt up:
Write about open adoption and being scared.
I had been staying at my parent’s house during the 30-something weeks of my pregnancy. I was still on Level III bedrest and unable to work or do much more than shower. While my mom and I still had communication problems, we all felt safer when I was on The Farm where others would regularly come and go throughout the day.
The pains started before my mom got home from work that evening. Fall had already stolen our daylight hours and darkness fell quickly as I tried to find a comfortable place in my bed. I knew something was wrong, but having no childbirth education and no prior experience, I wasn’t aware that I was having contractions. Not Braxton Hicks contractions: full blown contractions. I thought relaxing in the bathtub would make me feel better.
It made the contractions worse.
When my mom got home, my dad let her know that I was upstairs and was in pain. I heard her footsteps come quickly up the stairs, down the hall and into the bathroom. She found me holding my tight, rockhard belly, writhing in pain in the bathtub.
“You’re in labor.”
“No. I’m just in pain.”
I had a difficult time determining the constant pain I was in due to my right kidney from the pain of labor. The reality was that pain was a part of my morning, my midday, my night, my middle of the night. From 18 weeks on, I was in some sort of pain all day, everyday. Never having experienced contractions on top of that pain, I didn’t even realize that I was having contractions. I didn’t know enough that the hard tightening of my abdomen, the doubling-over pain, the inability to catch my breath meant contractions. I was in labor, and I didn’t even know.
My mom got me out of the tub, got me dressed. My dad drove, my mom sat in the passenger seat and I sat in the back, hanging on to the seat and breathing like they teach you in the movies. Hee-hee-hoo. Hee-hee-hoo. It did not make the pain go away. My dad put on the four way flashers and passed a cop going well over the speed limit to get me to the hospital; we were not pulled over. Something went right.
I have no memory of arriving at the hospital or being wheeled to labor and delivery which was in the bowels of the hospital. I have vague recollections of the flurry of activity around me, but I was sweating and in pain and confused. And scared. I fell back on my gurney and either prayed or cursed or something in between, “Let my baby be okay.”
The doctors and nurses tried everything they knew to do to stop my contractions — which were off the charts — to no avail. The terbutaline didn’t work. The mag drip, which only made me sweat more, didn’t even begin to stop the contractions. My hospital was a small, mostly rural county hospital. There was no NICU. They had no nephrologist to address the fact that my kidney was not working. I was beyond their ability to help.
Word began to buzz that I would need to be transferred. The mag drip made it hard to pay attention; my skin felt like it was crawling, I was hot but I was cold, and the contractions would not stop. The pain ripped through me in waves. They started in my back, moved forward to my front and then managed to go from the center of my being to my head and my toes. Around to the front, up and down. Around to the front, up and down. Over and over.
As the doctors and nurses ran back and forth, the look of panic evident on their faces, I did the only thing I could do: lie still. The noise in the room faded in and out as I was left to think about the worst case scenario: I didn’t know if I would live. If I didn’t live and the Munchkin did, what would become of her? Who would legally be in charge of the choices involving her future? Would it be her biological father? Would it be my parents? I had enough sense to know that Dee and her future adoptive dad didn’t have any legal rights, but I felt a sense of loss knowing that they probably wouldn’t be notified for quite some time if I died. I wondered if a legal battle would then commence and between whom? My parents and the biological father? My parents and Dee? Dee and the biological father? Everyone all at once? I floated in between these thoughts and wondering what would cause my skin to stop crawling so badly.
Eventually the decision was official: I was being transferred to Pittsburgh. My parents were not allowed to ride with me in the ambulance. They were also informed that the medics would be driving hot — lights and sirens — and they were not advised to follow at the same rate of speed. I was being sent alone in a speeding ambulance, not knowing if I was going to survive the night. This was it, I figured.
I assume I said goodbye to my parents. I somehow made it into the ambulance, because I have vague recollections of hearing sirens, of jostling about, of a medic talking to me and asking me questions along with a nurse from my hospital. I don’t know if I answered them. I just remember being so scared, thinking we were going to fast and that if my kidney didn’t kill me, surely an accident on the highway would do me in.
I don’t remember arriving at the hospital in Pittsburgh. Things were touch and go for a bit, is what I’m told. I only remember waking up sometime in the middle of the very dark night to find my dad watching an episode of Scooby Doo; my skin was still actively crawling as I was still on the mag drip. I was sure that something had happened and I was in hell.
Eventually he turned off the TV, and I stared at the ceiling of the hospital room. I prayed not for myself, but for my Munchkin. I was so scared. More scared than when the pregnancy test showed positive. More scared than when I drove back to Pennsylvania, leaving her biological father behind. More scared than when I told my parents. More scared than when I woke from surgery at 18 weeks to be told I was a high risk pregnancy. More scared than when I first contacted the non-agency. And, in comparison with what was to come, more scared than the first visit or when Dee and Munchkin’s adoptive dad divorced. Not more scared than when Munchkin has had some health issues, because that’s where my fear lied: in her well-being. I needed — desperately — for her to be okay. I would have — no doubt — given my life to bring my daughter into this world, to assure that she was going to be well cared for, to give her the world.
Eventually daylight crept into the hospital room. Nurses and doctors began calmly entering and exiting the room. My skin stopped crawling and the contractions slowly began to calm down. I had moments of panic when the NICU doctor came to explain what chances at 31-weeker would have in this world, but as the staff got my contractions under control and gave me a prescription for terbutaline to take on a daily basis, I put my faith in medicine that my daughter would be okay.
Four days later, I left the hospital, sore and even more swollen than before having not had my kidney function in five days. I prayed once more to make it to the coveted 37 weeks as I left Pittsburgh and headed back to The Farm. The fear didn’t leave me until she arrived in this world, and, quite honestly, the fear stays with me to this day. I need for my daughter to be safe, healthy and okay. I almost gave my life for it multiple times during that pregnancy and I would give my life for it now — just the same as I did with and feel about my sons.
I am so thankful she was okay through the darkest night of my fear and I can only pray that she remains okay for years to come.
My name is Jenna. I blog here, 
