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Seize the Moment

How to Overcome the Impossible

By Kamali'i StopperPublished 6 years ago 17 min read
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Mama's boy '16

Every mom has hopes and expectations when they first see the positive sign on their pregnancy test. The sheer excitement starts to overwhelm their being and the realism of having a baby begins to hit. We even begin to set up a way to tell our significant other that their lives are also going to change; getting up at two AM for that delicious double chocolate fudge sundae so that the baby gets the cravings it needs, or preparing French toast with melted cheese on top, sprinkled with salt and pepper and a slice of tomato. Delicious.

Months after having the initial exciting positive pregnancy test, we begin to feel life, itself; kicks, waves, stretches, the whole nine yards. We start to feel a personality develop. Not long after, we get the slight glimpse of the life inside of us. The first ultrasound, the first heartbeat check, all absolutely unbelievable. It's a boy! A few more months go by and we are now preparing a place for our new addition; a crib, blankets, toys, clothes, all the things a baby could want.

We then feel slight pressure in our lower abdomen. It's time! We then are rushed to the delivery room where, after a few hours of pushing, a newborn baby is placed gently in our arms. They are wrapped in a warm, clean blanket—eyes are closed and breathing is at ease. Finally, we meet.

Everything that we could have wanted, right there, sitting in our arms. All of that preparation, morning sickness, cravings, Doctor's appointments—everything was worth it for that one precious moment. Dreams do come true, right? And isn't this how every birth story is supposed to go?

You would think that, given the fact that you are pregnant and expecting, things would go 100 percent smoothly. The fact that humanity has done this over billions of times, everything should be perfect. Every dream and aspiration should become a reality. Unfortunately, the imperfections in all of us prevent things like this from happening. Not all of us are that lucky. Not all of us get that beautiful story written above. For some of us, it's just a distant dream.

My story starts off pretty normal from what was written above. I had the excitement swell up inside me after seeing that positive pregnancy test. It was something I didn't expect, but something that I was extremely excited about. I then began to plan out how I was going to tell my newly wedded husband that we were going to add another addition into our family.

It was the perfect set up. I told him I'd have dinner ready in the oven when he got home. I then proceeded to place a tiny hamburger bun in the oven with nothing else. Yup, I did that—the bun in the oven skit, and it was one of the greatest moments of my life. From the moment my husband opened up the oven to when he was embracing me, full of joy, I could already see it; the perfect scenario of a perfect pregnancy, the perfect birth story. It was becoming real.

I couldn't wait. I was beaming with excitement and enthusiasm. I made my first doctor's appointment, went shopping for prenatal vitamins, and browsed Amazon for cute baby clothes. It was all falling into place until I started developing a really good relationship with my bathroom toilet.

The vomiting and nausea began to hit and that was where all the problems began. I was literally lying on the bathroom floor every night because of the nausea or I constantly had a bucket next to me. Nothing tasted good or even remotely sounded good.

There were nights where I would open up the fridge door and sit on the ground, just staring at all the food within and seeing that nothing would suffice. Everything made me sick. I was a starving human being with all the food in the world and couldn’t eat.

Don’t get me wrong, I did try. I tried multiple things to help me get the nutrients that I and the baby needed—pickles, frozen gatorade, ice chips, and random cravings throughout the night. Every meal would end up the same...me having a delightful conversation with the bathroom floor.

This wasn’t your normal early on morning sickness. This was an every day, every second nausea. It was so bad that I went from a whopping 145 lbs to 115 lbs within two months. That may not seem like a lot, but keep in mind, I am 5’11. I was severely malnourished and I had gotten so skinny that you could begin to see the bones within my own body.

When I would go into the doctors, I would stress that I wasn’t eating and that it was impossible to keep anything down. Treating me just like "another patient," they simply suggested doing the same old, same olds; eat ice chips and soup, take prenatal vitamins and nausea meds.

They were never able to suggest anything that would be able to ease the nausea, so we just defaulted to laying on the couch all day and hoping for the best.

When you have to make the choice to lay down all day, you tend to start seeing the little things in life. Especially the little one who’s growing inside. As I would lay, sick on the couch, I would feel the little kicks and waves. It was a miracle in itself. Being so skinny, I could see every movement while laying down. There is nothing like feeling your baby move for the first time. Truly amazing.

Those were the moments that would get me through the pure agony of starvation. The ache for food was so strong that it would keep me up at night. This was not the ideal situation, but we tried to remain positive. We moved to a new home with an added bedroom, in Provo, Utah. We started gathering the necessities: a crib, blankets, etc. It was all starting to come together. Things were looking up. Even though I was still super sick, I was able to manage after months of feeling awful.

Finding little ways to get me through to the next day became my lifeline because I knew that, with every step forward, I was a step closer to meeting my baby. I knew once we would meet, it would all be worth it.

Eight months into the pregnancy and feeling like we are so close, but yet so far away, my husband makes a silly remark: “Okay baby, you can come whenever you want now.” And within 30 minutes of mentioning that, I started to feel slight pain in my lower abdomen.

Remembering back to all the times we rushed into the doctor’s office early in the morning because of false labor pains, I just pushed the thought of labor out of my mind. It was too early. There was no way that I was going into labor. After a few moments, the pain ceased. Thinking it was nothing, I tried to get back to my normal nightly routine. My husband was in our kitchen making something to eat when I began to feel the second round of pain. This time it was a lot worse and lasted a little bit longer.

Getting worried, we began to start timing the pain. one minute on, one minute off, and the pain continued to get worse. The pain waves were becoming more frequent and more severe. By this time, I looked at my husband and knew that it was time to have our baby.

Scared, we rushed to the hospital. As we drove, every movement of the car hurt. I began to clench my stomach out of severe pain. It was as if someone had taken a knife and cut me open from one side of my stomach to the other. This is when I knew something was wrong. The pain was excruciating and it wasn’t stopping. It just kept getting worse. There were no breaks.

Now, with normal contractions, you have time in between to take a breath for you and your baby. With contractions, your baby is literally being squished, and if there are no breaks, there is no room for your baby. Your baby is literally being smashed, which raises your baby's heart rate and increases the chances of your baby not making it. There were no breaks in my contractions.

Once admitted into the hospital, I was screaming in pain and clenching my husbands arm and telling him to make it stop. He then proceeded to grab the anesthesiologist, everyone’s favorite person because he was the one that made all the pain go away. He then gave me an epidural and within a few moments, everything went numb and the pain went away. Thinking that things would be okay, I tried to begin to relax. Unfortunately, there was a lingering feeling that I could not put my finger on. Something was still not right.

Nervous and unsure, the Doctor who was on call assured me that everything was okay. Even though I had rapid contractions and was bleeding, everything was fine, according to him. Not knowing any better, I put my trust in my doctor and waited for further instructions.

I was checked when we first came in to see how much I was dilated and I was barely four cm. The hospital staff told me that they were not going to stop the birth or induce and that they were going to let this happen naturally. The pressure slowly started building up in my abdomen and I started getting worried. 30 minutes from being checked the first time, I had a nurse check to see how far I was dilated again. Once she checked, she looked up at me and said, “Holy crap, you are 9.5 cm. It’s time to push!”

Feeling completely taken off guard, I prepared to start pushing. The nurses helped me know what to do and when to push. I then began to feel the pressure build up in my abdomen and that’s when they said to start pushing. I would hold in my breath for ten seconds and push. Then, after the ten seconds, I would let the air out. By this time, the doctor and some of my family members were in the room. Everyone was waiting on this little baby to come. But little did we know, he wasn’t going to come that easy.

I continued pushing for the next two hours with no improvement. Things seemed to be getting worse. I was bleeding so much at this time that the hospital staff put a bucket underneath the bed to catch all the blood running off. It looked like a scene from a horror movie. The doctor then proceeded to put a suction tool on my son's head and began pulling. Every time he would attempt to pull my son out with this specific tool, the tool would pop off, meaning the doctor would pull so hard on my son's head that the tool would then slip and pop off.

Even with this tool, there was no improvement. With that, the doctor then looked at me and told me that he didn't understand why my son was not coming and that my son was struggling.

“We need to take you to the OR to do a C-section.”

Scared out of my mind, I looked at everyone in the room for someone to calm my nerves. My eyes then met my mother's and she was able to do the trick.

After a final glance from her, they rolled me away into the OR and gave my husband some operating clothes so that he could be in there with me. Little did we know that, once entering that room, our lives would be altered forever. By this time I was completely exhausted from the blood loss to the amount of pushes. I was drained. I started seeing stars every time we pushed and I couldn’t seem to get a hang on myself.

The nurses noticed that I was having a really hard time and then they proceeded to place oxygen on me to help me breathe. Once they did so, it was go time. With more than nine people surrounding me in the OR, we started pushing. The doctor continued to use the suction tool to see if there would be any signs of improvement. He even began to place his feet on the operating table to pull on my sons head with the suction tool.

I could not do it anymore. Almost four hours had gone by with no improvement and constant pushing. My body was giving out and I could not see straight. I looked at my husband with pure fear. I was not sure what was going on and what was happening to my child. The constant thought of him suffocating because of the blood just tormented me and I could not understand why he was not moving towards the birth canal. I had people pushing on my back and on my stomach to help move my son down. I was completely in a ball and stayed that way for the remainder of the birth.

I began passing in and out of consciousness because of the situation and blood loss. Seeing that I was doing so, instead of just placing me on the operating table and doing the C-section, the doctor performed a third grade episiotomy to help make the opening bigger for my son. The doctor then proceeded to pull more on my sons head.

Completely out of breath, I looked at the nurse holding my oxygen and said, “I can’t, I can’t do this anymore. I can’t.”

Exhausted, I begin to pass out once more before hearing everyone in the room screaming at me to push harder and harder. They were all in a panic. My son was dying and we couldn't get him out. There were hands up and down my back pushing me forward and there were hands on my stomach pushing my son downwards. I looked at my husband in complete defeat and the way he looked at me I will never forget. He looked at me with complete faith and that look of hope and strength was able to give me just enough energy to try to push one more time.

I looked at the doctor and around me and saw the urgency on everyone’s faces to get this baby out. I began to cry in desperation to find the strength within me to push one more time. Being completely surrounded and pushed on and shoved into a ball, I gave it one more push. The doctor pulled and pulled and there, finally, he came—one of the most beautiful and horrific sites I have ever seen. My son. He was here and covered in blood. No cry left his lips; completely silent and limp, eyes wide open.

For a split second, I got an opportunity to look into his eyes and I knew right then and there, he was in trouble. The blankness and painful darkness I saw in his eyes will haunt me til the day I die. He was hurt and I knew it was bad. Just from that split moment, I could already see the bruising form all over his face. He did not look alive.

Within a few milliseconds and after all that hard work, they take him away into another room and shut the door. Panicked, I yelled and reached after him and looked at the Doctor in pain because I had just had my baby ripped from me and I did not know what was going on. “It’ll be okay. I promise.” Somehow, those words meant nothing to me. I knew something was terribly wrong and I couldn’t fix it. I didn’t even get the chance to wrap him in my arms and hold him so tight. I didn’t get the chance to tell him it will be alright. I didn’t get to comfort my newborn son. They took him away and I couldn’t do anything. I was completely helpless.

In complete agony, I laid down while I was stitched up and cleaned. Heart racing and completely lost, I started to cry. I had an emptiness that no words could describe. It was as if a dark hole was punched in my chest. I couldn't breathe. I took a moment and look around the OR and see people franticly running about and hands covered in blood. I looked down at the doctor and there was blood up to his elbows. He looked at me and I could just tell by the way he looked, he had made a mistake and my son was not going to be okay.

I was not as fortunate as my husband was at this moment. He was able to go with my son and capture his first moments. My husband witnessed the struggle it was for my son to breathe because the blood had filled his lungs. There was blood coming out of his mouth. With slight grunts, my son struggled to breathe. The bruising was darkening and his head began to swell.

The hospital staff tried to work as quickly as they could to help my son breathe. Once they administered the breathing machine, they wrapped him up in a nice warm blanket and took him away. Then me and my husband were sent to another room to sit and wait, not knowing what just happened and when we were going to see our son again.

Hours and hours went by. Every moment was excruciating. We had no idea what was going on and how our son was doing. We attempted to sleep multiple times, but we would wake up with the same empty feeling that seemed to continue to grow as the seconds rolled by.

It was now around six o'clock in the morning and we heard a slight knock on the door. We urged the hospital staff member to come on in. They looked at me and my husband and began to describe what happened. I apparently had a placental abruption which caused the rapid contractions, early birth, and the bleeding. They also told us that our son had received a significant amount of brain damage and would need to be put on a cooling system to slow down his blood so that the blood didn't cause more damage.

In my son's case, his brain was so damaged that his little body was attempting to heal itself by sending blood to the damaged area. With this, it can cause a lot of pressure and damage the brain even more. So there was a strong urgency to slow down his blood as soon as possible. With no other choice, we agreed to have them cool his body.

They then proceeded to tell us that we could see him once they finished the cooling process. Full of just complete anxiety and excitement, once we got word that we could go, there was no stopping me and my husband. I was placed in a wheelchair and rolled up to the NICU.

They had these big doors that had to be opened on command of a nurse at a desk. Once we got the okay, the nurse opened these big doors and I was rolled on through. The sight that I would see once they opened sank my heart. My son was just on the other side of the door and I could see, already, all the machines and wires hooked up to his tiny body.

He was four lbs 12 oz and he had so many wires attached to him. As I was rolled up to his tiny bedside, I could feel the emotions swell up inside. The dark hole that was punched through my chest just got deeper. I sat and looked at his little hands and feet and just wept.

Here he was. Finally, after a long night's fight, we were able to meet. But little did we know, the fight was just beginning. This was just the start of a bigger battle that neither of us were ready for. But, together, I knew we could accomplish the impossible.

NEXT POST:

The NICU.

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About the Creator

Kamali'i Stopper

I am a mom of a little boy who has a form of epilepsy. This blog is mainly for those moms who have children with certain issues and who want to know how they can handle the unexpected.

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