Today is the anniversary. At this exact time 4 years ago, I was lying in an operating room, unconscious, while a doctor feverishly stitched me back together trying to save what was left of my blood volume. My sweet husband, dressed in scrubs, was running down the hospital hallway with our brand new infant and a nurse from the NICU. It would be hours before I could meet, see, hold, nurse my little boy.
Krista, I don't want this to happen to you.
Lately, I spend my time hoping that HELLP doesn't come, that your doctor will induce you tomorrow. I daydream about the "perfect induction," one in which you don't need magnesium sulfate and the pitocin works its magic effortlessly and you are able to push your baby out, and hold her and nurse her right away.
Every day I call you and ask you how you're feeling, what your blood pressure is, what symptoms you're having. You're annoyed, yet grateful. You minimize your symptoms, holding onto the birth dream you've always had. I get it.
Sometimes I can relax and have faith in your doctor. Other times, I am so worried that she doesn't understand how to treat preeclampsia for the best outcome. Why isn't she checking your protein every week? Why hasn't she asked you to fully stop working? Why does she believe you when you say that the pressure that you feel under your right rib cage is just the baby's feet? Why does she act like she can predict the speed of preeclampsia's progression?
You have another appointment tomorrow, and I will go on hoping. Hoping that she will ask you to meet her in labor and delivery. You'll be 37 weeks on Monday.
Four years ago, preeclampsia changed my life forever. I awoke with my hands on my bandaged abdomen. I remember feeling the emptiness of my no-longer-pregnant belly, and the heaviness of a longing and a terror so fierce and primal that only a mother would know it. I remember screaming to the nurse in the room, "Where is my baby?!" but my voice must have come out like a tiny mumbling whisper and she didn't even look over at me. I remember looking up at a clock on the wall that seemed to be swaying back and forth, confusedly trying to do the math to figure out how long I had been under. I remember Brian walking past the room much later, and seeing me through the window, then bringing our little baby in and laying him on my left shoulder so that we could look into each other's eyes, like strangers, for the first time.
In the rest of my life, I exude really positive energy, and practically manifest good things all the time. I usually sort of expect things to work out, even if they're hard or bad. But this situation with my sister has my limbic system in full response and I find myself bracing for the worst. I find myself not trusting the test results that come out OK, or the blood pressure readings that are low. I guess it's because I had those same results and blood pressure readings and still ended up deathly ill. I am trying really hard to expect a better outcome than I had, to really envision a really good ending to this story.
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