In fact, the smell of Snickers chocolate makes me gag.

Also, if we’re totally honest, I don’t even really like chocolate, but that’s not what this post is about. This post is about Snickers, pregnancy cravings and memories of an October eight years ago.

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Due to my very complicated pregnancy and the fact that I was always in pain, I wasn’t very hungry during my pregnancy. I gained a total of 19 pounds; two surgeries and chronic pain will do that to you. I was all baby at the end.

And maybe a little bit of Snickers.

You see, I didn’t always hate Snickers. I still didn’t like or love chocolate, but my one and only pregnancy craving while I was pregnant with the Munchkin just so happened to be Snickers bars. It made me laugh and I felt that I could truly “blame” the Munchkin for this particular craving as I didn’t even really like chocolate. Dee would regularly bring me a fun size bag of bars, and I would regularly consume them. It pays to be very pregnant during Halloween candy time.

Time passed and my daughter was born.

Halloween rolled around the next year and we bought some candy to hand out to trick-or-treaters. Of course, I bought some Snickers because I thought it was the one chocolate candy that I truly loved. I opened a fun size bar, brought it to my mouth and literally gagged.

The smell was sickening.

I wondered if I had a cold or something; maybe my nose wasn’t working right. I shrugged off the sickeningly sweet smell and took a bite anyway. I spit it out. It tasted disgusting.

I’ve tried a few times over the years and always come upon the same result: stomach-rolling revolt.

I don’t know if it’s because I “overdosed” on Snickers while pregnant with the Munchkin or if there is some sort of internal connection between the smell and taste of Snickers and the loss of my daughter. Or — let’s be honest — if the cheap, nasty chocolate that Snickers is made with is simply disgusting. The only chocolate that I can almost tolerate anymore is of the darker, more expensive variety. I say that not to be snooty, but to prove that I am human and I don’t hate chocolate. There’s something in commercial, Halloween candy chocolate, however, that just smells disgusting to me and tastes even worse.

Every year when Halloween rolls around, I still open a Snickers and give it a try. I am reminded of sitting in the recliner in my apartment with a bag of Snickers fun size bars on the end table. I remember wearing a pink shirt, non-maternity, and covering up under a big fluffy blanket. It was a sad, lonely time in that apartment, but there were moments of joy as I sat with my candy and my baby in my belly.

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.

Jessica Lost: A Story of Birth, Adoption & The Meaning of Motherhood

The book itself is written by a birth mother and her relinquished daughter. It’s a memoir told by each in alternating chapters. I’m excited to read it and… hesitant at the same time. While Bunny Crumpacker’s adoption may have been closed, I am learning that there are so many similarities in the emotions despite decades of time difference between eras.

Take for example, this paragraph at the end of the first chapter:

Not many people knew about the pregnancy then, or later, It was the great secret of my life. I can tell you how it began. I can tell you how it affected the rest of my life. I can tell you what kind of mother I turned out to be. But there is only a little I can tell you about the pregnancy, or the birth of that lost child. I kept my secret so successfully, for so long, that I no longer have it to share. For a long time, I no longer had it for myself to know.

My pregnancy and adoption have not been a secret nor were they ever. However, if I wouldn’t have actively blogged those pregnancy days, I wouldn’t remember anything. Even still, the stuff that I didn’t capture and forever save in the web is forever lost to me. Or, mostly lost to me. Moments in the hospital that I didn’t record and haven’t yet recorded still float back to me on silent days. A conversation had with yet another nasty nurse. The old lady in the lobby. My dad holding Munchkin. The phone conversation with my mom. The birth isn’t recorded anywhere in great detail and I have shoved so much of it somewhere silent and dark and untouchable.

When I read the words of other birth mothers who tell a similar story — purposefully avoiding memories of the hospital — those memories have a way of making their way to the front of my mind. And so, I’m kind of hesitant to keep reading. What memories will push through that I have kept hidden in the back of my mind for years? I don’t know, obviously.

But I’ll keep reading. I hope to have it read by the end of the week.

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That’s when I met my nurse.

None of her features stand out to me. I know she was wearing scrubs but I cannot recall the color. These may seem like trivial details to you but it’s evidence that I was distracted by the birthing process and what came out of her mouth. While I have no fashion sense myself, I notice colors, things that people wear and other supposedly trivial things. I inherited that from my grandmother. I remember what I wore on the first day of school every single year, picture days, random memories when someone says, “Do you remember that one time?” I reply, “Yeah, you were wearing that one shirt!” It’s just how my brain works. I remember nothing about this woman.

Except for her words and the way in which they were delivered.

It doesn’t seem that innocuous. Now. Years later, it seems trivial, like the missing details of the color of her scrubs or her hair. But it had such an affect on me at the time.

She came in the room to do some more nurse work and mentioned that she understood I was planning to place my baby for adoption. I stated that she was right. I was cautious in doing so. Mentioning adoption to various people over the course of my pregnancy had taught me that adoption was a volatile subject. Everyone had an opinion and absolutely no one had a problem hoisting those opinions and the weight of their personal baggage regarding that subject onto my already heavy shoulders. I remembering the inner cringe as I waited for this nurse’s opinion.

“I’m adopted. I love my adoptive parents more than anyone in the world. I don’t ever want to meet the woman who gave me away. You’re doing the right thing.”

I nodded.

And I shut down.

Her tone wasn’t loving. It was delivered in the short tone she used to bark most of her comments at me during her shift. I could tell, without a doubt, that she wanted as little to do with me as she wanted to do with her own birth mother. She placed us in the same category: unwanted, unworthy and undeserving of respect. I don’t think she ever once made eye contact with me though, after that point, I avoided looking up when she was in the room. Thankfully she was finished at seven o’clock that morning. Saved by the bell.

I was scared about my decision. At that point of carrying my daughter for 38 weeks and fighting since week 18 to keep her alive and well due to my kidney problems, I was as attached as I could possibly have been so someone I hadn’t quite met yet. I would have died if it meant that she would have been safe. And here was this woman nurse, piling her baggage on top of my fears, doubts and general misgivings.

We had been planning an open adoption. I had no desire for my daughter to ever not know who I was to her, that I had always loved her and always would. I was struggling enough with whether this was the right path to take. I felt alone and scared despite the presence of my mom, my best friend and eventually J and Dee in the room with me. I had been told nothing but glowing things about adoption from my facilitating agency. Now I doubted that I was supposed to have contact. And I felt judged by the nurse, as if I wasn’t good enough for my daughter to know at all. I began to question not whether or not I should place but if it was the right thing to stay in her life.

I still have flashes of anger that the nurse tainted my time in the hospital with her bit of overshare. Granted, there were worse moments of time in the hospital as the staff had no idea how to handle us or the concepts of open adoption. But this was the one that set the snowball of failure in motion. I hate that what she said still sticks in my mind to this day.  To a mother who is facing her biggest fear, the letting go of a child that she still has in her womb, the subtle coercive undertones of that statement all but did me in. Who was I to want to parent my child? Who was I to desire contact with her family? Who was I at all?

As I write all of this, I realize what I hate most about that whole situation is that I still carry some of those questions with me, all these many years later. Not only with regard to adoption and openness but with the parenting I do now. Who am I? Who am I to think that, with all of my faults, that I’m doing the Munchkin any good? Who am I to think that I’m doing right by these boys? Who am I at all? These doubts follow me in every aspect of my life, from writing to photography to keeping house to friendships. It’s not all of the nurse’s fault; many others voiced similar things throughout my pregnancy. Her words stick with me, however, as they were delivered at a traumatic moment in a sterilized environment. I can hear her voice bouncing off the walls and floor and echoing through my mind as I sat in bed, unaware I could walk and move and do whatever else I wanted during the laboring process… unaware that I could choose to do whatever I wanted with regard to parenting or placement. Not only did I feel trapped by my association with the facilitating agency, I felt that I had no other option.

Who was I?

I don’t know her name. I figure she is still working the OB floor at the hospital in which I delivered the most beautiful baby girl to grace this planet. I can only hope that even if she hasn’t found peace with her situation that she is, at the very least, refraining from leaving her issues at the bedside of mothers who are already scared and alone, whether they’re planning to parent or place. And I hope that someday I’m able to put these doubts of mine behind me.

Because I know who I am. Most days.

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This is another in my series of people who touched my adoption story that really had nothing to do with it but stick out so very vividly in my mind. The first was The Woman Upstairs.

She lived in the apartment above mine. She walked heavy and had an even heavier case of insomnia. Pregnant and on bed rest, unable to sleep at night myself, I’d hear her feet hit the floor at one o’clock in the morning. She’d stomp into the bathroom and run herself a hot bath. For awhile, the sounds would cease as she likely attempted to relax herself back to sleep. She’d stomp back to bed, waking me yet again. I’d roll to my other side, hand gently touching my belly as the Munchkin kicked me. My precious daughter was a night owl as well.

It was late in my pregnancy when we talked for the first time. I was visibly pregnant, though I was never very large due to the health issues I experienced. I was taking some clothes to the laundry room. She stopped me to ask some questions. I was already matched with Munchkin’s parents at that point, intent on placing my baby for adoption. I didn’t share that fact with the woman who lived upstairs. I knew her sleeping habits but not her last name. I didn’t know how she would feel about adoption, how she might react. I was on the defensive while pregnant, afraid of what people might say and how they might judge me. I felt judged enough, being single and pregnant. Giving away my baby was just more fuel for the judgmental fire of society. I answered her questions politely but with vague, open-ended answers. I felt like I was lying but I didn’t know this woman from Eve. I walked back downstairs, heart heavier than her late night footsteps on my ceiling.

The time came that Munchkin was born. I left the hospital without her, returning to my parents house to gather some things and head back to the apartment. Four days later, my father, grandfather and my (now) husband arrived to help me load my belongings into a U-Haul. The reasons for this quick move are not the point of this particular post.

It wasn’t yet snowing that day, the snow set to fall that evening as I made the trek to Ohio, but it was cold. As the adult males in my life trudged boxes and bags and furniture to the truck, their effort was visible in the white puff of visible air, every breath they exhaled hanging just above their heads. The woman upstairs came down to see what the fuss was about, making sure someone wasn’t stealing all of my stuff. I’ll be honest when I say that I don’t remember too much of what she asked me. I was likely still in some form of shock from the labor and delivery of my firstborn child just six days earlier. Combine that with the shock of grief and loss that comes from leaving the hospital alone and subsequently signing my name to a piece of paper that, basically, says that the labor and delivery never took place and, well, I’d venture to guess the details of the conversation were blurry for many a reason.

But I remember her speaking to my father, asking him questions that would be asked of any proud grandfather. I remember the look on his face, a deer caught in the headlights for a moment before he released eye contact, mumbled an answer and went back to the physical action of letting his daughter go just days after he let his first and only granddaughter go. I remember wanting to save him from the moment, to change the subject, to do just about anything to put a smile back on his face. I was silenced by my own deep sadness.

The woman went back into the building, walking heavily up the stairs. Long after I was gone that night, she probably woke up and stomped her way into the bathroom, her footsteps echoing through my empty, dark apartment. Little did she know that I would wake, two-and-a-half hours west of her, and shuffle into my new bathroom. I’d turn on the hot water and cry until the water ran cold. I’d shuffle back to my new bed and stare at the ceiling until the sun came up. I’d do this for weeks after my arrival in Ohio, my new fiance unaware as he slept like a rock. I’d think of the woman who lived upstairs. I’d wonder what her story was, why she couldn’t fall asleep. I’d pray it wasn’t because she had placed a baby for adoption, given away her only baby girl… like I did.

Why she crossed my mind today, I don’t know. I sometimes still shower in the middle of the night though the tears don’t come as often. The nights are the loneliest, I think, for anyone who has experienced any form of loss, no matter the amount of love still present in our lives. I hope the woman upstairs was able to find sleep eventually.

I hope we all do.

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Photo Credit: 2006 FireMom Photography.