3 Years Later (Part 2)

We have got to get into a house.

This was all I could think for the first and second trimester of my third pregnancy. There was no way I could manage a third floor walk up, two little children, an infant AND postpartum.

But have you SEEN this market? (the year was 2021) and we do not live in a cheap part of the country. By the third trimester I had to admit it just wasn’t going to be feasible before the baby came. But to be honest, I had plenty of fish to fry with two small kids, a growing business and a difficult end to my last pregnancy.

I stopped sleeping in my 7th month of pregnancy and nothing my doctors recommended worked to get me the rest I needed. I had awful reflux, the baby was breach and good Lord there were 2 or 3 other things that my mind has blissfully blocked out now that I sit to write it all down. I suppose it wasn’t a big surprise when, at my 39 week appointment, my blood pressure was high. I walked over to the hospital to pee in a cup and get some bloodwork done, hoping to be sent home shortly.

No such luck.

Within a few hours, we began an attempt at an induction. I desperately wanted a vaginal delivery given my 2nd pregnancy’s c-section was so difficult for me. It all went south – way, way south. At first it seemed like my body was responding well – contractions, dialation, breaking water. And then I had some terrible reaction to the epidural and a nurse was commanding me to keep my eyes open and not fall asleep. I either heard the word “epinephrine” or “ephedrine” multiple times and I knew, based on watching too many medical dramas, that this was NOT a good thing. I remember thinking I was not ready to die.

24 hours in, the OB stood at the end of my bed and looked at me with both a sympathetic and authoritarian expression. “We can go for a few more hours, Jen. But after that…”

I was radically uncomfortable. I was agitated. My nose was so stuffed I couldn’t breathe. The epidural only half worked. When it did work, I could not sleep. I was nauseous and vomiting. The baby kept flipping in my belly, refusing her head down starting position. In a flood of tears, I told them to take her by c-section now instead of waiting. And while they were at it – tie those damn tubes.

They were NOT quick about it. In the waiting time, I cried to my best friend, my parents, my husband. We managed childcare coverage by the skin of our teeth – wonderful, self sacrificing friends and babysitters staying over night with our older two so my husband and I could be together. My sister was on her drive up from Texas to stay with us for my maternity leave and by now this baby could.not.come.out.of.me.quick.enough.

I hate c-sections. Like really, really hate them. But it happened. And RoseMarie Hope came into the world on August 20th, 2021. And ohmyword she was absolute perfection.

The drugs of major surgery stayed in my system a long time. The first day in the hospital the world spun (literally) and I have photos in my camera roll I do not remember taking.

Postpartum was brutal. My blood pressure remained high. And, if you google pre-eclampsia (dont) you’ll see a major concern: death. It took weeks for sleep to return to me, for the highs and lows of the hormonal surges to settle, for me to process what essentially was my birth trauma. All the while breastfeeding and holding and soothing my newborn. All the while healing from major abdominal surgery. All the while being mother to two toddlers. All the while managing income from a business I could not run or work in. All the while maintaining connection with family, friends, community.

We aren’t human, my fellow women. We are something more. We wade through the mud, strong as tree trunks at the same as we spread our wings, sewing souls together with the ambrosia brewed in our very bodies. Only women live in two worlds simultaneously; that of heaven and earth. Only women can be both a person and a place.