The Story of Us (The Early Days), in Honor of Our 15th Anniversary

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Fifteen years ago, I was trying to stave off senioritis long enough to get through the last month of college. Easter fell on April 12, 1998, but it wasn’t a long enough weekend for me to go home to see my family. Instead, I went to the movies with friends. We saw Primary Colors,  and today the only thing I remember about the film was that I recognized Oak Alley Plantation, which was familiar because my high school friend Penelope had taken me to see it when I’d visited her in Louisiana on my spring break the month before.

Penelope and I had known each other since kindergarten, but our friendship had not weathered adolescence well. We’d been best friends through middle school and the start of high school, but then things got rocky. I was unhappy at home and, seeking comfort and belonging, I started hanging out with boys my friends didn’t like and letting my hormones do too much of my thinking. Penelope did not approve. She’s always been smarter and more mature than me, but back then, she was just another judgmental killjoy trying to tell me what to do. We fought more and more often. We said unforgivable things, and then we stopped being friends.

It had been about four or five years since we’d hung out or even spoken to each other when Penelope e-mailed me in the Spring of 1996. She was about to graduate from college and invited me to her senior art show. I was carrying about a bazillion credits that semester and barely had time to shower, much less socialize, so I didn’t go, but I was glad to hear from her. That summer when we both got home from school, we had lunch together, then went for a walk along the Burlington waterfront. I was relieved to find our high school resentments had evaporated, and we were able to talk and joke as easily as we had before we’d parted ways. She had only a few weeks at home before she was due to go to Houston, TX for Teach for America’s teacher training program, and from there to a two-year commitment teaching Special Education in South Louisiana.

When she left, we exchanged letters. I sent her care packages with baked goods and goofy knickknacks I picked up at various shops in Burlington and Northampton. She sent me letters filled with black-ink sketches, snippets of poetry, funny anecdotes about her students, and lyrical descriptions of places she visited and things that she did. Very rarely, we’d be home in Vermont at the same time, and we’d get together for a few hours, but these letters and brief visits soon proved insufficient to nourish the friendship that was rapidly growing more intense than it had ever been in childhood. We started emailing and talking on the phone daily.

We joked about all we had in common. My senior year (her second year in Louisiana), we were both single, but both casually seeing guys who paid far too little attention to us except for the occasional booty call, and even these guys were freakishly similar: their names began with the same letter, they were both artists, they seemed to share many of the same annoying (to us) peccadilloes. (They were not actually the same person: we did not have that much in common!) As Penelope and I bitched together, hour after hour, about these inadequate non-boyfriends, I began to consider whether we wouldn’t be better off just kicking the guys to the curb and taking up with one another, but I didn’t say anything. Penelope had never expressed any interest in women. (As for me, I was at Smith. ‘Nuf said.)

Penelope invited me down to Louisiana to visit her on my spring break. I went, and we had a blast in New Orleans and stayed up late every night talking and snuggling, but though we were closer than ever, we didn’t cross that line. We didn’t even talk about crossing that line.

Back to Easter 1998: When I got back from the movie theater, I called Penelope to share my excitement at recognizing Oak Alley, but she didn’t answer. All weekend, she didn’t answer, and then Sunday night, she called… from Vermont. She’d gone home to visit her dad for Easter, and didn’t have to go back South until Tuesday, and could she drive down and visit me tomorrow? Of course, I agreed, and then I didn’t sleep all night. It felt like our relationship was coming to a tipping point: I thought we were very, very close to becoming lovers, and I’d gladly nudge us over that edge, if only I could be sure she’d be interested. I didn’t want to freak her out and wreck our friendship again. It was better to have her in my life as a friend than not at all.

Monday morning, someone knocked on the doorjamb of the glorified supply closet in the bowels of the art building where I spent nearly twenty hours a week at my work study job, selling art supplies to a parade of eye-popping misfits. (Many Smithies enjoy an eccentric personal aesthetic, but the art majors are a cut above.) I looked up and there was Penelope, having gotten directions from someone in my house. We hugged and laughed about the fact that our trend toward eerie similarity remained unbroken: without discussion, we were dressed exactly alike, in red t-shirts, dark-wash jeans, and black shoes.

She had brought my Easter basket from home, stopping by my parents’ house and demanding it like a chocolate terrorist, waiting impatiently in the foyer until my mother turned it over, while our dog barked madly. (I hadn’t asked her to do that, but I must have mentioned that my mother had said she’d have a basket waiting for me when next I came home.)

We went to dinner with Penelope’s mom that night, driving up to Brattleboro to meet her. We came back to school and watched a movie until someone kicked us out of the living room because they’d reserved the TV. We went back to my room, and the whole time I was a crazy tangle of nerves and anticipation, wondering if I should say anything, wondering if the change in our relationship felt as imminent, as inevitable to her as it did to me, or if my years at Smith had twisted my perspective on feminine intimacy so that I could no longer appreciate female friendship without sex.

In the end, I don’t remember either of us making the first move. It just happened, organically, inevitably, as it was meant to. Fifteen years ago this very morning, we got out of bed feeling as if the magnetic poles of the earth had shifted and everything was suddenly different, suddenly put to right, and we didn’t have to worry. She flew back to Louisiana that afternoon. She had two more months to fulfill her teaching commitment, and I had one more month until I graduated. Neither of us knew what would happen next, but we knew we’d be together — we knew we had to be together.

Happy anniversary, my dearest love. Here’s to the next fifteen years, and the next after that, and the next after that….

-C.

Bubba McTiny’s Birth Story

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Hank was born four weeks early at just five pounds, and we called him “Teeny McTiny” for  the first six months of his life (until he experienced a massive growth spurt and shot from the bottom 10th-percentile on the pediatric growth charts to the top 15th-percentile). His little brother (whom we shall call Ollie here, to protect his privacy), arrived two weeks early, already weighing eight and a half pounds. He’s a big boy, yet one forgets how small and helpless all newborns are (even the big ones), and so we’re calling him “Bubba McTiny” for now.

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Thankfully, the pregnancy induced hypertension (PIH) for which I was being so closely monitored for the last month of my pregnancy never developed, though I continued to have  proteinuria until the end. I submitted to weekly blood tests, urine tests, ultrasounds, doctor’s visits, and twice weekly non stress tests at the childbirth center until my water broke, unexpectedly, the morning of March 10, when I was exactly 38 weeks pregnant. I was giving Hank a bath, squatting beside the tub, and when I got up to get his towel I noticed I’d left a small, pink puddle on the bathroom floor. (My mother also went into labor with my little sister while giving 4-year-old me a bath, so maybe there’s something to squatting by the tub as a labor trigger, at least in our family. My sister and sister-in-law have taken note.)

I called Dr. Dalton while Penelope helped Hank out of the tub, got him ready for the day, and told Grammy (who lives with us and who would watch Hank while we were in the hospital) what was happening. Dr. Dalton was already at the birth center with another patient, so she had us meet her there. They quickly confirmed that my water had indeed broken, but I wasn’t yet having contractions. Dr. Dalton didn’t want to send me home because she was still concerned about PIH, so we spent much of the day walking around the hospital and its grounds (it was a lovely, sunny, unseasonably warm day), trying to get things started. Penelope also had a IEP (Individualized Education Plan) to write for work, so she did that on her laptop while I did yoga in our birthing suite.

Unfortunately, I never had more than a few painless contractions all day, and once water breaks, there is increased risk of infection if labor doesn’t start reasonably quickly, so at 6:00 PM, we started to induce labor with pitocin. The first problem with pitocin is that it is delivered by IV and requires constant fetal monitoring, so even though they let me wear the wireless monitors, I couldn’t walk beyond the very small birthing ward, and I had to tote the IV around with me. The second problem with pitocin is that it creates very strong, very fast contractions in a short amount of time, before one’s body has a chance to acclimate. (At least for me: my sister also had a pitocin induced labor, and she says she contracted every two minutes for three hours before she felt any pain. I, on the other hand, was getting pretty uncomfortable by 9:00 PM, when my contractions were still more than three minutes apart and I had not dilated more than a fingertip.)

Around 10:00, I was miserable enough to request pain meds (a decision we’d left for “Game Day”), and we started with the IV narcotic Stadol. This made me dizzy, disoriented, and pretty loopy, but only provided pain relief for about an hour. My contractions increased in frequency, strength, and duration, and I began to shake and vomit, which made me hopeful I was progressing… but an exam at about 1:00 AM revealed I was still only dilated to 2 cm. That was a crushing blow to my morale and motivation, as I was already in serious, unremitting pain from back labor (with almost no break between contractions). I got another dose of Stadol, but this time the pain relieving effects wore off within about fifteen minutes.

At 2:30 AM, when I was begging for Penelope to make it stop and let me go home, I asked for an epidural. I wasn’t philosophically opposed to an epidural, but I was afraid it was too early to get one and that it would slow the already interminable labor process, but the nurses suggested it might give me relief enough to rest and let my body do the work while I got some sleep. That sounded good to me. They had to call in the anesthesiologist, who didn’t arrive for another hour (probably the longest hour of my life to date), but a little after 3:30 I got the epidural. Penelope got light headed (having not eaten in about eight hours) while trying to hold me up while the epidural was inserted, so she had to sit and I held on to the nurse instead. I remember apologizing, embarrassed because I wrapped my legs around her hips during a contraction, a very intimate thing to do to a total stranger!

The epidural worked quickly, and I did get to doze, fitfully, after that — but only for about an hour. Around 4:30 (I think, I was kind of out of it), the nurse came in and put an oxygen mask on me. She told me the baby was having late decelerations with each contraction, a sign of fetal distress, and they were putting me on oxygen to see if it would help. I think she also urged me to turn onto my left side, but I can’t remember. (Penelope slept through this, so she doesn’t remember, either.)

I continued in a confused, half-asleep, half-aware haze for another hour until Dr. Dalton came in and did another pelvic exam. I had dilated to 4 cm, which was finally some progress, but not enough: the baby was still having late decelerations, and I was not progressing fast enough to risk continuing with labor. Dr. Dalton recommended a caesarian section. (I think she’d already called in the surgical team, so I don’t know what would have happened if I’d disagreed — but I didn’t. I was ready to be done, one way or another.)

It took another forty-five minutes for the surgical team to arrive and set up, but that time moved quickly, filled with consent forms and other preparations. I remember the nurse handing me a consent form and showing me where to sign. I took the clipboard from her and said, “I’m a lawyer, I have to read it,” which made everyone laugh (except me). Dr. Dalton said, “As a lawyer, you probably know that they always tell us consent forms are unenforceable anyway,” and I retorted, “Well, yeah: how many drugs have you given me tonight? Do I look like I’m in my right frame of mind?” which made everyone laugh again (again, except me).

In the OR, they gave me a spinal and draped me for surgery. I cannot describe, and frankly don’t care to think much about, the actual c-section itself. Even with the spinal and a local anesthetic “gap” medication, I felt a lot more of the surgery than I expected to. The anesthesiologist kept asking if it hurt or was just uncomfortable, and I couldn’t answer her: of course it hurt, but it was also intensely uncomfortable. Penelope was sitting next to me, trying to talk me through it, but I can’t recall a thing she said.

The anesthesiologist told Penelope when they were lifting the baby out, and she looked over the drape (something I was afraid to do, being a blood fainter, when Hank was born). She says it wasn’t gory: it just looked like they lifted a baby out of a funny red hole in the drape. (“Red hole” = gory, to my lights.) I remember everyone talking about what a big baby he was, and then I was pretty distracted by pain/discomfort as they worked to remove the placenta.

Penelope went with the baby to watch as they cleaned him up and did his APGAR tests. (He scored a 7 first, and then a 9, which is about as well as c-section babies ever do.) She says the nurses were taking bets as to how big he was (8 pounds, 7 ounces). I could hear him yelling and yelling: he was soooo loud.

Penelope carried him over to me as they were still putting me back together. I didn’t know what to say, but knew I had to say something, so I started (in my narcotic haze) reciting “The Owl and the Pussycat.”

The Owl and the Pussycat went to sea in a beautiful pea green boat. They took some   honey, and plenty of money, wrapped up in a five pound note…

They gave me another dose of something because I was in a lot of pain, and Penelope says I went into a narcotic nod for about 5-10 minutes. I don’t remember that. I remember them driving my gurney back to a recovery room, being greeted by the dayshift nurses (shifts changed during my surgery), and then promptly throwing up on myself and one of the nurses. After that, though, I felt much better.

They brought Ollie to me and laid him on my chest. Paula (one of the day nurses, who we remembered from our hospital stay when Penelope had Hank, and who I’d also become re-acquainted with during the many non stress tests over the last few weeks) encouraged me to try breastfeeding. Ollie latched on immediately and nursed for a long time, probably 45 minutes, despite the fact that I couldn’t yet sit up or really even hold him, being still quite numb from my chest to my feet.

I hated that total sense of helplessness and was glad when the spinal started to wear off. I didn’t need much for pain management: just Motrin. I got up on my feet about eight hours after surgery and walked back and forth across the small room. It was still very uncomfortable sitting up and standing, but I was glad to be able to move.

Hank and both of his grandmothers came to visit that evening. Hank is an excellent, proud, gentle big brother. “The baby person is finally out of Mumma’s belly!” he says.

-C.

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Serenity NOW!!!!

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When I was little, my Dad used to get fed up with my incessant fidgeting and offer to give me a quarter if I stayed still for five minutes. I don’t remember earning a single quarter, and not because I didn’t try. ‘Still’ just isn’t something I do with any grace. I am fundamentally un-serene.

We’ve known from the beginning, when I got pregnant using the same donor we used when Penelope carried Hank, that preeclampsia might be an issue. Preeclampsia, aka pregnancy-induced hypertension, or PIH, is a prenatal disorder usually marked by high blood pressure, proteinuria (protein in the urine), elevated uric acid, edema (water retention) especially in the hands and face, abdominal pain especially on the right side, headaches, and blurred vision. If left untreated, it can worsen and develop into eclampsia, the seizure disorder that (spoiler alert) killed Lady Sybil in a recent episode of Downton Abbey.*

Our doctor said there is some chance that the risk of developing preeclampsia might have some genetic link to the donor sperm. She wasn’t at all surprised when we learned that some of the Sister-Wives had also developed preeclampsia during their pregnancies, and so she’s been watching for it all along. (Penelope and I also suspect she’s a little bit hypervigilant about it because she feels bad about missing Penelope’s diagnosis until her pre-e was so severe, but in Dr. Dalton’s defense, Penelope’s condition had a very unusual presentation in its early stages: she was vomiting and had severe heartburn, but she didn’t have high BP, much swelling, proteinuria or headaches until just a few days before she delivered Hank, at which point she was already dangerously sick.)

At almost every prenatal appointment so far, Dr. Dalton has frowned worriedly as she noted the presence of protein in my urine. Last week (32 weeks, 5 days gestation), I had a slightly-higher-than-usual (but still normal) blood pressure, but I had not had any of the other symptoms (except the proteinuria): no unusual swelling or chest pain (some swelling and heartburn are both typical in late pregnancy), no blurred vision, and my headaches have actually improved with pregnancy. Doc was worried enough to order a 24-hour urine collection (yup, that’s just what it sounds like: I peed in a jug for a whole day), and when the results came in, they only worried her more. More than 300mg protein in a 24-hour urine test is considered high; my results last weekend exceeded 750mg.

But, yeah, enough about my pee. Anyway, Doc’s office called and asked to see me ASAP, and I went back yesterday afternoon. I knew from Penelope’s go-round with it that preeclampsia can be ‘managed’ with medication, diet, and bed rest, but it only has one cure: almost always, the condition resolves itself once the baby is delivered. Penelope was diagnosed at 36 weeks, almost full term, so they skipped the treatment and went right for the cure: induction of labor. I was, yesterday, only 33 weeks, 4 days, so I knew if they diagnosed me with pre-e, the rest of my pregnancy would take a very different course than that which I’d planned — I’d probably be on bed rest until delivery.

I spent the last few days at work trying to get my work load in order so that my colleagues could take over if I had to leave suddenly. It’s funny: looking back over the last few days, I had a rational understanding that I might be put on bed rest, but I also had a contradictory confidence that this wouldn’t happen to me. I feel much better than Penelope did at the end of her pregnancy. My BP is fine. I don’t have any symptoms except for proteinuria, but I’ve had that since the first trimester, and so maybe that’s just some quirky personal trait.

Yesterday, Dr. Dalton ordered more labs. My uric acid is elevated, too, so that’s another symptom of pre-e. Doc says that’s enough for her to believe that if I don’t have full-blown pre-e yet, I’m “headed down that path” and she’s treating me as if I have it. That means an evaluation with the high risk OB-GYN specialist at DHMC, 3x weekly doctor’s appointments to monitor BP, weight, and urine, 2x weekly non stress tests, and ultrasounds to monitor fetal growth every 1-2 weeks. That’s a lot of obligations to heap on a gal’s plate, and then in the next breath tell her she’s not allowed to drive. My poor mother-in-law is now not just Hank’s daycare provider, but has also just become my personal chauffeur (to my shame).

-And yes, when I’m not at the doctor’s office, I’m on bed rest. I don’t know how I’ll manage, especially with Hank running around, urging me to play with him and take him on adventures.  We’ve tried to explain it to him, and he’s a bright kid, but he’s two. Hank’s not the biggest problem, though: the biggest problem is that I am as unserene as ever, and stillness is not a thing I do with any grace.

-C.

*As my mother so helpfully pointed out when I told her my diagnosis. Gee, thanks, Mum.

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Hank, trying to examine the Baby Person (with a flashlight).

 

A Bedtime Chat

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I got home from a church meeting in time to say goodnight to Hank. I caught the end of his bedtime story, gave him hugs and kisses, and said Goodnight. As Penelope and I were leaving the room, he said, “You need to snuggle with Mumma.” Because I’d hardly seen him all day, I couldn’t resist, so I turned out the light and climbed up beside him on the Big Boy Bed.

He reached over and grabbed my nose.

“What are you doing?” I asked, gently removing his grasp and making a mental note to trim his sharp little nails.

“Mumma has nostrils.”

“That’s true,” I agreed.

“Ma has nostrils. Hank has nostrils.”

“Yes, love. People have nostrils.”

“You are a children,” he said (struggling, as ever, with pronouns).

“You are a child, yes.”

“Children have nostrils.”

“Right,” I told him. “Children are people; people have nostrils.”

“Monkeys have nostrils, too,” he noted, holding up his lovey, Ugly Monkey, to show me its embroidered nostril holes.

“So they do,” I agreed.

“You don’t eat monkeys. Monkeys are not food.”

-C.

High Five From the Baby Person

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Hank started calling the new baby “the baby person” before we knew Baby Person was of the male persuasion, and it stuck. Actually, now Hank often speaks of the Baby Person by what will probably be his name. At first this was one of several names we were testing out, but it was Hank’s clear favorite, so it will probably stick, too. (Word to the wise: if you hope to keep your baby’s name a secret until birth, you need to keep it a secret from any toddlers you know, too, even the big siblings.)

At any rate, we had an ultrasound this morning to check Baby Person’s size relative to my due date. (I’ll be 33 weeks tomorrow.) All looks good. BP is head down already (please stay that way, kiddo), and is measuring right where he should be. This late in pregnancy it’s hard to get clear profile shots because baby is all curled up in increasingly cramped quarters, but we were able to see him yawn. He’s still a thumb sucker, as he was at his 20 week anatomy scan. (Hank was never a thumb sucker.) He had fluid in his kidneys and stomach, which means he already knows how to swallow, and we could see him practicing breathing movements.

This was likely our last peek at him before he joins us in a month or so, and it is such a relief to know that everything seems right on track.

-C.

Big Boy Bed

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Our new (old, as in circa 1850) house has three bedrooms upstairs: ours, another one connected to ours by an adjoining door, and one across the hall. The first two are plain white with some ugly faux wood paneling, in need of some paint, but plain and inoffensive. The room across the hall has ancient textured blue and white wallpaper, painted petal pink, which is cracking and peeling and water stained due to an old roof leak. The roof has been repaired, the room, not so much.

Knowing that Baby’s arrival will soon mean that Hank will move from his current room to the one across the hall, we had plans to renovate. My dad is coming for a few days next month to put up new drywall, after which Penelope and Grammy will paint (Hank chose red–we’ll see). In the meantime, though, the room is pink, and in rough shape–as you can tell from the photo.

Tonight, unexpectedly, Hank asked to sleep in “the big bed” (ours) instead of his tent. I told him, “Did you know we have a big boy bed of your very own in the pink room, when you’re ready?”

“You need to see it,” he said (he struggles with pronouns), so we went across the hall and he lay down on the twin bed that Penelope’s Grandpa made for her when she was a kid.

I thought he’d take a look and then opt to stay in his own, familiar tent, but he surprised me by pulling at the covers. “You need to get comfy cozy in the big boy bed,” he announced.

“Really?” I asked, looking askance at the peeling walls and barren decor. This was not going according to plan.

“Yes,” he said firmly.

Penelope and I shrugged. We weren’t ready for this, but we made do. We don’t have a safety rail yet, but we pushed the bed up against the wall and barricaded the other side with furniture so he won’t roll out. I gathered up the nighttime loveys from the tent. We read a story, gave him goodnight kisses, and shut off the light… all the while thinking he’d change his mind. He didn’t. He fell asleep singing himself a happy little song about being comfy cozy in the big boy bed in the pink room.

We spend so much time waiting for childhood milestones, noting with nervous anticipation as our kids get closer to crawling, first steps, first words, first sentence. As parents, we wait and coax and urge and even push for progress, when our little one might not be quite ready. Sometimes, though, milestones just happen, without warning or time to prepare. Sometimes, a kid knows when to leap to the next level, and suddenly we parents are the ones scrambling to catch up.

-C.