Packing her car in preparation for leaving town, she called a friend, panicked.
At the Air Force Base Hospital, the doctor and nurses attending her were as surprised as she when labor could not be stopped, particularly in light of her obstetrician's earlier in the day pronouncement that all was normal and she was free to leave.
As labor progressed, she was eventually given something to knock her out. Just four days into her seventh month, she awakened to discover that she had delivered a four pound baby girl.
The medical staff were not optimistic about my chances of survival, telling my mother to prepare for the worst. After losing her first daughter who had also been born prematurely the year before, I'm sure she was shocked and terrified.
Whisked away in an incubator, I was given fluids while my mother's breast milk was forcibly dried up. She left the hospital not knowing whether I would ever join her and the wait was on to see whether I would gain the pound and the sucking reflex necessary to grow and thrive.
I have been surprising doctors and it seems, everyone else, ever since.
Tonight though, I think of her, and the frightening, sad and lonely time that must have been. In upstate New York on vacation, her parents and siblings first heard of my early arrival from a sheriff dispatched to her grandmother's homestead because there was no phone.
With this news, my grandfather, then in his late forties, packed up the car and tossed the keys to my sixteen-year-old uncle, telling him he could drive...
Happily taking the wheel, my uncle recalls them reaching South Carolina the next day, nervous at what they might find.
12 comments:
Your poor mother. That must have been a terrifying time.
Hooray for being a survivor. Then and now.
Happy upcoming birthday, e . . . and nodding in agreement with Elephant's Child and her comments. Every baby is a miracle, but preemies who make it are even more so.
In case you didn't realize, the comments function on your previous post no longer works. Or maybe it's disabled? There is a spinning symbol (two arrows chasing each other's tails is about the best I can describe it) beside the "View comments" title, as if it's loading, but it doesn't load. I will say here what I would otherwise post there: I like the idea of your challenge and will see what I can do to fill my end of the bargain :)
Happy Birthday e. I have been struggling to leave a comment on your previous post 38 acts of kindness and spread them throughout her community, an idea i love and will contribute. And I am also in agreement with Elephant's Child comments.
Happy birthday, e, and I think you will continue surprising people for a long time to come! Your mother must have been terrified, specially after losing her earlier baby.
Happy birthday, e!
Back in those days the emotional care for women in such situations was ZERO. I can't even imagine what your mother must have gone through. My mother had similar stories but of miscarriages and of a still birth. I think the attitude then was, well, go home and make another baby. Maybe this one will work. Absolutely horrifying.
I am so glad you have been surprising doctors ever since that birth.
Happy birthday, e. Yes, your mom must have felt so adrift and alone. But why did they forcibly dry up her milk?
Four pounds! I was a month premature myself, but I was bigger -- six pounds, I think? Anyway, we're all glad you pulled through and continue to surprise and confound the medical establishment. :)
Thank You!
Thank You for letting me know about the comments and for the other things you've said here. I don't know how many preemies survived then but today, they have better chances. I was lucky.
Thank you and I'll let the folks at Blogger know. I'll be very interested to hear how you take up the challenge, Thanks for the birthday wishes!
Thank you very much, Mary and I agree, it was horrifying. I know it is better now but hospital births are unfortunately still part of the problem. Though my mother's case was an emergency, I often wonder if a C section would not have been better and I'll never know. Her crappy circumstances did not help, either.
Her breasts were painful and because she was not allowed contact with me since I was in an incubator being tended by doctors and nurses. They told her she could not nurse and she never did, so the benefits we know today that nursing brings were denied me. We've learned a lot since then.
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