life
Friday, April 30, 2010
thursdays
thursdays used to be good days. it would be a preface to friday, a start of another weekend.
now i struggle to get through thursdays. it's as if it's the anniversary of musubi's life and death all in one day, and the unfairness of it all still takes my breath away. yesterday was a disaster. it was brian's mom's bday, so i went for a walk to CVS to pick up a card and some flowers for her at the market. the bday card was easy, and then i went to stare blankly at the wall of mother's day cards. i could feel my heart in my throat and forced my eyes to glaze past all the new mom, first mother's day cards. are love and pain always together?
i couldn't remember if i had locked the front door. i could barely remember if i stepped out of the house through the garage, or through the front door. i literally had zero memory of how i left the house, so i quite frantically left the market with flowers, another bag of doritos and milk and headed home. i hate milk. but i drink it now for musubi.
fortunately both the garage and front doors were closed. i picked up the mail and there were envelopes from metlife insurance and the state of ca. i remembered that i had to scan the insurance checks and email copies to HR. i went upstairs to scan the checks and became enraged at the scanner. i had 5 pieces to scan and the scanner failed to scan after 3 pieces were done. no matter how hard i slammed the printer shut, or how hard i pressed down on the buttons, nothing seemed to work. i called brian in panic and cried to him to come home. that was it. i was done for the day. life is much more difficult than scanning pieces of mail.
i stayed upstairs in bed for the rest of the night. brian's parents came over, and his dad made dinner. i never made it downstairs. i was too upset. i couldn't pretend to put on a brave face and wish her happy birthday. i'm selfishly incapable of celebrating anything right now. i signed the card, the flowers were left downstairs on the kitchen table, and i wept silently as brian fell asleep in my lap.
there are so many thursdays to come. what am i going to do?
staying in bed
i woke up again at 4:00am. i didn't need to look at the time. i knew what time it was. i had brian set my alarm for 9am to let the contractor in, and i went back to sleep. i woke up again around 11:30 and stayed in bed for a few more hours. i ordered a few books online about grief and loss. seems appropriate.
brian just got home. he just told me he dropped off the paperwork at the mortuary, and they will be picking musubi up on monday and we'll be able to pick him up on thursday. he said he was sad on the way home because he was thinking about how cute he was.... we'll be taking musubi to carmel for mother's day. i'm going back to bed now.
Thursday, April 29, 2010
aplacetoremember.com
i came across this poem today:
A Mother's Prayer/ Affirmation After Miscarriage
In this time of loss I call upon my spirit within to guide me to my strength so that I may find peace and completion.
I will use this strength to demand of myself and others my need to grieve completely, for this will be my first step to healing.
During my time of grief I will seek guidance not only from my inner spirit but from loving persons who may offer wisdom and comfort.
I need to understand that the soul as well as the physical body needs healing and to pay attention to this. I will learn to accept that the soul may never heal completely.
I will learn to live not in fear and once again see beauty in my world and purpose in my existence.
In spite of my new knowledge that things happen that cannot be controlled, I must call upon the places within me that tell me I do have control over much of my life and use this control to aid my healing.
Let me recognize the gift in my ability to conceive and carry life however briefly.
Let me take joy in my ability to love so deeply and desire to nurture a soul unbeknownst to me.
Let me find healing in the belief that this soul knew my love for it and that that love helped it to pass to another place.
Let me honor this short life not only with my love but in finding meaning in its existence.
Let me recognize this meaning in not only my ability to survive, but in my fullest appreciation of all the moments motherhood will bring me, along with my deeper compassion and sisterhood to other women who've experienced loss.
Let a part of this soul be reflected in the spirit of my future children, born or adopted, so that I may know it through them.
I will listen to and trust the place in my deepest heart that tells me I will once again be reunited with this soul and will fulfill the need to hold it in my arms.
I will help myself to feel comfort in the knowledge that there is a star in heaven that belongs to me.
by Stacey Dinner-Levin. posted 2/12/2010
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
visitors
i didn't realize the contractor had started on musubi's room until weeks after i've been home from the hospital. in my mindless effort to organize, i wanted to put some books away and had to store some things in the attic, so i forced myself to open the door to musubi's room. you could smell the new furniture smell in the room, and his boxes were on the bookshelf. the contractor had stripped away the baseboards and there were pencil markings all over the 4 walls. things were left unfinished and that wasn't ok. musubi should have the room that we had planned for him. it still should be the best room in the house.
the contractor was supposed to come yesterday, but he had a family emergency. i had asked a friend to come by to get her advice on the molding and the spacing with the battens and to act as a translator for me and the contractor and brian's dad. she ended up staying for a bit and like a backed up sewage clog, i overflowed with dark, murky emotions.
she gave me some good advice for the room, on choosing a focal wall to start with, and when she left i thought we had it all figured out, but when i tried drawing it out, i was off again by 2.5 inches. i should know better than to think that i had it all figured out.
it's as if my brain has stopped working and all i'm capable of is emoting whatever shade of sadness i feel at the time. 4 walls, 1 window, 1 door, 1 closet, a batten width and a panel width should not be so difficult to figure out. it's a basic math equation, yet adjusting both the panel and batten widths by 1/10th of an inch fluctuations and determining symmetrical corners proved to be more advanced than my algebraic mind could decode at the time.
i couldn't sleep again last night and finally fell asleep to brian telling me stories about his granny. it's important for me to know what his granny was like, since she's taking care of musubi in heaven. i woke up again at 4am. i thought i heard brian sobbing in bed--sometimes i feel haunted by his pain. when i lie in bed in silence, i think of how quiet musubi was in the NICU. the NICU is filled with different tenors of beeping from various monitoring machines, doctors, and other neonatal sounds, but never a sound from musubi, and when we said goodbye, he was so still, peaceful and quiet.
i woke up and checked my phone. i had a text from brian's dad stating that he and the contractor were coming by in the morning. i wasn't ready.
not ready
i wasn't ready with the measurements. i wasn't ready to deal with people from "the outside" yet, but they were on their way. i heard brian's dad downstairs before i even had time to register what choices i had in this situation. but i needed to be strong. i wanted musubi's room to be done. i pulled up excel on the laptop and started waging battles with the calculations again to determine the final measurements for the room and tried to focus on the task at hand. i used to find comfort in numbers, but now most of my sources of comfort are dead in the past.
i moved musubi's belongings from the hospital to our room, scared that they would get damaged or dusty in his room. again, my brain doesn't seem to process anything anymore. when the contractor speaks to me, i hear sounds and don't comprehend a thing. i hear him ask questions when i detect a rise in inflection in his voice, and that's when i try so hard to concentrate on what he's saying, but i can never respond in that moment, incapable of having a conversation. i say that i'll get back to him in a few minutes and go downstairs in the kitchen to think things through. i call brian, in an attempt to pass the thinking onto to him, but he is never able to pick up his cell phone, unless i call the office and request to speak to him directly. and so i sit in the kitchen with my hands massaging my temples going back and forth on the dimensions of the top rail, and if i should move the outlet on the wall.
another friend came by today. in the midst of the contractor and the cleaning woman who was supposed to come today, i think i needed to get out of the house. fortunately brian's dad was able to come back and watch the house when we left to go to a yoga class in palo alto. between employees embezzling money from the practice and someone stealing our trash and trashcans, i just don't trust people anymore. the most important thing i had to do today was wrap the pillow that encases musubi's blue cap in the cashmere blanket from our bed to protect it from the cleaning woman coming by.
peripheral living
everything i do seems to be wrapped up in sadness. the sleeves of my sweatshirt were tear soaked by the end of yoga. i am struggling to do normal things and redefine what my new normal means to me. i screwed up the dates of the neonatal death support group, so brian i drove up to san mateo to attend our first support meeting which didn't exist and on our way back, i felt that i was letting life pass by like the scenery through a car window that flashes by in your peripheral vision. it's as if the grief consumes you, and life barely happens at the borders of your being. i eat but i don't really taste anything. the tv is on and i watch it in apathy. i sign forms to allow for the funeral home to take musubi's body from the hospital for cremation and i am consumed.
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
my mom is gone
brian and i took my mom to the airport last night. i can't remember the last time i spent this much time with her. maybe some time in college. brian was sad to see her go. i think he's concerned about me being by myself. so was i, but in some ways it's nice to be by myself without the pressure of being "ok" with my mom around.
this weekend was very much touch and go. with family around, i try to rouse myself out of my catatonic state. sofia innocently came by my chair pointed to my slumped stomach on friday and asked if there was a baby in there. i couldn't look at her, but i shook my head no. she then asked if the baby died. i nodded. that was as much conversation as i could handle.
sat night was difficult. i'm not sure when i fell asleep but half the tissue box was on the floor and i was partially upright in our bed. i felt like i took a huge leap back. over the past few weeks, i had unsubscribed from all the pregnancy newsletters, we had canceled our car and deleted our old hopes and dreams.
Friday, April 23, 2010
the outside
i was able to go outside yesterday. my mom and i walked to safeway so that i could buy some doritos for brian = they are his favorite. it felt odd to re-engage with "the outside". i feel different because i am different.
it's 10:13am on friday. i know days but i don't know dates. i know days because it's always a countdown to when brian can be home for consecutive days on the weekends. 7 more hours until the weekend can start with brian.
it's 12:30pm. just came back from the outside. went for a walk with my mom to sharon park. what a horrible idea. yesterday it was difficult to pass by 2 schools and today we passed by a school but then as we approached the park, i could hear tons of children, but i couldn't see them. i thought i was going crazy. my mom asked if there was a school nearby and I didn't know. within minutes the parking lot was full of parents bringing their kids to the park. it was too much.
the first weekend
being at home was like being in the hospital again, with all the same visitors. juice, zach, sam, brian's parents, my parents, belinda and ian. the girls were at blythe's appt with ian's mom. it was a different level of emotional and physical discomfort, a different level of confinement. brian briefly left the house to go with his family to pick out a cherry tree to plant for musubi in our backyard. it's a beautiful tree that we wanted to be visible from most rooms, delicate and resilient in tumultuous weather, just like musubi.
i guess i should be grateful that baseball season started that weekend. it gave something for everyone to do. the golf masters was on TV, the giant's season opener was on, and there was plenty of sports entertainment to keep others engaged. meanwhile i was trying my best to disengage from my morbid reality.
our families tried to ease the pain through food. zach baked for us: apple pie, banana bread, & chocolate cake. brian's dad was busy in the kitchen making clam dip, cooking roast pork, and my mom was making all the nutrient rich foods from her chinese arsenal of postpartum recipes. there was no comfort in food, but i needed my strength. brian was going to work on monday to deal with all the practice drama, and i needed to be stronger than i've ever been.
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
let the self-loathing begin
there are tissues on the floor and tangled in our bed sheets when i wake up in the morning. the crumpled tissues look as sad and defeated as i feel. i'm certain that even when we sleep, we wear expressions of sadness that last and don't change as we awake.
after we put up a brave front downstairs around my mom, we go upstairs and settle into our bed, with musubi's tiny blue cap tucked away in the pillowcase snuggled in between us. we talk to each other, we whisper to musubi, and we cry. last night i told brian that i don't like myself very much. i don't want to concern him anymore than i already do, but i despise myself. it's a darkness so complete that i wish i were invisible to myself. it started back in the hospital, the day after our lives changed forever.
i needed brian so much, yet i physically couldn't face him. i couldn't face our families. i could barely face my doctors, even though i was desperate for explanations. i couldn't face myself. i was empty in so many ways. there was no more musubi.
i was broken.
i can't remember if it was the social worker or a nurse who dropped off 2 paper-wrapped boxes in our room. they held precious mementos. with trembling hands we unwrapped pictures of musubi, newborn blanket and cap from the pictures, a fragile lock of black hair in a small bag with a blue ribbon, a card signed from the doctors and nurses in the NICU, a small note card with his time of birth, weight, and size, and a piece white paper with hand and footprints from musubi that i didn't dare touch since the entire top half of my body was wet with tears. the second box had white plaster imprints of musubi's hand and footprints for us to treasure. it was too much. how were we going to weather this storm?
juice flew in from new york as soon as he got an email from brian's mom. he wore a dark suit, as if he were already attending a funeral, and when he came in the room he was accompanied by the sobs of brian's dad. we sat together in sadness as brian and i tried to recount what had happened in between gasps of air and tears. i was told by doctors, nurses, and family alike that "it wasn't my fault". well is it no one's responsibility? our musubi was in my body, ultimately my responsibility and for some reason beyond anyone's control, he is no longer with us.
that is why i don't like myself very much.
a stream of visitors came through. zach and sam, my parents, belinda and ian. if their love and best wishes were enough to fix this, i would be fine. but i don't think i am. i was nearly fanatical when dr. druzin came by to check up on me. how soon would i get the placental results back. how will this impact future pregnancies. how soon could we start trying again. again, desperate to have the family that we were so close to having.
those who knew me would know that i would claim to be 20 months pregnant, with the longest human gestation period ever recorded, that i was concerned about being responsible for another human being, and that i was never really be ready to be a mom. that was then.
this is now. i am terrified about my fertile future. i can't believe that i am a high risk patient, requiring specialists, weekly progesterone shots, and perinatologist care for future pregnancies. but i don't care. whatever it takes. just tell me what to do and i'll do it. please, just tell me. i beg of you. someone tell me what to do, because nothing seems to make sense to me anymore.
final farewell
brian and i had another long night ahead of us in the hospital. i was free to go after my final course of antibiotics. we were hoping to leave first thing in the morning, but i had to be checked by the doctors on their morning rounds, and i couldn't leave without saying goodbye to musubi again. i wasn't happy with the pictures they took at the hospital, and i wanted more pictures of our brave and beautiful son. i wanted a family shot of us holding his hand. as painful as i knew it would be, i had to do it. at first, brian wasn't sure if he could go through it again. we had said our goodbyes the other night, and it was so hard on both of us, but i couldn't imagine us not doing it so we asked the nurses to bring him up to our room for a final farewell.
and so we waited. we packed up our things, ate what we could of the breakfast they brought, and waited. thomas's mom came by to express her condolences and to give me hugs for strength. but i was limp. unable to take someone's sympathy and convert it into strength. my dad showed up at the hospital. he said that when people ask him how many grand kids he has, he says 3: 2 grand daughters and 1 grandson. my dad is also a man of few words and i know he was there at the hospital worried about us and was trying to be helpful. we asked if he could go home and pick up our camera that was on the kitchen table. we wanted our own pictures of musubi. he came back and then was outside of our room. he helped to take things down to the car, so that we could leave right after we saw musubi. and so we waited, until the nurse brought musubi in.
he was in blankets, but this time he was cold. we took his hands into our own and tried to warm them with our love. he was our angel. the bruising looked like it had subsided a little. brian suggested we put him in the outfit that came in the box. we carefully dressed him and spoke to him as if he were still with us, as if he was just sleeping. he looked so peaceful. we were having problems with the camera lens and brian was getting really frustrated with the camera. i too was getting frustrated but i didn't want this moment to be filled with anger. i wanted it to be filled with peace and love. brian texted his brother to bring our camera bag which had another camera and other lenses and soon enough it was delivered to our room. nothing should detract us from this moment. nothing should matter more than our son. nothing ever could.
i had wiped a little residue off of musubi's brow, and we brought out his tiger lovie blanket for pictures. they were so sweet together, the 2 of them with their eyes clothes, snuggling together for comfort. it was raining that morning. i cradled musubi to the window so that he could be close the light, so that i could tell him about the rainbows i saw when i left the doctor's office when they confirmed my pregnancy. we told him how much he was loved, and how proud we were to be his parents. we took pictures of us holding his hand, we took pictures of his tiny little feet. we took pictures as if our lives depended on it. we took pictures as if his life depended on it, because it did. we took pictures of his perfect features and us kissing our son as we said our final parting words, and hugged him with all of our love.
we called for the nurse and my dad came in and asked if he could see musubi. in chinese, he addressed musubi by his chinese name, thanked him for taking care of me, for being so brave and for a peaceful journey to heaven.
my dad went to get the car, i was wheeled out by a nurse in a wheelchair and i was trying to numb myself from the hospital sounds of babies crying, new dads running into the hospital, new parents getting their infant carriers ready for their new car seats....
and then i was home.
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
not happy
my mom said that i'm not a happy person. i don't know if she meant now, or ever. brian comes home and is worried about me too. always asking me what he could do to make me happy. i told him last night that i feel dead inside and that i'm always sad. both mom and brian want me to "talk" but sometimes i just can't. i wonder if me internalizing all my concerns caused the rupture of my membranes. pPROM. preterm premature rupture of the membrane. every morning i've been doing research on this topic. i wish there were more answers to my questions. my mom speculates that maybe i had rubbed my belly too often, and that i should have done more yoga and stressed less. my dad didn't think the concerts were a good idea and that maybe my bed is too soft? i can't help but be upset at their conjectures. will my placenta have the answers? who knows. i don't fall in any of the risk groups. i'm not black, don't come from low-socioeconomic class without access to prenatal care, i haven't had previous pPROMs before, don't smoke, don't do drugs, etc. all i know is that i had a 0.7% chance of this happening in a pregnancy. if i knew what to do, or what to avoid next time, i would be happy.
that's a dangerous path to go down. brian and i are desperate to have a family. we want musubi to have lots of brothers and sisters. we both acknowledged that we have to be happy with what we have and be happy in the present, in the now. but i'm not up for it right now. the best that i can be is in state of somberness. it's very selfish of me. i know it worries brian so and he has so much to deal with, without worrying about me.
i can't believe that the weekend we came home, we had to deal with embezzlement issues at the practice. wait, that's incorrect. i didn't deal with it at all. relative to the loss of our son, i didn't have the emotional capacity to care about anything at all. brian has had to deal with the mess, with lawyers, accountants, employees, in addition to the mind-numbing grief. he's so tired when he gets home. i feel so bad for him. i want to help, and all he wants me to do is to get better.
all i can do is clean and organize. i finished the bathroom today. it's something that i have control over. it doesn't involve me needing to interact with anyone. it doesn't require me to think or feel anything. just me, and our stuff. control. something i wish i had over the pPROM. something i resent not having with the pPROM.
on my knees
i cradled musubi in my arms and rocked him gently back and forth, as if he were sleeping. i couldn't believe this was happening. i couldn't believe i was holding our son. i couldn't believe he was gone. i couldn't contain my sobs, i had to give him to brian as i doubles over in pain and fell to my knees. i was crouched over, my face buried into my hands, delirious with grief. we filled the room with our sobs and there was no room for anything else except for our sadness. brian's eyes were bloodshot, i'll never forget the pain i saw in his eyes that hollowed out my insides and made my own pain more severe.
we opened up the blankets to see his tiny little body. a little piece of gauze was taped on his chest from the chest tube, he still had bruises and still felt warm. we thanked musubi for waiting for his mommy to come see him, for being in a vortex position so that i would have a vaginal delivery, for being such a good baby and for bringing us so much hope and joy for the 24 weeks and 3 days that he was with us. we tried so hard to find comfort in the fact that he was no longer in pain and at peace. we tried. we admired his perfect fingers and toes, stroked his hair and tried to say goodbye. but how do you do this? how do you say goodbye? how? please, tell me how.
why?
i couldn't let go. the nurse came to check on us a few times. a social worker came by. they brought us water. to be honest, we didn't know what to do. we had to move on. we had to leave the room, we had to say goodbye, in whatever ways we could. i kissed his tiny hands, his feet that were like daddy's, his punctured chest, his delicate nose, his mouth, and felt his soft hair on my lips when i kissed his head goodbye. brian kissed his son, and lifted him up carefully, and wrapped him back in his blanket with all his love and we gave him back to the nurse. unable to move, unable to breathe, i was wheeled back to my room as i clutched his baby blue cap in my lap. my parents were still outside the NICU waiting for us, and they silently followed us back to my original room in the antepartum section of the hospital.
it was past 6am on friday. my parents just left. brian held me close in the hospital bed as i put musubi's blue cap in my pillowcase and choked on my own tears. i no longer had the monitors. there was no need. there were no more contractions or musubi's heart beat to track. new nurses came in to check my temperature and they hooked me up to the IV again, with another 24 hour course of antibiotics to fight the infection. i wanted to go home, but i couldn't. leaving the hospital, meant leaving musubi behind.
brian and i were now entirely different people. we are grieving parents. we are changed forever.
Monday, April 19, 2010
unanswered questions
we made it through the weekend. not sure how. it's always worse at night. last night, brian kept on asking "why". why did this happen to us? he whispers, "we're good people, why did this happen?" we miss musubi so much. sat night was rough for me. i had this overwhelming sense that i had failed. that i had failed at this pregnancy and that i had failed brian, our families and our son. despite all the doctors repeatedly reminding me that we had done nothing wrong, i still am left with my empty heart and this pit in my stomach filled with "what ifs" and "whys". it doesn't help when there are no answers to our questions. it doesn't make us feel better or more empowered with knowledge when specialists don't know the cause of the supposed infection.
HOW ARE WE TO PREVENT THIS FROM HAPPENING AGAIN?
there's no other word than desperate to describe how i feel. i am desperate to find answers, desperate to get pregnant again, desperate to not be consumed by depression or fear, desperate to move forward. brian and i are both worried about succumbing to the isolating tunnel of depression. as someone who knows the symptoms, i worry about our state of minds as time moves on. the physical manifestation of our grief is eating away at us from the inside out. i eat what is put in front of me, lovingly prepared by my mom and i do what i am told. not to take long showers, not to wash my hair so frequently, not to be on my feet so much, not to go outside, except for a few minutes in our backyard to get some fresh air and some sun. my mom tells me to not dwell in the past, to stop thinking about the loss, but i'm not sure if i have the capacity to do anything else but just be.
labor and delivery
i couldn't believe that i was going into labor. i couldn't believe that the anesthesiologist was running through pain management options with me again. my parents, brian's parents and belinda initially all in the room but then left as a stream of doctors came rushing in. i was trying so hard to draw strength from their love. i gripped onto brian's hand as if my life depended on it, because it did.
like angry waves the come crashing into shore, my contractions were coming with greater force and intensity. i was writhing in pain and trying to focus on my breathing through the oxygen mask, which felt more claustrophobic than helpful. they did a quick ultrasound to check musubi's postion, and he was vortex. through a stab in my right thigh, they gave me fentanyl, an opiod narcotic that is 100 times more potent than morphine. it made me whoozy, and the next thing i know the doctor is exclaiming that i'm fully dilated. they had me move up on the bed, and brace my feet on the contraptions on either side of of the bed. i remember my white knuckles gripping the left guard rail, my right hand gripping brian's hand and the doctor telling me to bear down and push. i remember brian encouraging me on, and in 2 pushes musubi was born at 9:35pm. a 3rd push was required for the afterbirth of the placenta.
i was crying and scared. i was an open wound.
musubi came out so quickly, the neonatalogist wasn't even ready to take him to the NICU. he was so brave and strong. he stayed vortex so that i wouldn't have to have a cesarean. he came out quickly to minimize my physical pain and brian's emotional anxiety. he was quickly escorted to the NICU to be stabilized. i told brian that i was ok and that he should be with our son so he quickly followed the doctors to the NICU.
our families came back to the room to see me. i was being tended to by a nurse with braids like pippi longstocking, who was checking my uterus and my bleeding. she pressed down hard on my stomach to push blood out of my uterus and i was still in shock at what had just happened. brian came back to tell me that musubi was stable, that he was kick, kick, kicking and that he was so small. 14 inches, 690 grams and perfect. doctor issa came in to tell us the reality of the situation. that they would be doing their best, but that it's a roller coaster ride for babies born this early. they asked us if musubi had a name, and we didn't have one, so we had wrist bands that said baby boy fong on them to give us access to the NICU.
brian was able to take one guest in at a time to meet musubi, so all the grandparents were able to meet him. my dad said i gave birth to the healthiest 24 week old baby.... everyone said how cute and perfectly small he was. brian came back to the room to check on me, and i was put in a wheel chair to see musubi in the NICU. there was a swarm of doctors around him. he had these miniature goggle around his head to protect his eyes from a special light, he had a tube down this mouth and tubes from his umbilical cord. he had the tiniest diaper on and i could see him kick, kick, kicking his legs and flailing his arms. they rolled me closer to him and removed his goggles. he had 1 eye slightly opened to me. i was able to touch his little hands and see the bruises on his head from birth and bruises on his left arm. my heart was aching to see him like this, and again i was fixated on the monitors that were to the right. his heart beat, his blood pressure, his oxygen levels....
his oxygen levels were decreasing, they needed to take a chest x-ray to see if the chest tube was positioned correctly. i was wheeled around the corner for protection from the x-ray machine. he was still struggling. they manually bagged him with oxygen to force oxygen through his little lungs. musubi still fought on. they put him on an oscillator, a high pressure ventilator that keeps the airways open with 600 "puffs" of air a minute. his oxygen barely crept up to 80, even though 90+ was ideal. musubi was fighting as brian and i were dying. brian was hunched over, he could barely watch as i couldn't take my eyes away from what was happening. i had to watch, i had to stay. musubi had to know that both of his parents were fighting along with him. we could barely breathe. the box of tissues that i had flattened in my grip was nearly dissolved from the tears that were flowing out of my pain. brian and i were shaking, we could not stop what was happening. our son was dying.
they called dr. issa to come back. they had also tried giving him another gas to help him breathe, they had also given him blood transfusions and some morphine to help with the pain. they had wanted to know how much more did we want them to do. another option was to try a tiny chest tube, to see if that would help. the chest tube had worked for brian, and so i had to see if if would work for our son. they had to do another x-ray, and the nurses insisted that i go back to my room for another check up. i did not want to leave, but we had to move to allow for the x-ray and other specialists to come. brian stayed with musubi and i begrudgingly left for my exam. the nurse wheeled me back and my parents were waiting outside the NICU. i was inconsolable.
i was wheeled back to the NICU as soon as my exam was done, and brian and the doctors did not have good news. the chest tube did not work. brian was in so much pain, because he knew how much chest tubes hurt and there was nothing he could do. musubi had a little puncture in his left chest, and had fought so hard. he was no longer kick, kick, kicking.... dr. issa had called another colleague, and they were bringing in another x-ray to scan his brain to see if there was any bleeding, but his oxygen levels were so low, for too long. as they were prepping for the brain scan, i asked if i could touch him again. i couched over him, i caressed feet, and i took his 5 little fingers in mine. i told him how much we loved him, how brave he was, that he was our miracle and that we didn't want him to be in pain, and that he'll be with us forever. i had my head on the oscillator and i didn't have the strength to lift it up. brian held his other hand and was completely overcome with grief. my sobs echoed through the NICU, i could barely breathe. i wasn't fair that i could breathe, and musubi couldn't.
we moved so that they could take the brain scan. dr. issa came to tell us that they did everything that they could, but that there wasn't anything more they could do. the machines were keeping him alive, but his little lungs just couldn't make it and the oxygen levels were too low for too long. they asked if we wanted to be in a private room, and if we wanted to hold him and in disbelief we nodded yes. we were escorted into a awkward private room with a few chairs for privacy. dr. issa came in first to talk to us, ask us the awful question about an autopsy which we were in no mindset to consider, and express his condolences. another doctor and nurse brought him in, all bundled up and warm in blankets wearing a little blue knitted cap. he was so beautiful.
he was our son and he was gone. 4:14 am, time of death.
Friday, April 16, 2010
urgency
i am feeling a sense of urgency to finish writing about what has happened. brian is coming back around 4pm today, and at last the weekend is here. i need to be emotionally and physically present when he's home, so i haven't been able to write when he's around. i've been filling my time by organizing my jewelry, cleaning and organizing my night stand, dresser and am working on my closet. as i was organizing my closet, i had the john mayer concert playing on tv in the background. that was musubi's last concert. i'm glad he got to hear john mayer. these lyrics continue to loop through my head:
Wherever I go, Whatever I do
I wonder where I am in my relationship to you
Wherever you go, Wherever you are
I watch your life play out in pictures from afar
i had my mom put away my maternity clothes in musubi's dresser and i'm clearing through clutter. i need the fresh start.
brian was my rock in the hospital. he would refill my ice packs, he would rub lotion and massage my legs, my back and my shoulders. he would cut my food in little pieces and spend hours feeding me bite by bite. he would monitor how much ice i was consuming, help me brush my teeth, bring towels for my face, and he would love me so much. he would grip my hand and tell me that i was his everything. he would find strength in his love for musubi and me. he would do anything to save musubi. he would do anything to stop this from happening. he would do anything for me.
but what could he do but wait? what could i do but wait?
tuesday was rough. we admitted to ourselves that we were not mentally prepared to deal with the weight of the conversation we just had with the NICU doctor. we were so scared. so unprepared for all of this. how were we supposed to know how much was too much? how much pain were we willing to put musubi through? what undefined risks were we going to take with musubi's future? how were we going to able to handle all that was coming towards us, like a disastrous freight train hurtling towards us, sometimes in slow motion, sometimes hitting us with lightening speed. all i could think of was that musubi would know what to do. that if musubi wanted to fight, then we would fight. and if musubi couldn't fight anymore, then we would have to let go.
it was minute by minute, hour by hour. heartbeat to heartbeat. we had another long night ahead of us. brian brought another pillow from home. you can never have too many pillows. i had a big fluffy down pillow, and a flatter pillow to snug with. the pillows made me warm, along with the mag sulfate. i had another dose on tuesday, the final dose of 2, and another shot of the betamethasone for musubi's lungs. brian and i whispered to musubi that night to stay strong and made our tearful pleas to musubi to survive. i could still feel masubi kick, kick, kicking throughout the day. that night when brian talked to musubi, we could see musubi's heart rate increase with the sound of his voice. musubi knew daddy was talking to him. he knew.
that night i was warm. i think it was the pillows. i've been having a hard time thermo-regulating at night throughout the pregnancy. since the begining, i felt like i had three climate zones on my body. my legs, torso and upper body all had 3 different temperature zones. the nurses came in to check my vitals every 3-4 hours and in the middle of the night, i was a little warm. i had been sweating a lot at night, but wasn't sure if it was from the mag sulfate or not. tuesday and wednesday were a blur. we were trying so hard to be strong and establish a sense of normalcy although the weight of the situation was crushing. i was determined to be here for awhile and my mom was here. brian's parents had been enormously helpful and supportive, plus my dad was driving up on wednesday.
by wed i was done with the mag sulfate so i was able to eat and drink normal amounts of fluid. brian stayed with me to make sure that i was adjusting well after the mag sulfate. my throat was parched from thirst, but i was concerned about too much fluid building up in my bladder and causing contractions. at night i would go pee when the nurses checked my vitals because i was scared of contractions. at times the machine would beep because it had run out paper. we needed to continuously monitor musubi and my contractions. the first night i had 4 contractions, but they were minor and inconsistent, and unnoticeable to me. i was also scared to go the bathroom because of what i might see on the pads and i didn't want to be disconnected from the monitors for very long. i had graduated from the bed pans to being able to use the restroom by myself and i had made it through my first 48 hour milestone.
dudley had made prime rib, my mom had made chicken soup, we had plenty of food from the hospital and from home. As usual, musubi would be kick, kick, kicking after i ate.
the day was long and difficult. i was thinking about musubi, brian and our future. the doctors were coming in to check up on me again. usually a resident would come around 4 or 5 in the morning, and then the doctors would come on their rounds later in the morning. there were always doctors, nurses, nutritionists, social workers and even a massage therapist who came through. i had my first hospital bed massage from a very kind, elderly woman who brought her own little ipod speaker set up and gave me a great 30 min. massage. it was wonderful that the hospital provided these services for free on a weekly basis. i saved the pamphlet because i would want to have them more frequently than just once a week.
in the hospital on bed rest, even with family there, you are often alone with your thoughts. i would close my eyes and visualize the most brilliant sunsets in africa to remind me of the beauty and merciless power of nature. i would hear the sounds of okavango delta progressively become louder in my mind's ear, as the yellow, orange, ribbons of the sky smoldered into bands of gold, red and amber, as the dusk melted into night. the warmth of the sky was met with the loving warmth of brian's hand as we witnessed the end of another beautiful day. this memory oscillated with another scene from my past. it was our anniversary weekend and we splurged and went to carmel. it was our last day there, and brian met up with his dad and sam to play a round of golf. i went for a jog in the morning along the 17 mile drive. i stopped around the bend about 10 min from our hotel because the beauty of the seascape was arresting. there were only 2 colors: the blackish brown hues from the rocks and the cliffs that cut into the ocean, and the ocean and the sky were a sparkling aquamarine blue tinged with silver streaks from the piercing white rays of the morning sun. i remember thinking that the beauty in this place was more graceful and precious than anything that could have been created by man. i remember thinking how lucky, grateful and happy i am. i wanted to go back to this happy place, to that state of mind, on bed rest.
my dad arrived late in the afternoon. he was very positive, telling me about the literature he had printed out from the internet from the mayo clinic and telling me stories about aunt caroline's friend who had a preemie who is now a doctor. dad was very optimistic and had a lot of faith in medical advances and stanford's resources.
he rubbed my feet, tried to make light of the situation saying that our baby was super special and wanted early acceptance into stanford. belinda, ian, the girls and brian's parents all came to see me on wed night and stayed way past normal visiting hours. ian told me that isabella was wondering if i could still be a stanford patient even though i went to cal. ian and brian went on a walk throughout the hospital. he wanted to make sure brian understood what was going on. i'm not sure if brian ever went on a tour with a NICU doctor, but in the end i guess it didn't really matter. brian said his conversation with ian was very similar to the conversation we had with NICU doctor earlier that week. our families then left, and brian and i were left facing our fears together again, with the gravity of the situation pinning us down.
thursday, april 8
brian said his goodbyes to musubi and me and went to work. we tried hard to establish some normalcy in this situation. my mom came later that morning. i noticed the fluid on my pad was a little different today. i freaked out and called the nurse to check the pad i left in the bathroom. i believed her when she said it was ok. they were still monitoring my temp. a woman came to draw blood from me in the morning. my temperature, which was a little high at night, was back down in the morning and now was slightly rising again.
our room wasn't private for a short period of time. there wasn't room in the post-partum area and there was a new mother that was admitted into our room. it was hard to hear her adjusting to motherhood, speaking to a lactation consultant, and knowing that she was breast-feeding a healthy baby girl every 2-3 hours was torture for me. she had frequent visitors which made it impossible for me to sleep, even if i could. fortunately they had moved her out later in the day. every now and then you'd hear a "code blue" announcement for a room and it always left me wondering what had happened.
brian's mom came later in the day and i was starting to get more anxious. she had called brian to see where he was, and he was already on the way to the hospital. there was concern about my temperature and there were more contractions than usual. i made sure my bladder was empty and was doing everything possible to stay sane and remain calm. if i could will my uterus to stay quiet, i was going to do it. fear was gripping me harder by the second. brian rushed into the room and was also visibly stressed. he was at my side gripping my hand as we waited for the doctors to come. a doctor came to check if my cervix was still closed, which it was, and i wanted to understand if they were going to put me on something to stop or slow down the contractions. when i first came to the hospital, musubi's heart rate was around 140-150, and today it was higher around 160. increasing heart rate is also a sign of distress.
another woman came down to do some blood work, and for now they were monitoring my contractions. it's amazing to me that these people are just doing their job, and here i am about to go through the most devastating experience in my life. the contractions were becoming more frequent, and they were getting bolder, stronger.... at first they were barely noticeable. and then it started. a slow series of muscle spasms that forcibly triggered a powerful combination of fear and shock to my system. i never felt so powerless in my life. a victim of my own body. 4 thoughts, like stock ticker tape looped my tense mind: this couldn't be happening to me. not now. i'm not ready. musubi's not ready.
my blood work came back. i had elevated white blood cell counts. my body was fighting an infection and the doctors were not going to stop the contractions. it was determined that it was safer for musubi to be out of my body, for both of us. the contractions were becoming more frequent, and they were getting stronger. i gripped brian's hand harder and harder with each contraction. we were both so helpless. there was absolutely nothing we could do. hope betrayed us, but all we could do was hope for a miracle. that feeling of fear and pain is something i've never experience before. it grips onto your soul, consumes your spirit and scars you for life.
we were moved to a labor and delivery room. this was really happening.
hope
hope. i never thought that i was a hopeful person. i was always much more pragmatic, having a more "manifest destiny" or self determination approach. has this made me less sympathetic to others (more republican than democratic)? more jaded to reality? more callous and distant to basic human instincts? i don't know. but when you're in the hospital, all you want to be is the exception to the rule, all you want to do is believe in hope, and not the facts and figures of the situation and not see the look on faces of people who are trying to help, but are also trying to manage your expectations on all the possible outcomes.
the doctors, the nurses, the social workers, etc. too many to remember except for a few:
OB:MDs – Allison Faucett, Yasser el-Sayed (attending), Christine Picco, T.T Nguyen
Yair Blumenfield (fellow), Anahita Jafari, Maurice Druzin (attending), Megan Beatty
RNS- Jill Foo, Marissa Francisco, Sung Lim, Lorna Salgado, Kristy McMasters, Marilyn Wachtel, Elizabeth Woo, Laura Six, Julie Pagano, Elizabeth Limcolioc, Ana Morales Clark (transport)
NICU: MDs- Katherine McCally, Kristin Collins, Antonios Issa, Ritu Chitkara (fellow)
NNP – Lynn Weigel
RNS: Madonna Sweeney and Pamela Smith
Respiratory Technicians: Paul Thottungal, William Callas, Anthony Yee
of course i wanted to have all the information about my situation. i needed data, i wanted facts. i wanted to know risks, probabilities and possible outcomes. i wanted to stay strong, positive and lucid. this needed to be a situation that would be carefully managed and i needed my endurance and the commitment of my mind, body and soul. i needed to trust my doctors, and i needed to have faith.
the first 24 hours in the hospital felt like an eternity. i was measuring time in 4 hour and 12 hour milestones. peeing in a bedpan was the least of my worries. i was scared to move. i was scared to sleep. the amniotic fluid is musubi's urine, and i was still leaking. i was told that this would be expected and that it's a good thing if the baby is generating urine and still digesting food and processing waste. but they had me check for changes in color, consistency, smell and bleeding. my heart would stop every time i checked.
my mom flew up with the girls who went down to socal for easter and she was there by monday night. kim came by with some food and to wish us well. thomas's mom is a nurse at stanford so i'm not sure if we got a more sensitive level of care, but none of the visitation rules really applied to us. belinda, ian and the girls all came that night, but the girls were not able to come to the 24 hour surveillance room. i was moved out of the high surveillance room into a shared room in the antepartum section of the hospital. fortunately no one was there, so it was like a private room and we really needed the privacy. brian was at my side the entire time and he spent the night with me in the hospital. it was my first night ever in a hospital. brian and i pleaded with musubi to be strong, to stay inside, and we hoped for the best outcome with such intensity that it drained us both completely.
at night in the dark, i remember feeling another gush of fluid and getting flashbacks of monday morning. it was so horrible. i rang for the nurses, who checked the pad for me and it was still normal. with nurses coming in every few hours to check my vitals, and being so scared and warm from the mag sulfate, i'm not sure how i got through the night. from the beginning, the doctors would reference that brian and i would need to be on the same page as to how we were going to handle the situation. the doctors and nurses would ask if the NICU doctors have spoken to us yet. as urgently as we wanted to speak to anyone who could have more information about the situation, we knew this would be the most difficult conversation we would ever have. According to Dr. el-Sayed, we would hope to get to weeks 32-34, preferably week 34 and then they would induce delivery. every day that the baby stays in you is worth 2-3 days in the NICU. the major milestones would be the first 48 hours, the first week, 2 weeks, week 28, 30, 32, then 34. of course the risks differ at each stage and the developmental milestones were critical to understand.
some time tuesday morning we went up to the ultrasound dept. the harpist playing soothing music in the hallway seemed a little out of place, but it was a nice touch. musubi looked like he weighed about 1 lbs. 10 oz and he looked good. there wasn't a lot of fluid but i had been leaking fluid pretty consistently and that was to be expected. the doctors had mentioned that there was a small possibility of the membranes healing themselves if it were a small tear, but very unlikely in my case. again, i was hopeful. again, wanting to be the exception. i was wheeled back to my room. at some point brian had gone home and brought back some of my personal items. a pillow from our bed, my boscia facewash, lotion, contacts, the computer, fiber one snacks, the tiger lovie blanket we bought for musubi, his backpack with his pjs, etc. i was planning on being here for awhile.
the NICU doctor finally came to see us. discussing musubi's mortality was not something we wanted to do, and it was so difficult listening to her talk about the chances of musubi having developmental difficulties both physically and mentally. i was hearing the words but the ability to comprehend what she was saying was severely challenged. i remember gripping onto brian's hand and my mind spiraling down different scenarios and auditing my physical and psychological abilities to care for a special needs child. i remember watching brian through my watery eyes and seeing his face contort with sadness and pain and his eyes becoming progressively more red as each data point fell limply into our laps. i remember shutting my eyes because i couldn't look anymore. not at the doctor, not at brian, not at the data points filling up the room.
all we had left was hope.
we sleep with a tissue box between us
it's been a week since musubi was born. not sure how we made it. we cry every day. i cry all the time. i haven't been able to to talk to anyone outside our immediate family and even then it's a struggle. i don't talk much at all. brian has been my strength and i've been so greedy that i worry about his own well being. i haven't emailed anyone i know, except to cancel our classes at day one, and to thank Angel Dear the makers of the tiger lovie.
Angel Dear,
I purchased the tiger blankie on sunday, April 4 from a local store in Menlo Park. I was told that babies need "lovies" to soothe themselves and that I should get several of them in case lovies get lost. It was the first personal item I had purchased for our first child, whose due date was on July 27, 2010. The baby shower was scheduled for May, so I was holding off on other purchases, but I couldn't resist picking up the blanket because it was so cute and soft. I am of chinese heritage, and this is the year of the tiger, so I thought it was appropriate that I buy this lovie for our little one.
Monday morning my water broke and a few days later i went into later. At 24 weeks and 3 days, our son was just too young to survive. My husband had brought the blankie to the hospital to keep me company in the days prior to the birth, since we were hoping that I would be there for the long haul, and it was the only item we had for our son at the hospital.
We had wrapped our son in the blankie, as we said our goodbyes and it is part of the most precious memory we have of our son, snuggled and sleeping peacefully with his blankie. I'm so glad he had his lovie to cuddle with in heaven and we have it saved so that hopefully in the future, he will have something to share with future brothers/sisters.
I can't seem to articulate the grief that I'm experiencing and I'm not sure who will be reading this, but I felt compelled to share how important a blankie could be, to grieving parents and to our son.
--Connie
it's just too hard. our friends have been sending beautiful floral arrangements and cards. unwrapping each gift, reading each note and arranging each flower has given me a sense of purpose throughout the day. i don't think i want to see anyone. i don't think i want anyone to see me like this. i can barely see me like this. i haven't called anyone. i am not capable to handling any conversation that involves breathing, crying and talking at the same time. it's too much.
Thursday, April 15, 2010
metlife
dimitria just left me a message. she wanted to confirm if i had a vaginal birth for my state benefits. she is approving my paperwork to have coverage through may 19th.
may 19th. is that when i'm supposed to be ok? i just spent this morning looking for an infant urn for musubi until i broke down. i can't breathe.
physical symptoms
i don't know why i tend to think of describing my physical symptoms and experiences first. i suppose they are easier to express, since they are objective and factual. last night was terribly upsetting. my breasts started leaking milk after i took a shower. if people thought i had body dysmorphia before, wait 'til they see me now. i noticed that the skin around my stomach is sloughing off. it's disgusting, and i can barely bring myself to wash it off. brian put lotion on me last night, because i didn't want to touch myself. i closed my eyes and got on a scale so that brian could note my weight. i have bruises on my arms from blood tests, IV, shots in my leg, butt, but i think of musubi's bruises after birth and i am humbled and pray that he wasn't in too much pain.
the ride to stanford hospital from sequoia station was nerve-racking. the beeping from the machines was just the start of the sounds that will forever be imprinted in my memory. musubi was on a heart monitor and they were also monitoring my uterus to make sure that i wasn't having contractions. musubi's heart rate fluctuated between 140-160 beats/min. normal fetal heart rate ranges from 120-160. this was the beginning of my obsession for staring at the monitors, craning my neck so that i could see musubi's heart beats in red, and my contractions to the right in green. i was brought into a room a stanford for very high risk patients with 24 hour surveillance. my blood pressure and temp was taken every 3-4 hours, and while i was on the mag sulfate, my lungs were also checked for any fluid development. the mag sulfate was taking its effect and my extremities were over-heating. my feet felt like they had been left sunburned out in the sun for weeks and my head was so hot that i could literally feel heat emanating from my ears. i was so scared because they were monitoring my temp to make sure i wasn't fighting an infection, but my head still felt so hot. i had 4 ice packs wrapped in pillow cases to cool me down. 1 on top of my head, 2 on either side of my ears and 1 on top of my feet. it was difficult to stay in one place, because i had to be resting on my side for optimum blood flow to musubi, the monitors had to be in place, and the ice packs also had to be positioned just so. the mag sulfate also made me so thirsty. i was only given a few spoonfuls of ice an hour. they had these small 4 oz juice boxes and i could only drink 1 an hour. i would limit myself to 3 sips every 10-15 min or so. i was so tempted to drink more fluids, but this was going to be a long fight to the finish. i was going to everything right. i wasn't going to risk a thing.
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
broken
the weight of that word is staggering. broken. everything is broken. it all started early monday morning. we had just spent a great weekend with friends. on saturday we had gone to the menlo park easter egg hunt, where i got easily overwhelmed by "double strollers, fussy babies, and fussier parents, oh my!" and got a lot accomplished in the afternoon. kim found shoes for aiden and i finally found crib sheets that made me happy. after looking at hundreds if not thousands of crib sheets and bedding in person and online, i finally found fabrics by elizabeth allen for custom sheets at a local store in menlo park. At Bubbles in menlo park, where kim found shoes, we came upon these animal blankies from Angel Dear. kim swore on these "lovies" and said they were a must-have for babies to self soothe, and that we should stock up on them now. i've been focusing on the registries for the past few weeks and aside from our furniture and frames for the room, i hadn't personally purchased anything for musubi yet. brian had brought back a baby giants baseball cap for musubi from spring training, but we haven't seen anything that stood out, until we found the little tiger lovie blankie. it was striped, it had self soothing tabs, the tiger had its eyes closed and it was so soft. we picked up a monkey lovie too, since its eyes were opened and it was just as cute. after an public asian display of who was going to pay for the lovies, we left happy and content with our baby purchases. katie was so attached to brian that she stayed home with him while kim and i went to target to pick up a few things, as well as eggs and kits for an egg hunt in our backyard. we staged a hunt outside, ordered dinner from dutch goose, and laid low at home that saturday night.
sunday morning brian made breakfast with eggs, turkey sausage and apple cinnamon pancakes. he's so amazing. our friends left to visit family in palo alto and brian and i relaxed at home. we had early dinner plans with his parents, and the weather was wet and dreary outside. we napped and then got ready for dinner, a 5:00 reservation at pasta pomodoro on easter sunday--how secular of us. i ordered bruschetta for musubi for the vit A & C in tomatoes and also ordered a side of spinach for the iron and folic acid. as i waddled into the booth, there were already presents for musubi in a bag. banana bread from the coopers for us, and musubi's first teddy bear from his grandmother. a brown bear that sat upright and paid attention, and a packet of three white little onesies with a tiny brown bear embroidered on each. everyone loved spoiling musubi. we talked about the crown molding for musubi's room and bathroom, about the width of the wainscoting, the baseboards, the height and width of the chair rails, etc. musubi's room was clearly going to be the best room in the house. brian's mom then brought up the subject of the baby shower that her friends wanted to throw for me. she wanted to run through the invitation list and narrow down some possible dates for the shower. everyone wanted to celebrate musubi's arrival.
we came home from dinner, watched a little tv, and got ready for bed. kim and thomas were still out, and we didn't hear them come back. it was a pretty quiet night until IT broke. around 5:45am i felt contractions and a gush of water. i thought maybe i had peed in my sleep and awkwardly ran into the bathroom. i noticed that i couldn't really make it stop. did i really not have any control over my bladder at this stage? it looked yellow in the toilet. i didn't have my contacts on. it must be pee. i peeled off my wet clothes in the sink, threw the bathmat in the tub and took a shower. brian was standing around, asking me if i was ok, helping to take care of our million dollar sheets. i wasn't sure if i was ok. i wasn't sure what was happening. i put a pad in my underwear, and pulled out the laptop. what was happening? what should i search for? bladder control? water breaking? what was happening? i felt some more fluid leak out of me, and i went to the bathroom again. i saw blood. i panicked. we had to go the hospital right away.
brian called the emergency line at women's care clinic and we left for the emergency room at sequoia hospital. the 15 minutes was the longest drive of my life. i was so terrified in the just breaking dawn. we parked and brian ran ahead to find a doctor. i was left in the halls on the second floor, bewildered, in disbelief, almost in shock of the situation. doubled over, squinting in the garish yellow fluorescent lights, i waited for help. i was brought to a room and was examined by dr. rao to determine if indeed my water had broken and if my cervix was open/closed. the sample came back positive, that my water had broken and for now my cervix was closed from what they could see. dr. wong came by to see me as well. all i really remember was her saying how sorry she was. HOW SORRY? DO NOT TELL ME HOW SORRY YOU ARE. THAT IS NOT HELPING. how can my doctor stand by my bedside and tell me that she's sorry? does she want me to hold her accountable for this? does she believe she could have done something to prevent this? was this within her power to change? HOW SORRY ARE YOU?
ARE YOU AS SORRY AS I AM?
the doctors at sequoia hospital immediately got on the phone with lucile packard children's hospital to see if they had any availability for me. at this point, i needed to be transferred because i was a high risk patient.
a high risk patient?
when did this happen?
how could this be?
what did i do?
what didn't i do?
why was this happening?
i was quickly put on an IV with fluids, a course of antibiotics to treat infection (the most likely cause of my membrane rupture), and put on my first dose of magnesium sulfate to quiet down my uterus and prevent contractions. the mag sulfate was given to proactively avoid labor, so that musubi's lungs could have a developmental boost with the betamethasone shot in my ass. the betamethasone is a corticosteriod used to stimulate fetal lung maturation. musubi needed 2 shots of it over the course of 48 hours, and i needed to make sure that i wouldn't go into labor.
i sobbed when brian left the room when it came time to leave. i could barely see the nurse who held my hand, who tried to provide comfort to a shell of a person who was inconsolable. brian couldn't ride with me in the ambulance--there was no room. it was a blur, but after a few hours the palo alto team came to transfer me to stanford. me. the person who was broken.
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
miss you
my uterus still contracts every now and then. a painful reminder of what's empty inside. i miss being pregnant. i miss musubi so much. i miss the kick, kicks that happen throughout the day, particularly after i eat. i miss musubi so much. i miss almost gagging from the stench of the fish oil in my prenatal pills. i miss musubi so much. i miss brian cheering musubi on, every morning and every evening. "go, musubi, go, go musubi. grow, musubi, grow, grow, musubi." i miss musubi so much. i miss the anticipation of our child. i miss musubi so much.
another day is passing. yesterday i wrote an email to share with our friends and family about our loss. the aftershocks of this experience still send tsunami waves of grief throughout my system. i am not sure how to articulate these feelings. this molten sadness has liquefied my soul and all i have left is sorrow.
but i know this is not what musubi wants for me. i know i need to be brave. i need to wash my face and pick up brian. he is truly my guiding light. dropping brian off and picking him up is all i'm capable of right now.
Monday, April 12, 2010
pain
i don't know where to start. pain is everywhere. my forehead throbs from a headache that's a heartache that stems from sleeping too much, not sleeping at all, not knowing what to do. my eyes. they sting. i can't bear to look at myself in the mirror. I can't look down at my stomach. i don't have anywhere to look that doesn't cause me pain. i only wear my contacts so that i can see how brian is doing, even though sometimes i can barely stand to see the pain that has consumed us both.
my mouth is dry. maybe because i gasp for air and i seem to have no taste at all. my chest hurts, for reasons that transcend all things physical. the fact that my breasts are engorged because i should be breast-feeding, or that my heart aches for my son, i don't know. i don't know the difference anymore. and i bleed.
i lie in bed. i feel this pain. i don't know if or why i should write. in some ways i want to forget it all. i plead with the universe to not have this be my reality. and then i think about musubi and i can't deny his existence. i can't pretend that we didn't have the most amazing son. i can't. i can't because he was our "little everything."
he was so beautiful. 14 inches, 690 grams, tiny, perfect. his hair was black, like soft down feathers. when i saw him, he barely had one little eye open, but brian said he had big beautiful eyes that were light. he had light brown eyelashes and he had the cutest nose. wasn't broad like daddy's but more like his grandmother's or his grandfather's nose. his mouth was so small, delicately shaped, along with his perfect little ears on the sides of his head. he had long limbs with hands and feet like daddy. brian said he was going to teach him how to play sports as a left hander. his tiny little hands, barely the size of one segment of my finger and his feet, just slightly bigger, were all within reach, and what we held on to when musubi fought to survive.
