Another week, another blog post. For this post, I was to read Maya Angelou’s My Name is Margaret then write a moment from my past about a time that I felt intense emotion. I chose to write about when my son was born and the days following.
On November 30, 2017, my 41 weeks of pregnancy and nearly 3 days of labor had come to an end, I was finally able to meet my son, Cosmo. He was the absolute greatest thing I had ever seen in my life and I couldn’t believe that I had created him. On top of being the most beautiful being, he was also the strongest I had ever met. From the moment Cosmo entered this world, I got hit hard with the reality of how terrifying motherhood can truly be and had come face to face every parent’s greatest fear. During labor, after a little over an hour of pushing, my midwife sent for the doctor on call because Cosmo’s heart rate had started to drop. By the time the doctor and 15 other people were in the room, my son had no heartbeat and I was being screamed at by the doctor to push. It took about 2 pushes of super-mom-strength and at 5:07pm, he was here- purple and lifeless. They plopped his tiny, inert body on me while they quickly cut his umbilical cord and unraveled it from around his neck- not once but twice- then swept him away to try to revive him. Once I heard his tiny cry from across the room, I had a wave of relief crash into me, which was short lived. The two neonatal doctors in the delivery room ordered a cooling blanket immediately for full-body hypothermia and took him away to the NICU. On top of the doctors having concern for him having brain damage from going so long without oxygen, he also had a collapsed lung. When I finally saw Cosmo again, around 1am, while I was on my way from LDR to the maternity ward, he had two feeding tubes, oxygen, multiple IVs, a catheter going into his lung, monitors everywhere, and he was on a cooling blanket. I wasn’t allowed to touch his hand with more than two fingers so I wouldn’t warm any part of his body back up from 92°. For 72 hours his body had to be cooled then slowly warmed back up. For 3 days I couldn’t kiss him, hold him, or breastfeed him (he wasn’t allowed any kind of food other than IV fluids). Even though I was exhausted and in a lot of pain, I would walk downstairs and through what felt like the four longest hallways in the world and I spent every moment that I was awake (while still in the hospital myself) next to him in the NICU. I’d watch him breathe and shiver from the cooling and wish I could just hold him in order to make it all better. When I was discharged, I came back every day, for the next week, around 8am and stayed until about 2am. The entire time I would feel helpless for not being able to help my own child in any way, but at the same time I would be consumed with love and be in complete awe while staring at my baby boy. Once the three days of cooling were up, my boyfriend and I woke up around 3am and made our way to the NICU and waited for Cosmo’s warming to be completed so we could finally hold our baby for time first time. When I FINALLY had Cosmo in my embrace, everything was alright, everything that had happened didn’t matter. The fact that no part of my “birthing hopes & dreams” had happened mattered, or that I wanted to breastfeed and feared that I wouldn’t be able to because he couldn’t eat anything for the first 72 hours of life. None of the struggles from the 3 days of labor, the 3 days of waiting to hold my son, somehow summoning up the ability to leave him to go home for a few hours of “sleep,” crying while I was home because I felt cheated for not having the experience everyone else has when their child is born and all I wanted was my baby, or anything else was insignificant other than him being alive, well, and in my arms. It was truly the most blissful moment of my life and it’s a moment I will always cherish.
3 Comments
Doug
9/17/2019 05:29:01 am
Throughout your entire piece I was a bit on edge I guess would be the best way to describe it. I cannot imagine the anguish you must have been going through during that span. You did a very good job at conveying it though. It made me feel like I was watching the story unfold in front of my eyes. It was very well done.
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Abby Warholic
9/17/2019 05:31:52 am
Jess, I can feel your happiness through your text when you finally had the chance to hold your baby. I felt nervous and got goosebumps reading about how your baby's umbilical cord was wrapped around their neck. I'm glad your baby is healthy and strong!
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Sabatino
9/23/2019 07:05:46 pm
I agree with Doug and Abby’s comments. It takes guts to write about such a personal moment. This post provides description, action, and themes of fear, joy, anxiety, anger...and on.
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Jessica RushWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. Archives
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