Blessings in Disguise
Ropes of pain wrapped around my abdomen. Ever tightening, they underscored shock, fear, and disbelief. Ten weeks remained until I was due to deliver my second child
In the crisp September morning, children romped through golden piles of fall leaves and families gathered to celebrate Labor Day. The images of everyday life blurred together as my husband rushed me to the hospital. Crouched in a fetal position on the passenger seat of our truck, my arms protectively grasping my belly and my unborn child, I struggled to remain coherent as wave after wave of unbearable physical and emotional pain crashed over my body and soul.
Somehow I got into the emergency room and ended up on a gurney. I don’t remember the IV being inserted into my arm, or who prepped me for surgery, or how my husband got into a set of light green scrubs so quickly.
What I do remember is a grim, ashen-faced doctor I had never even seen before, saying the words, “Deliver the baby . . . emergency C-section.”
During our thirty-minute trip, I’d held onto hope that a premature delivery could be prevented. With that expectation dashed, my mind reeled. Over the next few decades, medical advances would increase survival rates for premature infants, but this was 1984—survival rates for 30-week-old preemies were agonizingly low.
“No!” I protested. “The baby won’t live!”
The doctor's words were precise and to the point. “If we don’t deliver you won’t live.”
I saw one very tiny foot as the doctor removed my very tiny daughter from my body and whisked her away.
“Where are they taking her?” I sobbed.
“To the NICU,” responded a nurse.
“The knick what?” My mind struggled to comprehend the term as I faded out of consciousness.
I woke up in a hospital bed in a small pink room next to the nurse’s station. Seated on the edge of a recliner next to the bed, my husband clasped my hand in his, his eyes red from grief and exhaustion. In the gauzy light of late evening, I saw the gravity of the situation etched in deep lines on his face that made him look much older than his twenty-four years. At my insistence he described all that had occurred in the hours since our daughter’s birth, then summed everything up with a percentage: seventy/thirty. The numbers were an estimation of her chances for survival.
“Which . . .” I whispered, barely daring to ask, “which is her chance of living?”
“Thirty,” my husband said soberly. “She has only a thirty percent chance.”
The information sent pinpricks of fear through my body.
At some point during my hastily performed C-section one of the nurses said I had toxemia. I’d heard the word before, about pregnant women who experience severe swelling in their legs and ankles; women who had high blood pressure and protein in their urine. I had faithfully attended all my prenatal appointments, the most recent only a few days before. My doctor indicated my blood pressure and urine were fine and I certainly didn’t have any swelling. In fact, since my initial first trimester bouts with morning sickness, I’d felt wonderful. A diagnosis of toxemia made no sense.
I soon learned that what I had—what still lingered in my body—was related to toxemia but was much worse. A variant of toxemia, or preeclampsia, my condition was called HELLP syndrome. The excruciating pain I’d experienced had been caused by the sudden swelling of my liver, which had nearly ruptured, and which was still dangerously swollen.
“You’re in critical condition,” explained the nurse who monitored my blood pressure and heart rate. “You’re lucky to be alive.”
Apprehension coursed through me. Only yesterday I’d been enjoying the company of my husband and five-year-old daughter on a weekend camping trip. We roasted hot dogs and talked about putting the finishing touches on the nursery. Less than twenty-four hours later life spiraled into uncertainty. I had gone to bed with what I thought was mild indigestion, then awoke to a nightmare.
Thoughts of my proximity to death threatened to throw me off balance. I fought for composure. Fragile time hung in the balance. As long as I was still able, I needed to make choices. My first daughter had been born full term and healthy and I was able to care for her from almost the moment of her birth. But what could I give a baby who might not live? Especially when I was so ill? My worst fear was that she would die before I could see her alone, before she knew how much she was loved. If only I could touch her, talk to her, I could convey my feelings. But it wasn’t possible.
“I want to see my baby,” I demanded.
The nurse tried to dissuade me. “You can’t. Your liver is still swollen and . . .”
“It doesn’t matter. She needs me.” I took hold of the nurse’s arm, pleading.
My request was refused.
I closed my eyes and prayed, begging for courage. I watched the clock in my room tick by minutes, then hours. Finally the doctor relented. My condition was upgraded from critical, and I would be allowed a few seconds to visit the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.
I soon found that the NICU is a place where life and death collide, with families hanging in the balance. Flat on my back on the gurney, I craned my neck to the left and right to get my bearings.
The first thing that struck me was the absence of the sound of crying babies. Instead, the whirs and blips of life-support machines, punctuated by warning beeps indicating low oxygen levels, filled my ears. Rows of plastic isolettes now served as mechanical wombs for tiny creatures that seemed imprisoned by masses of tubes and wires. Here and there a few distraught-looking parents garbed in various colors of scrubs stood a foot or so away from their premature or otherwise ailing offspring. Their faces were painted with the same distress that welled in my soul.
At one end of what seemed to be the center row of isolettes, the gurney came to a stop. Turning my head to the right, I got my first full look at my baby. My heart pounded out a pulse filled with grief and guilt.
With her birdlike legs drawn up slightly toward her chest, my three-pound three-ounce daughter would easily fit in her father’s hand. Like the other infants I’d glimpsed, she seemed to be more tubes and wires than baby. I choked back a sob as I realized her tiny ankles and wrists were held captive by Velcro restraints. Worse yet was the mass of plastic taped to her face that contained a ventilator tube. My baby couldn’t breathe on her own.
Almost as suddenly as I had arrived at my daughter's side, it was time to leave. I cried all the way back to my room as I pummeled the nurse with questions about my baby’s prognosis. Most of the questions had no answer. Would my daughter live? Why had I developed HELLP syndrome?
“Your condition likely could not have been predicted or prevented,” the nurse told me, insisting against my sobs. “It’s not your fault.”
I wasn’t convinced. Maybe the nurse just didn’t want to burden me with the truth—not in my condition.
Perhaps arguing with my mother had raised my blood pressure, or the sodium content in the tomato juice I drank was too high, or the camping trip too strenuous. Had my unintentional carelessness condemned my child?
All around me were the cries of healthy babies, families talking and laughing, and the voices of other mothers speaking in excited tones about their newborns. Maybe if I’d taken better care of myself, in ten weeks my baby would have been born healthy. Instead, she was on life support.
Somewhere near dawn, I dropped into fitful slumber that lasted only a few hours. When I awoke, it was with a breathless, heart-pounding start. Whatever caused my condition no longer mattered. What did matter was that my daughter had only a thirty percent chance of survival. At least she hadn’t died at birth. Even hours spent with her would be a blessing.
Later that day I graduated to a wheelchair and was once again admitted to the NICU. Reaching the isolette, my eyes took in all I hadn’t been able to see clearly during my prone-positioned visit the day before. An almost furry crop of fine hair covered my baby’s paper-thin skin and she wore a tiny diaper, the top of which reached her armpits.
I smiled through my tears at her determination as her arms and legs moved in opposition to their Velcro restraints. She struggled to keep her dark blue eyes open against a glare of overhead lighting. My husband helped me maneuver the wheelchair in close. He opened one of the round portals on the isolette. I reached in to touch one of our daughter's legs.
“I’m your mommy,” I began, endeavoring to keep my emotions under control. “And I love you!”
I remained in the NICU each day for as long as my own health would allow. I talked to my sweet little girl, stroked her arms, legs, and feet, put my forefinger in her tiny hands for her to grasp, and placed a sterilized brown teddy bear near her head. Over and over I wound the music box inside the bear and together my daughter and I listened to the lively notes of “Teddy Bear's Picnic.”
Slowly, seventy/thirty became fifty/fifty, and after several days the initial odds flip-flopped and her chance of survival became seventy percent. Though she would require months of specialized care, she would live.
At eight days old, her ventilator tube was removed and I held my child for the very first time. As I cradled her featherweight body in my arms, our eyes met, burning into my heart the knowledge that her life had a special purpose.
Unexpectedly, there came the understanding my life would be enhanced as my role of mother took on new dimensions. Raising this child would require great devotion and sacrifice. That Heavenly Father had entrusted me with her felt both humbling and ennobling.
Lori Nawyn is a mother of four and has two granddaughters. Following the example of her preemie daughter—who, despite challenges, excelled in life, served a mission, and married last summer—she looks for the silver lining in every cloud. Lori blogs at heartsandhands.blogspot.com.
