Cutting

I did it.  All this talk about, “How are you doing?”  “How are things going?”  I cannot even say how many people have asked me those questions from my therapist (from whom I would expect that question) to friends and family.  People call that I don’t usually talk to, to ask how I am doing.  It is nice.  It is really nice.  Don’t get me wrong.  I love getting emails from people I don’t usually hear from.  It is exciting.  Something a little out of the norm.  But, it is also pressure.  Immense pressure.  Dammit.  I have to be better.  I have to be cured since I have went through over 10 sessions of ECT at U of M.  Family members have taken time off of work to take me to the hospital.  One family member drove from Rochester, MN to stay for a week and help out!!  My psychiatrist and therapist took time out of their busy schedules to be with me.  One of my friends has taken time off of work at least 3 times!   The out-pouring of kindness is beyond measure.  And despite all of that I cut yesterday.  I hate typing the words.  I hate the way they look on the computer screen.  I was just going to hang onto this little bit of information and not tell anyone.  Not tell my therapist, not tell my husband, no one.  But, I hate the way the information sits in my stomach and continuously churns and  churns and eventually makes me sick.    There it is.  I cut. I am not perfect.  After two months of ECT I got overwhelmed and cut, with a razor blade I had still hanging around. I made 5 mean, red looking straight lines on my abdomen. I could have picked up the phone and called Dina.  I could have gone out in the garage and smoked some weed.  I could have taken an Ativan.  I could have picked up the phone and called my friend Olivia.  I did none of that.  Why? I really thought nothing but cutting was going to help yesterday.   I couldn't breathe and I wanted something to help me to breathe.  I wanted to breathe so badly.  I was in this moment where I didn't think or couldn't think.  I went in the bathroom, got out the razor blade and before I knew it there were 5 cut marks on my abdomen.   It is easy to think now.  I am not in the heat of the moment.  The heat of the moment was yesterday. 

I want to be better. The good part is that I do feel somewhat better.  The past two days I made dinner from scratch and it was not this massive big deal.  I even had the energy to help clean up afterwards.  I had the energy to go to the grocery store.  Once I got there I got so overwhelmed a friend had to come and help me finish but the point here is that I wanted to even attempt that monumental task!!

 I want the depression to be gone.  I don't want cutting to even come across my mind.  I don't want little things to  become big things.  A perfect example is this.  Today is day three of winter break for my boys.  They want to spend all of their time on the iPads, and playing Wii.  I am trying to save some of their brains  while still saving some of my sanity.  My boys watched movies or played on the iPad all morning long.  We had a field trip for Boy Scouts at 10:30 a.m.  I gave them plenty of warning before it was time to leave and then gave the, "Times up!" for all three of them.  Getting out of the house was a massive undertaking which resulted in me yelling louder than I thought I was capable.  No one wanted to listen.  Everyone wanted a cookie or juice or pretzels right then and there.  The  brand new shoes that were purchased just yesterday were now too tight and only one of the old ones could be found.  My husband texted me in the middle of all of this and he wanted to know why I did not get back to him right away.  I told him, "I am going to kill your three sons!!"  Raising three boys is hard.  Raising three boys while struggling with a mental illness.  Damn hard. 

The ECT has made things better.  I am cooking.  I am keeping up with the laundry.  And I really do have more patience to spare with my boys.  Its the fact that things are not really great that bothers me.  I feel like by not getting better I  have let too many people down.  Like I should now be healed after two months of ECT.   I guess I need to report that I am not healed.  There are still  bumps in the road that happen.  I still have a long way to go. I struggle daily with thoughts about hurting myself.  I work through them and I am committed to getting better.  The cutting might happen again.  I can't promise that I will never cut again.  I can promise to work though my list of things I should  be doing first. The rest...I don't know.  

The first whisper

Funny thing about those little whispers that one should listen to instead of ignore.  The whispers get louder.  The intrusive thoughts never went away that weekend.  I thought it was a fluke.  "Maybe," I thought, "It would take a few days for the drug to stabilize in my system."  After a week of intense intrusive thoughts I knew I should not be ignoring this growing problem any longer.  Every time I picked up David I had a thought about dropping him.  Every time I sat down to nurse I had a thought about crushing his head.  Over and over again I fought against these awful thoughts. I also had terrible thoughts about hurting myself.  Driving in the car was the worst.  Over and over I would get thoughts of slashing my legs with large knife.  I hated the thoughts and wanted them to go away so I kept myself busy.  When David napped I would clean up the kitchen, do the laundry, any chore that needed to be done really.  I just didn't want the thoughts to invade my brain.  Fighting against those thoughts all day long is exhausting.  By the end of the day I was snippy and short with everyone in my family.  I wanted nothing more than to vegetate on the couch.  Finally I reached my limit and called OB's office.  They were the ones who had prescribed the Zoloft in the first place.  Little did I know at the time that my OB was the worst place to call. 

OBGYN's are trained surgeons and trained at getting a healthy baby into the world.  Two of my OBGYN's helped to save my life the day David was born.  The one piece of knowledge OB's don't have extensive training on is post partum depression and/or drugs to treat said ailment.  That is why there are psychiatrists in the world.  They have extensive schooling and training.  At the time I didn't  know a psychiatrist to call let alone the knowledge that I should call one.  So on a gloomy day in mid-December I called my OB's office and talked with the nurse, not even one of the doctors!  I explained what was happening to the nurse and she said to double the dose of Zoloft I was taking and to call in two weeks if things were not better.  Well you do the math.  It was mid-December and she wanted me to call in two weeks; Christmas time. 

Things didn't get better. I didn't call.  I wanted to believe that things would get better but they didn't.  I have a very vivid memory of the Christmas program at Caleb's daycare.  I was especially depressed all that day and was having a hard time even thinking of going to this Christmas program.  I got all the kids ready in their matching outfits and I was just going to go in whatever I had put on that day.  I didn't care.  At the last minute I think I threw on something nice, put on a little make-up and ran the flat iron through my hair.  I may have looked nice that evening but I didn't feel nice.  The suicidal thoughts had started and by this point were pretty constant.  It was awful to go to this program, watch all these sweet little children sing Away in the Manger and be thinking such dark thoughts.  I smiled, we got some good pictures and then I went home to put on my pajamas and escaped from the world. 

After Christmas everyone went back to work and school and I was left home with a three month old baby.  I was due to return to work in one month and I was scared.  Innately I knew that something was not right but at the time I just didn't know what.  I was never away from David.  In fact he refused the bottle completely; a bad thing since he was going to daycare in a month.  Being away from David made me anxious.  I didn't feel like anyone could take care of him like I could.  I was short with the ones I loved the most, especially my husband.  I yelled really easy and driving especially on the highway was really hard.  I was afraid of every car around me coming into my lane and hitting me.  Driving on the highway was riddled with anxiety and lots of sweat.  I would get to my destination and be thankful that I could once again breathe.  I didn't know what do think of these funny things that were happening to me.  At the time I didn't have a name, I just knew they made me feel miserable. 

Since the middle of November I had been attending a post pardum depression support group.  It helped but that little whisper of "something is not right" was still there. After one of the support groups I stayed to talk to the therapist that ran the group.  "Things just are not right," I told her.  "I am still really depressed and I am going back to work in two weeks."  The thought sent shivers up and down my spine.  The therapist gave me the name of a therapist she trusted, Shay.  I got in touch with Shay right away.  I wanted to have something in place before I went back to work.  That first hour and half session with Shay consisted of her getting to know me and me telling my story; what happened the day that Nate was born and how the last 4 months had been going.  There are two things that Shay told me later about our first encounter.  She thought, "This woman is so well put together why is she here seeking counseling? and She just told that entire scary, frightening, down right overwhelming story of her son's birth without so much as one tear!"  Shay thought it was imperative that I see a psychiatrist right away.  "How do you feel about seeing a psychiatrist?"  At that point I really didn't mind.  This was on a Thursday.  Shay called Dr. P and I saw her two days later on a Saturday morning.    Two days after that I went back to work teaching first grade full time. 

The unraveling

The first thing I said to David when we got home was, "You just need to fall in line buddy."  It sounds funny but he really did.  Having a third child in the house was work.  It was an extra mouth to feed and I was the only one to feed him!  But, I think everyone was so happy to have mom and dad back in the house full time that the extra chaos that a newborn brings seemed simple compared to the last 4 months.  Not to mention the fact that we had two boys that needed care.  Family and friends would ask me, "Are you worried about him getting sick since he was a preemie?"  Nope.  I can honestly say I was not.  Jonah and Caleb were going to bring home bugs from school and daycare and there was not a thing I could do about it, except really through hand washing.  In fact the second week after David got home both Caleb and Jonah got strep!  David went everywhere, to the Halloween parade at Jonah's school and the Halloween party at Caleb's daycare.  He went with me to the mall and everywhere else in between.  I had been confined to a hospital bed for so long that staying in one place for very long was not in my vocabulary anymore.  I wanted to go and experience life, take walks to Starbucks or just visit a friend.  Those first few weeks and months of having David home are a blur of caring for three children but there are a few details that I remember.  I remember being happy to be with my family and I remember feeling content.

In December my nephew was turning 5 and having a birthday party.  My sister-in-law and her husband with their two boys live outside of Chicago.  My mother-in-law suggested taking the train to Chicago with the boys.  I thought it was a great idea.  I had travelled in the car with an infant many times.  It is no fun when they get hungry and start to cry and then start to wail.  Travelling on the train would be a relaxing way to get to Chicago, plus my train crazed son, Jonah was going to LOVE it!!

My mother-in-law loves to make any little trip a big deal.  She packs little presents, buys special treats and she had brought her iPad.  A new gadget at the time.  We planned extra time to go to Zingerman's in Ann Arbor to get sandwiches for lunch...Yum!  Even with three kids and all our luggage and the stroller and a car seat we got on the train with little issue.  The boys went back and forth to the cafe car at least 20 times and I sat and nursed David as often as he needed.  It was a fun and relaxing trip until about halfway though I remembered that I had forgotten something important at home, my antidepressant, Zoloft.  "Shit!  Shit!"  I thought.  I could not believe that would do something like that.  "How in the world could I have forgotten that drug!?"  I tried to talk myself down from my mistake.  I had forgotten to take doses in the past and there was no major problems.  It was Thursday and my husband was driving to Chicago with his father on Friday.  Greg would be able to bring the medication with him.  Really I was only going to miss two doses.  I would be fine I thought.  Things will be okay. Only they were not okay. 

The next night I was sitting in the rocking chair in my sister-in-law's family room nursing David.  I noticed that his nails were really getting long and sharp and asked her for the baby nail cutters or baby scissors for his nails.  The next few moments began the unraveling of the tightly wound ball of string I was holding onto very precariously.  Those scissors were put into my hand and in a split second I started to have intrusive thoughts.  Over and over and over and over again I thought about cutting off the tips of David's fingers.  I put the scissors down thinking it was me holding the scissors but the thoughts persisted.  I was so disturbed that I had to put David down.  I laid the boppy on the floor, propped him up in it and walked away. 

My brain was spinning.  I was thinking, "No.  Not again.  It's the damn Zoloft.  I forgot to take it and now I am having these intrusive thoughts.  Fuck!"  I was able to calm myself down by reminding myself that Greg would be in that night and I could take the medication.  Getting the drug back in my system, I thought would take the intrusive thoughts away.  These intrusive thoughts were not new to me.  Instead they were like an old bad friend coming back to visit.  After my second son, Caleb was born I suffered from post partum depression pretty severely only I didn't think it was severe.  I ignored the intrusive thoughts with Caleb because they scared me.  I thought I was crazy and was terrified of someone finding out that I was in fact crazy.  So I kept my mouth shut and dealt with them the best way I could.  This time I had name for these thoughts. I knew that these thoughts did not mean I wanted to do any harm to my baby.  I knew I was not crazy but I also knew it meant that things were not good.  It was the first signal of many signals that I ignored.  Greg got in late that night around midnight.  I took the Zoloft as soon as he could fish it out of his bag.  I went to bed praying that night that the intrusive thoughts would be gone in the morning. 

The Final Goodbye

David's original due date was right around November 20th.  When the doctors found out I had a placenta accreta and a full placenta previa a c-section date was set for October 15th.  David would be 35 weeks at that point. He would not be considered full-term but also not a full blown preemie.  Babies born at 35 weeks did fairly well, usually didn't have to spend time in the NICU and if they did it was very short term.  Lung development was their concern so I was given steroids at 27 weeks pregnant; when I was admitted to the hospital.  I was also given magnesium sulfate, not because I had high blood pressure but because studies had shown that the magnesium was good for brain health and development especially in preemie's.  I endured 24 hours of that shit, being confined to the bed, with a catheter, feeling so hot I thought I might explode and a headache of such massive proportions that only Dilaudid took it away. 

It only seems fitting that David left the hospital on the day that he was supposed to be born, October 15th.  The doctor's in the NICU stay very hush, hush about when your baby might go home.  They don't like to get parent's hopes up only to be dashed when their son or daughter had a backslide.  Their were whispers of David going home on Friday at the beginning of the week.  I was so excited I could hardly stand it.  One night after getting the two older boys in bed I called the NICU to see how David was doing.  His nurse gave me the the usual, how many ounces he ate, how much he weighed at the evening weigh in, his temp. the temperature of the incubator and any important information from the neonatologist.  She commented on how cute he was and how good of an eater he was!  The phone conversation lasted for less than five minutes.  I hung up the phone, collapsed to the floor in my bedroom and sobbed and sobbed and sobbed.  I could not take it one more day.  I wanted my baby home.  I didn't want to call and get updates on how my child; my flesh and blood was doing.  I wanted to check on him in his crib, be there for all his feedings and change every diaper...even the blow-outs!  Greg found me on the floor of the bedroom crying uncontrollably. After telling Greg what was wrong through the tears and the sobbing he got me into bed.  "Tomorrow is another day.  Maybe tomorrow we will get good news."  I was in the third week since David had been born.  The only way I was able to drive back and forth to the hospital was to not take the percocet (doctor's orders).  I was using Motrin to control the pain.  I was feeling better but was no where near healed.  Somehow I was getting through the day and by the evening I was in a tremendous amount of pain.  My meltdown that night was wanting my family whole, exhaustion and for the damn pain to end. 

The next day before I left for the hospital I got a phone call from the NICU.  They wanted me to bring David's car seat.  "YES! YES! YES!" I screamed once getting off the phone.  The car seat test was one step closer to him coming home.  By state law all preemie's have to keep a stable pulse/ox for one hour while strapped in their car seat before being allowed to go home.  We were getting close.  I could taste the sweet taste of freedom.  David was taking all his feeds from either the bottle or the breast.  There was no more IV that delivered fluids and nutrition, no more nasal cannula for oxygen, the feeding tube was gone and he passed the car seat test!!  The only thing that was left on was the pulse/ox monitor. On Thursday afternoon I got the news I had been waiting for, for what seemed like forever, "Tomorrow David will go home."  I said goodbye to David that day for the last time in the NICU we were going to be a whole family.

I got home that evening, packed the diaper bag and packed the special "going home" outfit that was bought by grandma. It was baby blue velor zipped hoodie with dark gray trim and dark gray inside the hood and a small train embroidered on the front.  The pants also were baby blue velor with dark gray trim around the bottom.  Greg had arranged to take the day off from work to go with me.  Everything was set. 

When we arrived at the NICU David was in a bassinet, not the incubator!  He was in a bassinet, the ones that babies go in when you have a full term baby.  The kind that Jonah and Caleb were in when they were born.  I had seen so many babies in the NICU in a bassinet before and knew it was their time to go home.  Seeing David in the bassinet was overwhelming.  There were no wires, or tubes or beeping monitors just my baby swaddled in his bassinet.  It was time.  It was time to go home.  I scooped him up, held him close and then got out the "going home" outfit.  The photographer was coming up to take pictures and my baby was going to look cute and sweet. 

David slept through all the pictures but everyone of them turned out precious.  We were given going home instructions from the nurse in his care and then we strapped him in his car seat to go home.  One of the nurses from the unit walked down to the entrance with us.  He stayed with me while Greg went and got the car.  We chatted a little but all I kept thinking was, "Good-bye gold elevators.  Good bye food court, good-bye horrible memories."

Greg pulled up in our blue Ford, he snapped in the car seat, we said our good-byes to the nurse and just like that we were leaving the hospital that had been a part of our lives for the last 8 weeks.  I looked back at David in the backseat, looked up at the hospital towering above and thanked God that I was leaving that place for what I hoped was a very long time.  I didn't look back.  The nightmare was over.  I was safe.  David was safe and we were going home!  I only wanted to look forward.  I was excited about having David at the bus stop to greet his brothers and our neighbors.  I was excited about being home even if it meant that things would be really crazy.  I was excited about most everything.  There was not one ounce of fear in me.  I was happy for the first time in a very long time. 

The Ghost

After being released from the hospital our life at home took on a temporary new normal.  The boys were so excited to have me home.  I remember Jonah asking me if I was home to stay.  When I said, "Yes," he gave me a hug and said, "Mommy I am so glad you are home!"  If that doesn't make you cry then I don't know what does!

At this point I was only one week from the hysterectomy I had had and one week from the trauma of David's birth.  I was still on percocet and Motrin 800 around the clock.  Driving was out of the question.  Greg had taken another week off from work (sort of...he worked from the NICU break room) to drive me back and forth to the hospital and to spend time with David.  I would get up in the morning, pump and mark the bottles with the special labels provided by the NICU, get Jonah off to Kindergarten and then Greg and I would take Caleb to daycare.  After that we would head to the hospital; arriving around 10 a.m.  By then the nurses had David on a pretty good feeding schedule every 3 hours so I knew when to arrive for the next feeding.  If I was going to be a little late I would call and they would hold him off somehow.  I wanted to be there to breastfeed him for as many feedings as possible.  Since I could not be there 24/7 he got my breast milk from a bottle the other times.  This was new territory to me.  My other two boys never got a bottle until they went to daycare around 6 months.  I had to give up that control.  David had to be in the hospital and I could not be there around the clock.  It was not possible with two other boys at home and recovering from a major surgery.  David taking the bottle was the first of many times that I had to learn to let go of some control.  And really I had nothing to worry about.  David was a natural at breastfeeding and switched between the two without fail. 

By the end of the second week I was able to walk onto the unit without the aid of a wheelchair.  One of those days my parents were visiting.  As I walked onto the unit there was this nurse standing in between David's incubator and me.  She took one look at me, got as white as a sheet, started to shake, tears welled up in her eyes and sweat started to run down the side of her face.  My first reaction was, "What in the world is this nurses problem and why is she working?  She looks like she has seen a ghost."  This nurse walked up to me, took my hands and the tears just started to spill over.  She cried and held my hands and cried some more.  I was still at a loss over why she was crying so.  I wondered if something had gone wrong with David. I soon found out that David was doing beautifully.  This moment could have only happened if there was some other divine intervention.  The NICU was short staffed so they were pulling nurses from labor and delivery to cover the NICU.  Where David was, the hospital had capacity for 50 babies.  There was a one in 50 chance of this particular nurse caring for David that day and yet she was. 

Through the tears the nurse said, "I was there they day you delivered.  I was in the operating room.  There was so much blood.  Everyone worked so hard.  The operating room was so quiet.  No one thought you were going to make it.  We thought we were going to have to tell your husband that his wife and son didn't make it."  She looked at me like I was ghost, and then held my face in between her two hands just to make sure I was alive and well.  And then she hugged me.  It wasn't this short little hug but a hug like she was never going to let go.  She needed that hug just as much as I did.  At that point we were both crying and so were my parents.  I had yet to understand the enormity of what had happened over the last two weeks.  I knew I was alive and that my son was alive and that we were doing fine.  The details, the blood, the near death experience, and coming to terms with all of that would come much, much, much later. 

This nurse was so happy to be caring for David that day.  For her it was healing to see him alive and thriving.  He had gained weight, grew in inches and was taking almost all his feeds by then from bottle or breast.  She was shocked and amazed at how far he had come in such a short period of time.  "He is a miracle," she said.  And then everyone cried some more. 

My sister-in-law used to work at the hospital where David was born.  She knew staff from all over the hospital.  When some friends found out that the girl that almost died in OB was her sister-in-law they were shocked.  Turns out the nurse that took care of David that day was eventually diagnosed with PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder) and had to leave work for a while.  Even when she came back to work she did not work in the OB operating room for quite some time. 

At the time the only thing I knew about PTSD was that soldiers from Iraq came back and had it.  I didn't know what it meant, what its symptoms were or how debilitating it could be.  Little did I know that PTSD symptoms were quietly creeping up on me.  Hints of not feeling right were all over the place; my heart racing, getting sweaty when someone mentioned David's birth, not being able to breathe when I first stepped into the hospital to visit David.  I thought it was all the hormones slowly leaving my system or righting themselves around. When Greg was with me at the hospital I didn't feel the symptoms as much.  I know it is because I felt safe and secure in his presence.  But, the end of the second week was drawing to a close.  Greg would be going back to work.  He was going to help me get the two older boys off to daycare and school for one more week but I would be on my own getting to and from the hospital each day to visit David.  I was scared of Greg going back to work. My safety net was being taken away.  I had to fly on my own and I wasn't sure if I was ready.  In my stubborn head none of that mattered.  I was going to fly with or without the safety net because I wanted to be with David.  Nothing was going to keep me from that little peanut.  The PTSD symptoms or whatever they were, were going to be ignored for as long as I could ignore them. 

The Breast

David was only four days old when the doctors wanted me to try to breastfeed for the first time.  I was nervous and scared and excited beyond belief.  Before I ever began the nurse went through a short little tutorial with me.  She wanted to set some expectations which was just what I needed.  Trying for the first time was not for David to receive any nutrition.  They wanted to see what he was going to do.  The nurse was going to be looking to see if he turned his head toward my breast, if he opened his mouth and maybe just maybe if he latched on. 

Since I had nursed two other children I had a bunch of confidence built up.  I was not a first time mom fumbling for the first time.  I knew what I was doing.  I had even called my husband the night before to make sure he brought my Boppy (the nursing pillow).  David was so tiny that I needed something to prop him up and I was still very weak.  I needed all the support I could get.  Still wearing my hospital gown my breasts were readily available.  It amazes me that when I became a mom the whole modesty thing went out the window.  Boobs hanging out for all to see?  Who cares.  This is me and my baby sharing a moment that will only be this one moment.  With the nurses help I held out my breast just like I had been taught, massaged the breast to get milk to come down and then placed my nipple on his lips.  The next moment was one that I will never forget.  David opened his mouth wide just like any baby is supposed to do and latched on, on his first try.  And then he started to suck.  I looked at my husband and then at the nurse with this complete look of awe and said, "Did you see that?  Did you see what just happened?  Did you see him latch on the first try?"  Tears were running down my face complete with a huge smile.  I was elated.  My baby was getting stronger by the day and he just made a huge milestone.  What could be better?  I was lucky beyond lucky.  Nursing David got easier as he got stronger.  He was a natural (not all babies are).  The time spent holding him skin to skin, the constant pumping, it all paid off.  I had more milk than I knew what do to with.  My doctor's and the NICU lactation consultant were amazed.  After all the blood loss my body still knew what do to and did it well. 

Breastfeeding is hard work.  Taking formula or breast milk from a bottle is much easier.  David was not allowed to be at my breast for more than a few minutes.  With preemie's the doctors don't want them to have to work hard at much of anything.  They want all their calories to be used to gain weight and to grow.  So therefore they are in incubators to keep them nice and cozy warm and in the beginning I was not allowed to breastfeed for more than 10 minutes at a time. 

Slowly as David got stronger the doctors allowed him to breast feed more and more.  In the beginning it was once a day.   That killed me.  I remember one specific time I went to take David out of his incubator and got yelled at by his nurse.  "He should not be out, the nurse scolded. He is only allowed out so many minutes a day and you already fed him once today.  The rest of the feedings will be given via his feeding tube."  I was crushed.  I wanted to run from the NICU with David in my arms never to return.  "How is it that this nurse could tell me what was best for my baby?"  I hid my tears as best as I could, sat down in the chair next to his incubator and stared at him and thought, "Here I am visiting my baby in this hospital and I cannot even hold him."  The tears came and didn't stop.  I was so distraught over not even being able to hold David.  When the nurse got busy with some other baby I pulled him out.  By this time I knew how to care for all of his needs.  I knew to change the pulse/oxygen monitor to a different foot or hand at every diaper change.  I knew how to give a feeding through his feeding tube. I knew when the monitor was beeping just to be annoying or when it was beeping because his oxygen levels had dropped. I knew to take his temperature before I took him out of the incubator and if I didn't get a reading I liked I knew to get another thermometer from somewhere else!   I was taught how to change his clothes with all the wires and even how to clean up the incubator when he peed/pooped all over it during a diaper change!  When I was visiting the nurses didn't have to worry about David. I took care of his every need.   

Once David was transferred to the step-down unit in the NICU I was allowed to do pretty much anything I wanted.  My friend (who is a nurse) calls it the feeder and grower unit.  I never had to live through the hell again of being told not to hold my baby.  The days consisted of pumping in the morning, eating breakfast and then heading up to the NICU to spend time with David.  When my pain meds began to wear off I would head back to my room for more medication and lunch that my husband had picked up from somewhere. 

In the 5 weeks that I was in the hospital I rarely ate the hospital food.  I'm gluten-free which is really hard.  In a hospital they err on the side of caution and serve you a completely gluten-free and taste-free meal.  To say the food was awful would be a gross understatement.  Towards the end I would not even order food.  I didn't want the tray in my room. I did not want that smell anywhere near me.  But, they brought it anyway.  My husband made the mistake of opening the lid on my tray one time. Before I could yell, "NO!  NO!  DON'T OPEN THAT!" He already had and the smell had wafted towards my nose.  I was immediately sick to my stomach.  I could feel my mouth start to water (in a really bad way) and thought long and hard about running to the bathroom. 

After lunch Greg and I would head back to the NICU where I would again nurse David and spend time just holding him, smelling him, looking at him.  I didn't want to forget any part of this tiny little person in my arms.  I knew that as little as he was that he was going to get big really fast. I had to soak in every moment because David was for sure my last baby.  This was the last time I would ever breastfeed, hold an infant that was mine and the last time I would be a new mom.  In so many ways I was elated that it was the last time.  Being a new mom is fucking hard.  But, there is a sadness that comes with the knowing that its the last time.  Soon my boys would be teenagers begging for the keys to the car and money to go out with their friends.  These moments in the NICU were fleeting.  I knew that.  So I made them last.  I took pictures.  I took the time to soak in the surroundings, chat with the nurses and move just a little bit more slowly. 

Then just as I was getting into a rhythm of caring for David and spending time in the NICU I got the news I had been waiting for; I was going home the next day.  After five weeks of being in the hospital I was going to sleep in my own bed next to my husband. 

I have to go on a little tangent here...Before Greg and I were married we did not live together.  The one and only thing I was looking forward to after we were married was going to bed each and every night next to my husband.  When I was put in the hospital being away from him each night was the hardest.  There is just something about knowing your best friend, and confidant is there just in case, right beside you.  The nights when I cried myself to sleep (and there were plenty of them) he wasn't there to hold me or tell me, "It's going to be okay."  In the hospital I was always scared.  I never knew what the day was going to bring.  I had a sense of impending doom at all times and at night I desperately needed my husband beside me.

Going home meant safety, something I had been missing for far too long.  I could not wait to take a shower in my shower and sit on my couch to watch all the TV shows that had piled up on my DVR.  No more hospital food, no more blood draws or IV's, no more early morning rounds by the residents.  I would be able to wake up and be with my two boys.  Caleb 3 1/2 and Jonah 5 1/2 did not have their mom for the last five weeks.  At last I was going home to stay.  There was one piece of me that was not going...David.  He would stay another two weeks before being released.  I had to leave my baby at the hospital. 

Kangaroo

David continued to improve quickly.  I was not allowed to go and see him unless someone was around to take me to the NICU.  Walking more than a few steps was pain beyond control.  So sometimes a family member was around and sometimes I could get a nursing student that had nothing to do to take me to the NICU.  The day I got to be with David all by myself was one of those days that I found a random nursing student.  She happily wheeled me up to the NICU and said to call when I was ready to come back to my room.  The nurse taking care of David that day asked if I wanted to hold him skin to skin.  She said it was good for bonding and breastfeeding and all other things.  I knew exactly what she was talking about.  I even knew why what was called kangaroo care was so vital to a preemie.  It started out in Central America where incubators like the one David was in were few and far between.  In order to save these tiny infants nurses would hold them skin to skin so they could stay warm, and grow and live.  Since then numerous studies have been done to show the positive effects on kangaroo care.  In that moment I didn't care about the studies.  All I wanted was to hold my baby.  Give him to me and let me drink in his beautiful smells and sounds.  Let me feel his heartbeat and his breath on my skin. 

The nurse helped me into the more comfy chair they had in the room, stripped David down to his diaper and then laid him on my bare chest.  This tiny little infant that was not even supposed to be born yet was here with me in this quiet space.  The nurse covered us with blankets, reclined the chair and turned off the lights.  For the first time in a long time I was left alone to be with my baby.  Tears ran down the sides of my face and into my ears.  I didn't care.  I was so happy to be with this little person that all other things around me ceased to exist.  Even the beeping of all the monitors went away.  While I was holding David the doctors and residents and med students and PA's came to round.  It always amazes me that doctors in hospitals travel in herds.  But what amazed me more was the fact that they respected me and my time with my son.  They stood outside of the room talking in quiet hushed voices.  When they were done only the main neonatologist came in to talk to me briefly about how David was doing and their plan for the next 24 hours.  Finally I was not living inside Grey's Anatomy where the resident gives the differential diagnosis to the rest of the senior doctors on staff while the patient sits annoyed. 

David was only allowed outside of his incubator for a certain period of time.  Much sooner than I wanted the nurse was back to take David from me.  In all I held him for 45 minutes.  Those 45 minutes felt like two.  Reluctantly I gave him back.  But, I was given good news.  The nurse said, "Tomorrow the doctor's want you to try and breastfeed."  I remember tears welling up in my eyes.  "Oh my God!" I thought.  This might actually happen.  All this pumping is not for nothing.  I had nursed my other two sons without fail.  I stopped nursing Jonah at 15 months only because I got pregnant with Caleb and was too sick to do anything.  Caleb I nursed for 19 months and stopped because my husband gently nudged me, "I think its time, Jules"  I desperately wanted to do the same for David.  Probably the yearning was even greater because he was so tiny and I knew how powerful the experience could be for both mom and baby.  And deep inside I didn't want to be a failure.  I had nursed my first two sons.  I did not want to fail my third and most fragile one.  I was going to will the breastfeeding to happen no matter what I had to do. 

I had spent four weeks in the hospital on bed rest waiting for David to come.  Before that I had spent close to 2 months on bed rest at home.  I had this high-risk pregnancy that was not my fault, I had no control over developing a placenta previa and an accreta.  But, I felt guilt.  Immense guilt that when I stopped to think about it the guilt it overtook me in an awful way.  I wanted to kill myself while in the hospital.  That guilt I could not wash away or push away.  It stayed with me even as I tried to shove it way, way down into the recesses of my brain.   Being able to breastfeed David (I thought) was going to wash some of that guilt away.  I was going to be able to be a mother deserving of another son to raise. 

 

The First Time

That first morning in the ICU was full of shocked doctors faces.  I didn't learn until much, much later that my husband was very close to being a widow left to raise two boys on his own.  The doctors didn't think David would make it at all.  I had lost over 3 units of blood in my hospital room.  This was before I was sprinted down to the OR. In all I had to have 9 units.   The first report my husband received was that I was okay but it didn't look like David would make it.  My husband told me that piece of information 9 months later.  When I asked him about how he felt when he got that information he said, "I was so sad for you.  You had sat in that hospital bed for 4 weeks waiting for David to come and all of that would have been for nothing.  I didn't want to have to tell you that our son didn't make it." 
David was a fighter and so was I.  No way I was going out.  The party was just getting started.  In fact after David was born I was a force to be reckoned with.  I was hell bent on breast feeding my 32 week old baby.  The day after his birth I asked for the lactation consultant to come to my room and for a breast pump to be brought up.  The nurses were shocked.  They didn't even know what to do with this breast pump thing.  They deal with old people in the ICU, not new mothers wanting to breastfeed.  I could barely sit up from the pain of my incision but Faithfully I pumped every three to four hours.  My preemie was getting the good stuff and no one was going to stop me. 
David continued to fight.  The tube for breathing was taken out as well as his chest tube.  He was now on a C-PAP machine that forced air into his lungs but not as frequently as with being intubated.  The only way I saw David was from cell phone pictures.  Family and friends had been to see David but I couldn't go.  I couldn't get out of bed to a wheel chair and he was still too fragile to be brought down to me.  The pain of not being able to hold my baby was unbearable.  I remember seeing pictures and wanting to scream, "That's my baby.  I want to hold him.  I want to be with him.  I am his mother.  He needs me."  I never cried. I wanted to cry.  I wanted to sob and sob that I could not hold my baby.  Instead I held it in.  Stayed poised and kept it together. 

David was born at 3:15 in the afternoon on a Saturday.  The first time I was able to see him and hold him was around 9 p.m. Monday evening after much begging to my nurses.  My brother was visiting and with the help of the nurses they got me into my wheelchair with IV's, pain pump and a Foley catheter along for the ride.  I looked like death warmed over.  The nurses covered me with blankets and my brother wheeled me up to the NICU to meet my son for the very first time. 

The NICU is unlike any other place in the hospital.  There is no sterile feeling.  People greet you with smiles, the carpeting is fun to look at and the walls are cheerful.  David was in the back, the level 3 NICU where the sickest babies go.  My brother wheeled me up to David and there he was 4 pounds of pure beautiful.  For a while I sat and stared.  He was so perfect.  In just 48 hours he had gotten through the worst.He was even taking some of the breast milk I had been pumping through his feeding tube and tolerating it well!  It really was a miracle.   I thought, "Do I ask to hold him?  Can I hold him?"  The nurse knew what I was thinking and asked those words that wanted to hear for a really long time, "Would you like to hold him?"  She swaddled him and handed me this little bundle that fit in one arm.  I sat and stared at him, taking in his beautiful little nose and his tiny fingers.  This was the moment I was waiting for.  It was September 27th.  Since the beginning of July I had been worrying about this little person.  Would he live, would I live?  I was so distraught about the pregnancy that I wanted to jump off the roof of the hospital!!!!  All that melted away.  David was here now.  He was perfect in every way and finally I was able to be there for him. 

The nurse that was caring for David that night was also working the day he was born.  She was one of the nurses that responded to the call.  Just hearing those words gave me the chills.  She looked right at me and said, "I can't believe you are here right now sitting in that wheelchair.  It is a miracle."  The nurse went on to say, "I have worked here for 10 years and responded to 100s of calls over the years.  Yours was bad.  I have never seen so much blood in my life.  Those doctors saved your life and saved David's life that day."  What does one say to that.  Thank you?  It hardly seems appropriate.  I knew that my life and David's life was saved for a reason, what that reason was I had not a clue. 

David was only 4 pounds but I was so weak that holding him for more than 10 minutes was like lifting 100 pound weights.  Sitting up for any length of time was terribly difficult as well.  It took every ounce of strength I had to give him back to the nurse.  I knew that he would be well taken care of but deep down I knew that me, his mom was really the only person that could care for my baby. 

We said our goodbyes and then my brother wheeled me back to my room.  One of the hardest things I had to do that night was leave David in someone else's care.   I couldn't wait for the next time to hold him and be with him.  I was in love. 

The aftermath

The first memory I have of coming out of the anesthesia is of two nurses turning me over to clean me up.  "Her husband is a fainter!" one commented.  "We need to get this blood off of her."  I quickly lost consciousness again but I remember thinking, "He sure is.  There better not be one drop of blood on me when he sees me." 

Two months earlier my husband and I had had a big meeting with what felt like half the doctors in the hospital.  The meeting was set up so that my husband and I could be informed about my very high risk pregnancy and the complications that would or could be associated with giving birth.  We sat around a very large oval table, my husband and I on one side and the rest of the medical staff on the other.  In attendance was the high-risk OBGYN, my OBGYN, a urologist, an anesthesologist, social worker, a bladder specialist, OBGYN operating room nurses, and a plethera of residents and med students. I was the woman with the accreta.  Accreta's don't happen very often; in only 2% of pregnancies.  It was like being on an episode of Grey's Anatomy only this time I was not sitting on my couch watching.  I was the poor soul in the story and I knew for ratings sake there was going to be blood and terror and more blood.
Blood is exactly what these doctors talked about.  How much might be lost.  How many transfusions might need to be used.  How damage could occur to my bladder and other internal organs.  The doctors had no way of knowing just how far the placenta could grow into and consequently outside of my uterus.  I sat there and didn't move.  I thought, "If I don't move it won't actually be happening to me."  It was working until a resident in the back of the room stood up and said, "Mr. Cameron are you okay because you look grey."  I had been looking straight ahead the whole time, not at my husband.  One look told the whole story. My husband was grey like the ugly walls in the conference room we were sitting in.  He was going to faint and faint fast. 
The doctors in the room acted fast.  He was lifted to the floor, someone was sent to get linens to prop up his legs, another med student was sent to get crackers and juice. After some time the color returned to my husband's face and he was allowed to sit up.  The meeting continued and concluded shortly after that.  It was in that moment that I realized how serious the situation really was. I had a team of 10 or more doctors on my case.  Who has that?   I was carrying this baby boy and we both could die.  My husband and I left that day in a complete daze.  For me it was the end of sleeping for any length of time, eating became something I should do, not what I wanted to do and the worry took over my life. 
When I came out of the anesthesia in the ICU that day two months ago seemed a lifetime away.  I do  remember having the thought, "It really happened.  All those bad things the doctor's talked about really happened.  Holy Shit!"

I woke up in pain.  Not just a little pain that some Tylenol would take care of, oh no.  I was in pain like my insides had just been ripped out.  There was this funny thing in my throat so I couldn't talk.  I quickly realized I was still intubated.  OH MY GOD I AM STILL INTUBATED!!!  I fought the tube down my throat.  Wanted to talk. I wanted to scream that I was in pain.  There were all these people around my bed, my husband, my OB, a nurse and a few other doctors but no one knew and I couldn't tell them.  So then I tried with my hand.  But I could not move it.  I tried the other and the same.  Over and over again I tried to free my wrists but it was pointless.  I was tied to the bed.  In a last ditch effort I made the sign for writing over and over again hoping some would see.  I had to let someone, know I was in withing, seething pain.  Finally my OB saw what I was doing and put a pen in my hand.  I then very crudely wrote on a piece of paper, PAIN.  And then it happened.  Salt was added to the wound.  As if the pain I was in was not enough I started to throw up.  Intubated and all I threw up over and over.  The nurses rolled me to one side which was an excruciating experience just in itself. 
Finally morphine was given which didn't help.  Another dose and nothing.  I was in my own private hell intubated, tied to the bed and no relief was in sight.  There was but one guardian angel with me there that night; My sister-in-law.  She was an ICU nurse for a period of time and knew her way around. She pulled aside my OB and the ICU nurse and said, "Look.  She is fighting the tube and she is in pain.  Either sedate her or take the tube out."  My doctor listened.  The tube came out, my hands were freed from the bed and a pain pump was hooked up.  For the first time in my life I came to love narcotics.  Dilaudid was my best friend. 

Despite massive amounts of drugs and having had a major surgery I could not sleep. I asked for an ambien and still I was not able to shut off my brain.  It was as if it was wired and millions and millions of synapses were going off at the same time. My thoughts were with my baby.  Was he okay?  What did he look like?  When could I see him?  When could I hold him?  I was desperate for information.  Finally at three in the morning I couldn't take it anymore.  I needed to know for myself how my baby was doing, not second hand through the nurses.  I asked for the extension and the phone.  The NICU nurse on the other end of the line was shocked I was calling.  The tone of her voice was all shaky.  She made me think she thought she was talking to a corpse instead of this living, breathing mother in the ICU.  The status update I got was not all happy and roses.  David had to have a blood transfusion, he was intubated and had to have a chest tube because one lung had collapsed.  Scary as it all sounded the nurse made it seem like David was doing okay.  He was stable and that was a good sign.   
I never slept that first night.  There were two big f**king parties going on, one in the ICU and one in the NICU. (My own private one :) Couldn't sleep and miss something.  Plus there are too many beeping noises to even think about sleeping in that place.  When the hospital started the wake up and doctors started making their rounds, now that is when the party really started to begin.  I immediately asked for a breast pump (because I was crazy from the start) and as far as I was concerned I was a celebrity.  Every doctor that walked into my room that morning (and there were a lot of them) looked at me with shock and awe. 

The Beginning-How my Mental Illness became to be

When I was growing up I always dreamed of meeting the right guy, getting married and having kids.  I would lay under the big trees in my parents backyard and have everything planned out down to the name of our children, only girls of course.  They were to be named Cosette and Felicia.  It all seemed so simple, so wonderful.  I couldn't wait to grow up.  I was one of those kids that yearned to be an adult.  I wanted to drive a car, go to parties and go to college. 

In a lot of ways my dreams came true.  I drove on my 16th birthday.  It was to get my brother from soccer practice but I didn't care. I went to college, The University of Michigan to be exact and met the man of my dreams. We had a fairy tale wedding in the most beautiful chapel complete with a honeymoon to Hawaii.  I taught as a teacher for ten years. We bought a small house that we painted and re roofed and gutted the kitchen and refinished the wood floors until it was finally time to have a baby.  A boy of course and then another and then another.  Three boys!  We were having the time of our lives. We were blessed beyond measure.  The funny thing is that while the party was going on around me I was not in it. 

After our first son was born there were whispers that something was not right.  Jonah cried incessantly.  No one slept and the only one to get him to be quiet was Grandpa.  By the end of the day I was standing at the back door holding out Jonah to my husband.  "Take him.  Change your clothes, do what ever you need to do.  We are going to your parents house."  At least there I knew I would get a reprieve from the crying.  I wasn't happy.  I would call Greg at work and bed him to come home.  When school started back up in the fall I was happier than a pig in shit to be returning to work.  I didn't know how I was going to make it work, pumping and all but I was going back to work dammit! 

As soon as the school year ended I was pregnant again by mid-July.  My husband and I were elated until the morning sickness kicked in.  Let me correct myself, all-day sickness.  I puked from sun up to sun down and felt like I was going to die in between.  Zofran was my best friend and the only thing that kept me out of the hospital.  After Caleb was born I knew right away that things were not right.  I would go into crying spells over a piece of thread on the floor.  I was sad that Caleb was our last baby.  I cried and cried and cried.  But, don't all new mother's cry?  Don't all new mother's have more hormones than they know what to do with?  Slowly things got worse until all I could think about was killing myself over and over again. 

Unfortunately, as with a lot of doctors when I presented with such symptoms I was given a script for Zoloft and a referral for a therapist in my area.  Problem solved.  Story over.  I went back to work to start another school year and life was supposed to get back to my dream that had been interrupted. Except that didn't happen.  Unexpectedly, we got pregnant a third time and lost a baby girl.  The experience was so heartbreaking for my husband and I that we both knew we had to try again.  Five months later I was calling my husband with the good news.  We were going to be parents again! 

I was ecstatic for the 20 week ultrasound.  Had the date marked on the calendar and we were even bringing our two older boys so we could all find out together whether they were going to have a baby brother or sister.  As soon as that wand started to glide across my belly I could tell by the look on the technicians face that things were not good. She kept scanning and scanning and never smiled.  "What's wrong? I kept thinking?"  She never did tell us the sex of the baby until I asked, "So are we having a boy or a girl?"  By that time the news was not even exciting.  "It's a boy!" she said.  I'm going to go and get the doctor to come in and talk to you. 

That was a defining moment in my life.  It was and/or is the moment that changed my life.  My dream was gone.  My dream had to be reworked, retooled.  My dream just turned into a nightmare and I had no idea just how bad it was going to get.  Our 20 week old fetus looked wonderful.  He was beautiful in every way.  My placenta on the other hand was the worry.  I had a placenta accreta, which means that my placenta was growing into my uterus. To make matters worse I also had a placenta previa.  My placenta was completely covering my cervix making both conditions very dangerous. 

The weeks that followed were a myraid of doctor's appointments, modified bed rest with two young boys at home, sleepless nights, not eating and worry, worry and worry.  Then one day I went to the hospital for a routine ultrasound and they had a wheelchair waiting for me outside of the ultrasound room.  "You are not going home,"  I was told.  Instead I was wheeled into the family waiting room so that I could make a few phone calls and then taken to labor and delivery.  I was given steroids, and magnesium sulfate over the next 24hrs and then was taken to the antipartum unit where I spent the next 4 weeks waiting for our third son to arrive.  My doctor told me, "You must be here.  If you start to bleed you could die and your son will die.  You are here so we can keep both of you alive." 

I cried and cried and cried day and night.  I didn't sleep and wouldn't eat.  My first week in the hospital I lost five pounds.  I was a hot mess.  My doctors were concerned, prescribed zoloft and said I would feel better in a few days.  I did actually feel a little better.  I was not crying nearly as much and I ate a little.  There was just this nagging problem that would not go away.  I wanted desperately to jump off of the roof.  I cannot tell count how many times I thanked God that the windows were locked in my room because I just wanted to jump.  I wanted to end my suffering.  I wanted to end every one's worrying about me and I just wanted everything to be over.  One day the hospital psychiatrist stopped by to see how I was doing.  "Fine," I told him.  Then he asked, "Any suicidal thoughts?"  "No." I told him. 

And that is how it went for the next four weeks.  I never told a sole how badly I wanted my life to end.  I didn't think anyone would understand and really didn't know who to trust.  So I was quiet.  I watched TV, emailed friends and family and prayed for the time to move quickly, really quickly.

I had 3 weeks left to wait in the hospital.  My husband was visiting, watching Michigan football and I was taking a nap but not for long.  I felt a pop and then gushing blood.  Blood that was coming from a fire hose fast and furious.  By the time people started arriving in my room I was losing consiousness.  I was being slapped in the face to stay away.  I remember that slap and the plop of my bloody pants going into a garbage bag.  I remember the doctor telling everyone it was time to go.  The speed at which we were moving down the hallway was so fast that I was cold from the air on my skin.  I felt the jab of a needle in my arm and then the cold sterile operating room.  Everyone was in such a rush that I was not even put on the table correctly.  I yelled out, "I'm falling off the table!  I'm falling off the table!" Twice before anyone did anything about it.  I felt another jab in another arm.  Another IV.  I turned my head to the man doing my IV and said, "THAT SUCKS!"  Another jab.  This time the cathether.  It hurt.  Then there was the cold betadine dumped on my belly.  All this confusion.  All this hurry.  I started to wonder if they had forgotten about me.  I turned to my nurse who had blood stains all over her t-shirt and was holding an IV bag. "I'm sorry," I said.  I felt awful for causing such a commontion.  Then I said, "Is someone going to put me out before they deliver the baby?"  Just then a nurse came and sat next to my head and didn't leave.  "They are almost ready.  I'll stay here and tell you when it is time."  When the mask was finally put over my face I breathed in the deepest breaths I could.  I wanted out of my hell.  I didn't want to remember one single second more.