The Best Day

When I am having trouble sleeping I lay in bed and go to my Happy Place. My Happy Place consists of thinking about a time that was special to me. It can be a very specific event, like my wedding day or it can just be something random like riding my bike through the streets of Amsterdam…it calms me to think of that time, or event, and just run a little movie through my head. Its like I am savoring it again…and again, and again. It is my Happy Place and going there is a nice way to calm down and sleep. One of my favorite happy places is November 28^th 2008. That is the day our twin boys David and Jonathan came out of my tummy to live with us…it was the best day ever. 

I went into labor on Thanksgiving day, it wasn’t a very productive day though…in the baby department that is…because the people at the big hospital told me to go home and take a sleeping pill. Or, to be correct…. the doctor on the phone…who didn’t want to come into the hospital on Thanksgiving day, told the people at the big hospital to give me a sleeping pill and send me home to sleep it off. But the boys could not be “slept off.”  On Friday (aka: the day AFTER Thanksgiving) we went back to the big hospital for another round. The good news was there was a different on call doctor and he actually came and looked at me, did an examination and decided it was time for the Beans to come out. They were called the Beans because at one time they were the size of lentil beans, and then kidney beans…etc. etc. At this point they were no longer the size of any bean…not any bean that I know of.

Scott and I were sitting in the big room with many beds, there are curtains pulled around each bed for privacy, and in each bed was a pregnant woman…waiting and hoping that they would be able to move on to the next stage and NOT be sent home with a sleeping pill.  I was quite sure that we would be sent home again, mainly because the nurse had told me that I was just in distress. I’m not sure what the difference between distress and labor is but I looked up the definition of distress and I can say it described me perfectly. I was very much in distress . (distress=extreme anxiety, sorrow or pain)  I was preparing myself to waddle back to the car and head home when Dr. Scarbourough came in. It only took him a couple of minutes to examine me and determine that it was time.  And there it was, I’d made it…I was going to leave the room of many pregnant women and become…no longer pregnant? A mom?  I was moving on.

My only experience with C-Sections was watching A Baby Story on the learning channel. Those women always had to wait…often for hours and hours. I just assumed that I would have the same. But before I knew it there was a flurry of activity, people coming into my little curtain world and giving me things to drink, giving me an IV, doing other unmentionable things. We were moving forward and we were moving forward fast.  Before I knew it it was time to go to the operating room, which by the way I had to walk to. This is where my happy place movie begins…

The doors to the OR opened and there they were. All the people.  The whole picture was bigger than I thought it would be and at the same time it was smaller than I though it would be. It was just a little room with a little bed for me and two smaller beds for the beans across the room…and it was filled with people who were there for us…and our lives would never be the same. The doors closed behind me and I started to cry. I’ve thought about that first moment a lot and wondered why it was so emotional for me. I think it was a combination of being on the brink of something so significant and, at the same time, of losing the beans…the excitement and the fear of what was to come….and then again maybe I was just scared that people were going to slice me open while I was lying there awake.

I managed to compose myself and waddle over to the table. Once again a flurry of activity, needles and tubes and it was all about me and getting everything ready. The anesthesiologist was behind me…but I didn’t call him that…he was my new best friend ready to pump into my blood stream  whatever I needed.  My new best friend was asking me if I could feel things below my waist…and I thought I couldn’t feel him pinch me…but what if I could feel him pinch me…I kind of could…and what if they were going to cut me open and I would feel it !!!???? But my new best buddy walked me through it and we decided I couldn’t feel anything…And then I heard someone say, “Does he know we are ready?” and then someone said, “Yes, there he is.” And there he was…the Doctor. And the curtain was up …and I think it was then that I started to shake…the beans were coming…and it was all happening so very fast. And then we were waiting for Scott and I was saying…”Don’t start until my husband gets here!!!”  or was it more like: DON’T START UNTIL MY HUSBAND GETS HERE!!! And someone went to go get Scott…of course he was late. J And then Scott was sitting next to me and it was time.  How did we get here, in an operating room, with my husband wearing surgical scrubs and me laying so vulnerable and someone  holding a knife to my tummy? (That’s another blog)

Then I heard the doctor say “There he is…he’s breech” and then he just kept saying, “That’s why we’re here…that’s why we’re here”  and I felt a tug and, strangely enough, I felt like someone  had reached in and grabbed my right collar bone and was trying to remove it…no problem, my new best buddy gave me something to fix that…and then there it was…there was a cry…it was David and he was here…and we were crying I think and what happened in those 2 minutes I don’t know for sure but then there was another cry and it was Jonathan and then I was without them. And as sad as it was to lose them…so it was happy to receive them. And someone brought David over and handed him to Scott and he held him up for me to see and…and then there was Jonathan too and it was all so wonderful and sweet. And then they left.  Scott accompanied  David and Jonathan to the nursery…my boys, they all went away. It was like the party moved to another location but I had to stay behind. But in a way, I didn’t mind…after all, I did need someone to put every thing  back together and sew up my tummy. 

And then I was in recovery with my own private nurse and I just had this feeling of accomplishment. I did it. I ran the race…I made it 37 weeks and I brought the beans home and they were beautiful, whole, and our family was complete.

And that’s the end of my happy place story. And yes there was more to that day, seeing them again, friends and family gathered ‘round, meeting David and Jonathan for the first time…I mean really meeting them, holding them, looking into their eyes, examining those little feet and hands that had kicked and grabbed me so many times…being able to eat a big meal without heart burn…there were many more moments that day but for some reason, that one moment of the boys entering this world…was the best day for me.