I was told I could never be a mother. If you scroll through these posts you will find the entry I wrote when I found this out from my doctor. I was crushed and heartbroken but over the years, I was at peace with knowing I would only be "the cool aunt."
Until 12:10PM, on January 30th, when a tiny (almost 6 pound) baby was placed on my chest and looked into my eyes. He curled his little hand around my index finger and I knew that my life would never be the same. I knew I had a son and that I was a mother because I had been carrying him since June. I read stories to my belly every night and introduced him to the best country classics by placing headphones over my bump. But holding him was different. And I wasn't supposed to be holding him yet.... he wasn't due until March.
36 hours prior, surrounded by my best friends from high school who were in town for my baby shower, my water broke. Yet, I had no idea. I just thought it was another weird side effect of pregnancy. A "motherhood journey" that I didn't enjoy a single minute of the entire time. I was not built to be pregnant. But, for the grace of God, I carried my baby to just barely 35 weeks. I think my water broke because of the extreme anxiety I was feeling about the winter storm approaching. Ever since February 2021, I don't handle the cold weather very well. Anxiety takes over and since I was pregnant, I could take no medication for fear of harming the baby. After an incredibly uncomfortable night (I was in labor and didn't realize it....), the morning brought temperatures that dropped below freezing and tiny drops of ice falling from the sky. Friends and family, in town for the shower, gathered at my house for what was supposed to a trip to brunch. Until I said: "Y'all. I don't mean to startle anyone and it is probably nothing whatsoever, but I'm like, leaking? It's really weird. And I have some pain in my belly and my back. But there's nothing glamorous about pregnancy, right? What are we doing today?"
Blank stares of seasoned mothers looked at me in disbelief. "Kristen. Call your doctor. I think your water broke." [Insert Kristen saying at least a dozen times that she won't call her doctor because it's too soon to have the baby and she is not ready and more over, she's have a C-Section anyway. There's no way this baby is coming naturally.]
High school friends began to pack a hospital bag while my niece unboxed and put away all of the gifts given to me just the day before. My mom looked on in absolute panic as she switched between mother and nurse of more than 40 years. And I looked at the weather. The forecast was not looking good. It was going to snow. It was going to ice. It was looking a lot like February 2021. I had prayed to God that he would not let me have a due date of 2/11. I prayed that there would be no ice, no snow, no EOC activation and emergency alerts.
But the doctor said, "You need to come in." And so I hugged my friends from high school who were flying back (weather permitting) that afternoon, and I went to the hospital with my mom and sister (who was supposed to fly out that afternoon but the birth of a nephew is too precious to miss).
As we headed to the hospital, I made sure everyone was updating the baby's dad who needed to board a plane and get to Texas as quickly as possible. Again... weather permitting. I on the other hand, in complete denial that my water had broken and I was starting to feel rather uncomfortable contractions, was sending out "winter safety information" to the city through the Fire Department's social media platforms because my focus was on the weather and ensuring there would be no repeat of 2021.
When we arrived at the hospital and every test was run along with every single machine attached that could be attached, the reality hit me: I'm having a baby. And I'm having a baby the natural way and not be a planned C-Section like I had imagined. The nurses kept telling me "You have to make it to at least midnight before the baby comes because then he will be 35 weeks and he will avoid the NICU." I repeated that to myself over and over. "Just make it to midnight and your son will be ok."
My work phone was confiscated and put somewhere that I couldn't reach. The nurses and doctor were instructed (with a sign on the door) to not talk about the weather when they came into my room. And the television was turned to anything that I wanted to watch unless it was the news. My family did the best they could to prevent me from seeing the winter storm approaching the City. Even though I didn't make it that easy for them at the time.
The dad arrived on the very last flight into DFW before the weather cancelations went into full effect. My mom, sister and sister-in-law were filling water jugs, getting ice chips, giving me pep talks, and sneaking me graham crackers from the nurse's station. This went on all night. And as someone who never entertained the idea of a natural birth, I asked every person who walked through the door for an epidural. When I was finally granted one, I asked for two just to be safe. (Note: that's not allowed).
Then the time came. I had been pushing for hours it felt like when the doctor said, "Momma, I want this baby in 3 good pushes on the next contraction, you hear me?"
*Immediate panic*
In my mind I went to the worse place: something was wrong. I HAD to get the baby out in three pushes. It was now or never. Whatever I needed to make sure he was okay, that's what I was going to do. I told the nurse holding my left leg that she better use every ounce of energy in her tiny body to provide resistance. And I told the baby's dad holding the right leg to do the same but also to keep his eyes on my shoulder. And when the contraction came- I pushed. I took every ounce of energy that I had left in me after 36 hours of labor and consuming only ice chips and a graham cracker, to deliver my baby.
At 12:10, the doctor said, "Congrats momma! It's a boy!" But he wasn't crying.
"You did amazing!" "Oh my gosh! He's here!" "We love you!"
Why wasn't he crying? What was wrong? What I had done wrong?
I heard the nurse say, "He is beautiful! And a small cry came out of his tiny little body as they laid him on my chest. I sobbed. I held this perfect miracle and sobbed because I was told he was never going to be mine.
When I got pregnant.... "You're a high risk pregnancy. Take it day by day. Just make it to 20 weeks."
When I got to 20 weeks... "You're blood pressure is high. This is dangerous to the baby."
When I got to 30 weeks... "You have an infection and Covid. This is very dangerous for the baby."
When I got to 34 weeks: "You're showing the signs of preeclampsia. We need to monitor you closely. This could hurt the baby."
All I had to do was make it to midnight for him to be 35 weeks and he would be ok! And here he was. Beautiful. Holding my finger. Looking into my eyes with his face on my chest.
I thanked the Lord. I held him in my arms and I thanked the Lord for making me his momma and that I would take good care of him and that I was so grateful that he had granted me this miracle. As the doctor took almost an hour to sew me back together after that final push to get him out, I watched the nurses clean him up. I watched my mom, sister, sister in law and his dad take photos of him wrapped in a blanket and love on him as they welcomed him to the world. His Godfather, the fire department Chaplain who had baptized me less than a year before, brought in the day's newspapers and picked up his godson.
Everything was going beautifully. I was exhausted but ecstatic. My little boy was here. And he was ok.
When the nurse took me to the bathroom to change gowns and dressing and everything that comes with post-partum, I heard a bunch of new voices in the room. A wave of anger took over the daunting exhaustion, "Who is that with my baby," I asked the nurse. She shrugged as if she didn't know. And I heard my name, very quietly called outside the door, "Hey Kristen... you're needed out here."
When I made it out of the bathroom, I saw new doctors and nurses standing over my baby. "Can I have my baby please? I'd like to hold him now."
"I'm afraid you can't do that."
*Panic, rage, anger, terror, disappointment, betrayal, exhaustion all came together*
"And why is that? I'd like my baby now. Can I please have my baby. I was just getting new dressing. I want my baby."
"Calm down Momma. We need to take him to the NICU."
"BUT I MADE IT TO MIDNIGHT!! YOU PROMISED ME!! YOU SAID HE WAS OK!!!" I was uncontrollably sobbing at this point. I heard nothing else that the doctors, nurses or my family said. I watched them take my baby out the door in an incubator and I had never felt so empty and broken inside in my life.
"I'm going wherever my baby is. I am going right now. I don't care what the rules are. I don't care what anyone says. That is my baby. He is only an hour old. He needs me. I need him. Why are you doing this to us?"
But they wouldn't let me see him.
Hours went by before I was wheeled into the NICU. He was laying in an incubator covered in wires and tubes. There was a crash cart with the tiniest oxygen mask sitting next to him. The beeping and whooshing and tinging of machines around me was deafening.
"Can I hold my baby?"
"I'm sorry Momma. You can't hold him right now."
So I leaned over his incubator and I held his hand. I sung him his song. I told him I loved him and I was his momma and I would never leave him. I assured him I was going nowhere.
But they wouldn't let me stay. I was wheeled out. And I still didn't understand why he was in the NICU. And why he was in the part of the NICU where it was so serious that each baby was assigned their own nurse. I didn't want to sleep. I didn't want to eat. I didn't want to "rest." I wanted to hold my son.
I sat in a chair and just held his hand. I moved my hand when they told me I couldn't be there but I refused to leave his side. Hours turned into days. I had no intentions of breastfeeding but the nurse said, "If you want your child to survive, you will breastfeed." Well, that's quite the statement. And since I wasn't allowed to actually breastfeed him, I began the process of pumping. Tiny syringes of "liquid gold" I was told that would go into his feeding tube. And I sat and prayed with him. I read him the Bible. I read him Bible stories. I had given my son the middle name "Samuel" after Hannah's son- whom she prayed so hard for- and I prayed like Hannah.
And I every time I looked out the NICU window, the snow was falling. It was piling up on the windows. At the desk, nurses chatted about how awful their ride into work was and how they expected there to be a ton of accidents.
I asked one of the nurses, "How long will my baby have to be here? Can we go home soon?" And her reply, in the most condescending tone I have heard to date was, "Oh honey. Your baby isn't going home for a long time. If he was 5 weeks early, than you can bet it will be at least 5 weeks until he is out of here and ready to go home."
To say that "I lost it" would be an understatement. To say that I did my best Shirley McClain impression from "Terms of Endearment" would be too tame. I screamed, "I WANT MY BABY NOW! GIVE ME MY DAMN BABY!! GIVE HIM TO ME!! I WANT HIM NOW!!"
Doctors and nurses came running into "POD 1" where I was screaming. "SHE WON'T LET ME HAVE MY BABY FOR 5 WEEKS! GIVE HIM TO ME!!" My shirt got wet with milk that began to leak and blood ran down my legs from jumping up too fast.
A doctor sat me down and spoke to me like a child. She explained everything that was happening with my son and why he was in the NICU. It had been days and no one had actually explained this to me. No one had told me "why" or "what" was needed to get him better. They treated me like an inconvenience always by the incubator- in their way, watching their every move and never taking their "suggestion" to get some rest. There was nowhere for me to go. The streets were iced over. I couldn't make it out of the parking lot and I refused to leave the hospital and go into my house without him.
Once the doctor explained EXACTLY what he needed to do to get out of the NICU, my brain went into work mode. If he needs to eat ___mg through the feeding tube and have ___ level sugar reading with the ankle prick every three hours: We were going to do just that. I made an operational period briefing on my phone in the "notes." We had our daily objectives. We had our plans for demobilization. We were ready.
Every morning, I briefed George on his objectives for the day. What test results we needed and what I needed him to do to get us there. He would squeeze my finger. I knew he understood. We were going to get out of this place. And I prayed.
Every day, the test results got better and better. He was moved from the area where the most dire cases of NICU babies were at to a more "gen pop" like location. The nurse had told me 5 weeks. But after almost 2 of the longest weeks of my life... the doctor walked in and said, "I don't know what you believe in or if you believe in a higher power but if you do, you need to know that there was one looking over your son. In my 25 years of medical practice, I have never seen a baby recover so quickly. Make such incredible improvements in such a short span of time. You can take him home... tomorrow."
As we drove away from the hospital the next day, I told his dad, "I am going to hold my son when we get home and I am never going to let him go. No one will ever take him from me again. I will protect him at all costs."
*The past year has proven that to be more true than I could have imagined*
On Saturday, during his first birthday party, I didn't even make it through "Happy Birthday." I heard all of the people who love him singing it loudly around him as a cowboy "first rodeo" cake was placed in front of him. I stopped singing and tears fell.
A whole year. We made it a whole year and I was told that the first night was questionable. And the promise I made to my son to fight for him and what is best for him- no matter what- has made this the most difficult year of my life.
But I am now a proud single mom of a beautiful, wild, rambunctious, finger holding, music loving 1 year old baby boy. The past year has seen lawyers offices, judge's decrees, restraining orders, emergency rooms, broken bones and broken promises. I have loved and lost and I have been hurt beyond measure. But the only constant throughout was my perfect little boy. The boy I prayed for and the boy God chose me to be the mother to.... and that's a role I don't take lightly.
Every night, as I sit with George and rock him to sleep, we say our prayers. We thank Jesus for loving us and caring for us; for providing the food in our bellies and the roof over our head; and we ask for his protection, mercy and his grace. We pray for our loved ones and those that need our prayers the most. And then I ask God to guide me in making me a mother that raises her son to be strong, loving, loyal and walks with Him. We end it with "Amen."
Last night, as I said, "Can you say, 'Amen' buddy?" George looked at me, smiled his most perfectly adorable smile and clapped his hands. And I think that's one hell of an Amen on a year that tried everything to steal the happiness I should have with my child... and yet, God always made sure we found the light at the end of the tunnel.
His way. His time. His Design. His plan.
Happy Birthday, George Wilder Samuel.... I am so lucky to be your Momma. I love you buddy.
