this is my december − 12 December, 1980
I was supposed to join this race on December 11th. it would have been a great birthday present for my grandfather. My mother stayed in labor from the night of the 10th until late evening of the 12th. Try as she might, i wasn't going to be a natural birth. Mom had a fever and a cough. She had gestational diabetes.. the strain of the pregnancy casting premonitions of what her body would later face. It was time they said.
I was born by way of scalpel and taken directly to an ICU nursery. I was placed in an incubator that the nursing staff referred to as "big bertha". Mom was not allowed to see me, (as she still had the cough and fever) and my father.. his first glimpse of me, was as a nurse held me up cradled in two hands through the tiny window of the nursery door. I had a lung infection.
They administered IV antibiotics through my scalp, finding the largest and easiest-to-see veins there. They took blood for tests by making tiny cuts in my heel and sucking up the blood with a tiny glass tube. Believe it or not, I still have tiny scars there like a wind blown spider web.
My mother had the classic questions, "does she have all her fingers and toes?" and she had to rely on my father for the answers. he told her "yes, she's perfect" but she didn't believe him until he took a distant polaroid and showed her. This is how my mother first saw me. Her first glimpse of her baby on a fuzzy polaroid, IV tubes running to my head, red as a turnip and screaming my compromised lungs out.
With baby and Mommy sick, it was a matter of 4 days before we were allowed in the same room together. The doctor told my mother that when her fever broke and her cough subsided, she would be able to see me. She sat up all night, holding a pillow against her fresh cesarean scar and coughed all night. coughed the phlegm out of her lungs. and in the morning, her fever had receded to a level that made the doctors comfortable enough to let her see me. whenever she thinks herself weak, i remind her of this feat.
"this sort of infection used to kill babies before the advent of antibiotics" and my mom always describes being weak in the knees when they told her this.. looking in at me in an incubator waiting for them to prepare me for my first date with mom. I was red. always hot. wrapped tight in a blanket with a jumper on underneath. Our first meeting only heralded more waiting. My mother left the hospital before me.. not until the lung infection cleared could i go home.
I was born by way of scalpel and taken directly to an ICU nursery. I was placed in an incubator that the nursing staff referred to as "big bertha". Mom was not allowed to see me, (as she still had the cough and fever) and my father.. his first glimpse of me, was as a nurse held me up cradled in two hands through the tiny window of the nursery door. I had a lung infection.
They administered IV antibiotics through my scalp, finding the largest and easiest-to-see veins there. They took blood for tests by making tiny cuts in my heel and sucking up the blood with a tiny glass tube. Believe it or not, I still have tiny scars there like a wind blown spider web.
My mother had the classic questions, "does she have all her fingers and toes?" and she had to rely on my father for the answers. he told her "yes, she's perfect" but she didn't believe him until he took a distant polaroid and showed her. This is how my mother first saw me. Her first glimpse of her baby on a fuzzy polaroid, IV tubes running to my head, red as a turnip and screaming my compromised lungs out.
With baby and Mommy sick, it was a matter of 4 days before we were allowed in the same room together. The doctor told my mother that when her fever broke and her cough subsided, she would be able to see me. She sat up all night, holding a pillow against her fresh cesarean scar and coughed all night. coughed the phlegm out of her lungs. and in the morning, her fever had receded to a level that made the doctors comfortable enough to let her see me. whenever she thinks herself weak, i remind her of this feat.
"this sort of infection used to kill babies before the advent of antibiotics" and my mom always describes being weak in the knees when they told her this.. looking in at me in an incubator waiting for them to prepare me for my first date with mom. I was red. always hot. wrapped tight in a blanket with a jumper on underneath. Our first meeting only heralded more waiting. My mother left the hospital before me.. not until the lung infection cleared could i go home.
