Cathy's Story: Chapter 1 - I wanted to be there!

 

The sun was setting on the evening of January 19, 2017 as I rushed into the hospital parking garage by myself.  This was the second time today that I came to Geisinger, Danville hospital and I was so upset with all men in the world right now, that I could spit! But spitting would not show grace under pressure, so I swallowed hard and decided that there must always be a reason for everything.

 I don’t remember every mile of those curvy farm roads from Reedsville to Danville, but it was a trip that normally takes an hour and thirty minutes.  Looking at the clock on my dashboard, I had done it in under an hour and fifteen minutes.  I really wanted to get here as fast as I could, but I was hoping beyond hope and realized that I could not make it in time, even as I left my house.

My husband meant well, I suppose, and I just prayed that my daughter and my new grandbaby would be healthy and happy when I arrived at their bedside.  Oh, and, I prayed to get through this life-changing event without a heart attack.

           Not only was my car racing over that road, my heart raced and my adrenalin reached it’s peak as I left my house, even before getting behind the wheel.  You see, earlier in the day, while at the hospital the first time, the doctor said that the baby would not arrive until tomorrow.  So, my husband (a man) and the baby daddy, Andrew (another man) insisted that I go home to rest.  I argued with them but relented in the end.  (For the record, the doctor was a man too!)  MEN!  They wanted me to rest but, as soon as I arrived home from the first time at the hospital, Andrew called to tell me they had induced labor and the baby would be here in forty-five minutes.            

I had never gotten out of my lift chair so fast!  Maybe they were wrong. You can never tell when a baby will arrive.  God only knows how much I wanted to be there, everything is all in God’s timing. 

            I rushed out of the house yelling, “I will never listen to another man for as long as I live.” 

Only agreeing to go home because I had been awakened that morning at 3:00 am with a text message that read, “Stacy’s water broke and she is in an ambulance on the way to Danville.  It is the closest hospital with a NICU. The baby is coming early.”  

In my heart of hearts and in every prayer I prayed, over the last four months, I wanted to be there to witness first-hand the miracle of birth.  To see with my own eyes in real time and not on a video, the miracle of a life coming into the world was my greatest desire.  I have never given birth, nor have I ever witnessed a birth.  This was my best opportunity and the timing stunk. 

As an adoptive mother, it’s been a life-long feeling of being cheated out of things like pregnancy announcements, gender reveal parties and a personal story of labor and delivery.  When I tell people that my first baby weighed 25 pounds and was 33 inches long, they look at me in amazement. But after all, she was also two years, eleven months and 19 days old.  She had much more experience at being a kid than I had of being a parent. 

Adoptions can take much longer than nine months to get approval from the “powers that be” in order to get a child.  But, it can be mere hours from the time that you are told there is a baby for you, until that new baby arrives in your arms. Even then, in the back of my mind was the fact that I would always share that baby with another woman.

Though I felt cheated in so many ways and always had to share my children with other mothers, adoption was the number one way for me to have children to teach, to love on and to nurture.  So I sent out adoption announcements, have joked about how much my first child weighed and pondered the negative feelings in my heart.    

But wait, there’s more.  My first daughter’s adoption was contested by her maternal grandparents.  So, it took three years of applications, home studies and searching to find her, plus three years after being placed in our home, of court litigation, worry and prayer until final adoption was granted.  

I called her “Little Miss No Name” because the agency would not tell us her real name.  She was Kristen Smith to us and the adoption took so many years that I had to register her for kindergarten with her baptismal certificate.  We were not foster parents and we were not biological parents.  We had been granted custody temporarily by the court as her biological parents had relinquished rights.  Luckily, we had her baptized in our church in Boalsburg, soon after she came home to us. 

This nine-month thing with labor and delivery is a much more predictable time period, but even so, my daughter waited until she was 20 weeks along before taking a pregnancy test.  Now, only knowing I would be a grandmother again for fifteen weeks, time was moving way too fast. 

I desperately wanted to see the baby come into the world, but here I was at the hospital for a second time that day, knowing she had already arrived.  I couldn’t blame the baby, although she was supposed to arrive on February 20, long after our ten-day cruise to the Caribbean would have been over.  

          A good thing was that at least she decided to be born before we flew to Fort Lauderdale for that sailing, and it was just a 3 hour trip back to Danville from the Philadelphia Airport. I could picture if she decided to arrive in the middle of our cruise that I would insist on being lifted from the ship by helicopter, and flown to my daughter’s side. That is how much I wanted to see her born.

           Having just arrived back at the hospital, I ran as fast as a sixty three year old, overweight grandmother could run, through the hospital parking garage and then down the shiny floored corridor.  It wasn’t clear to me, yet, in what condition she came into the world, because she had been rushed directly from her mother to the NICU and even her parents were anxious to find out her condition. 

As I entered the delivery room, my daughter said, “You would have been so scared Mom.  It’s a good thing you weren’t here to see her.”  My ears were hearing her, but my brain was trying to put on the breaks and slow down. I was just starting to put on my Motherly, it’s going to be alright face.  Oh, Lord help me be brave, I whispered. 

Andrew, is like the son that I never had.  He and Stacy had been together, by this time, for at least ten years.  I sort of adopted him too when he and Stacy started dating.  In my eyes he is the best of the best, even if he is a man. 

He said, “Yeah, she was all blue they rushed her immediately to the NICU down the hall.  They won’t let us see her yet but said they would come back in as soon as possible.”  It was determined that there was something wrong with her breathing but the doctors didn’t know how much of a problem it would be. 

So, not much different than an adoption, we had to wait for answers. 

I parked myself in the chair beside Stacy’s bed to catch my breath and let my thoughts catch up to me.   

Did you see the baby, I asked my daughter.  

She thrust out her hands, closed her eyes and turned her head saying, “No, I couldn’t look and they rushed her right out.” 

Did you see the baby, I asked Andrew. 

Yes, I actually cut the cord, he said.  It happened so fast and they needed to get her directly into the NICU.  All I know is she was blue and wrinkly. 

We were together and so we waited.