[Today is Annalyn's birthday,
so I'll wrap up my crazy little story for you...]

I’ll spare you the gory details, but here are a few highlights from the next several hours:

• As the nurses and doctors began rushing around my room, which was blurry and a little orange, I asked Mark if I was going to die. His reassuring response? “I don’t think so.”
• My nurse, Kristina, overheard and said, “Not on my watch.” I found out later that she stayed in my room most of the following night, just watching me breathe, making sure I was okay.
• The drugs in my system and my condition made me so loopy that while talking to my mom on the phone as they prepped me for surgery, I made a completely inappropriate comment about what “prepping for surgery” included. I can’t dwell on that because it’s so out of character for me and for my relationship with my mom that it’s just too humiliating.
• I started to cry as they gave me the epidural, but then I had to laugh at myself. I’d had too many friends get that shot to the spine in the middle of contractions to really feel sorry for myself.
• I talked to Mark, non-stop, during the entire surgery (which didn’t last long), because I was so nervous. The anesthesiologist laughed at us because we were talking so much.

And then she was born.

My beautiful, wonderful, healthy baby girl was born just after midnight on Monday, October 8. She weighed 3 lbs, 14 oz., and she was the cutest little frog I’d ever seen. I’m not kidding. She kind of reminded me of a frog.

The rest of that day is a blur. My memory includes a NICU nurse chastising me for not breastfeeding; my dear friends, Zac and Mandy, coming into my dark room and whispering their congratulations; my aunt sneaking into the room by telling the nurse she was my grandma – that really messes with your head when you’re all hopped up on drugs, let me tell you; my hand cramping from holding the painkiller button so tightly, terrified that I’d drop it in my sleep and the pain would start; stumbling through dictation for Smitty and Mark as they wrote an e-mail announcement to send to all our friends and family; asking Nurse Kristina for something to help me sleep, because every time I started to doze off, I got a little panicky, thinking I wouldn’t wake up; Mark waking me up in the middle of the night to show me the tiny red dress he’d bought our daughter during a late-night run to Walmart.

Our baby girl was born a year ago today. And she was healthy and strong and perfect. Because my condition didn’t improve immediately and was apparently more serious than they’d let on, I wasn’t allowed to leave my room until Thursday. But the NICU nurses actually brought her in to see me for a few, brief minutes on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Thursday was a big day. They removed all my wires – IV, catheter, spinal block. I took a shower. I ate a meal sitting in a chair. And I was wheeled down the hall to hold my daughter in the nursery.

My health returned slowly and I was finally released from the hospital on Saturday. Mark and I didn’t return home with a baby, though. She stayed in the hospital for another week and a half, gaining weight, learning to eat and staying warm. My feisty baby ripped out her feeding tube a full week before the nurses thought she’d be able to eat from a bottle and never looked back. After a brief stint under the blue light, she kicked the jaundice problem. And finally – just a couple days later than we’d hoped – she learned how to keep herself warm enough to come home.

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[This week marks the anniversary of my pregnancy saga, so for the next few days I'm going to take some time to reflect on what happened last year and how it's affected me since.]

On Friday I wasn’t scared, but I didn’t enjoy being poked for an IV. And I didn’t like it when they started the magnesium sulfate drip. It shot through my veins, hot and sharp. And I really didn’t like the steroid shots. I knew they were necessary to help build up my baby’s lungs in case she came early, but oh my good gracious, those puppies hurt!

On Saturday I wasn’t scared. When I looked up at one point and saw my husband freaking out on too much caffeine and my parents hugging and crying, I almost laughed again. It’s not like I was unconscious – I could see them! I could see them being scared and sad.

And then the cavalry arrived – my cousins, my aunt, my brother all the way from Iowa. And they sat in my room, talking in hushed murmurs and staring. Staring at me and staring at the monitors beeping my vitals for the world to see.

On Sunday I was a little scared, because they began giving me Pitocin, a drug used to induce labor. Labor! That excruciatingly painful process I’d read about and heard my friends describe and was terrified to experience myself! But as the special, fancy consultant doctor had explained the day before, the only cure for my condition was to deliver my baby. 7 WEEKS EARLY.

And the worst part in my mind? We hadn’t taken a childbirth class yet! It was still two weeks away!

I shouldn’t have worried. The magnesium (used to prevent seizures, but also often used to halt pre-term labor) overpowered the pitocin. Though my family stayed glued to the monitor that day, waiting for contractions, nothing changed. Including my frighteningly high blood pressure. So the doctors scheduled a C-section for Monday morning.

Later that evening, the magnesium began making me a little loopy. I was out of it enough that I asked my nurse and my mom to help me take a shower, since I didn’t know how long after surgery before I’d take another one. For those of you who don’t know me, I’m extremely self-conscious about my body and would never, under any other circumstances, have allowed – much less requested – someone to see me naked.

After getting me into bed that evening, my parents decided to head home, promising to be back bright and early the next morning. But shortly after that, the heartburn came back. I’d learned my lesson and this time, I told Mark to get the nurse. That nurse, Kristina, got my doctor to stay (she’d been headed home, too). And then they decided to deliver. Right then.

Mark called my parents, and when I asked him if my mom started crying, he said, “No, I did.”

And then I got scared.

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This is what the seizure box looked like. But it was older,

[This week marks the anniversary of my pregnancy saga, so for the next few days I'm going to take some time to reflect on what happened last year and how it's affected me since.]

The on-call doctor was one I’d never seen, and when she called me back, she yelled at me. In a nutshell it went like this: “What is wrong with you? Why didn’t you call earlier? Get to the hospital now! Stat!”

Throughout my pregnancy, I’d worried about the moment I would travel to the hospital for delivery. We live about 35 minutes from the hospital, and my husband worked evenings. I just wasn’t sure who would take me in an emergency. And there I was, not going to the hospital to deliver, but still pretty sure I shouldn’t drive myself 35 minutes in traffic to the hospital.

After calling my husband and parents, they decided, due to where everyone was at the time, my parents would pick me up and Mark would meet us at the hospital. While I waited for my parents, I packed a bag with some extra clothes, a magazine for Mark and toiletries, I gave my cats extra food and water, took a shower and shaved my legs. Just in case, you know.

I checked into the hospital that night and had the painful experience of getting an IV. Painful because nobody could find a vein. I was that puffy. Not that they didn’t try. Oh, they poked and prodded my hands and arms and finally, my neck. Thanks to an hour of work from an anesthetist with steady, cold hands.

At some point that night, a nurse brought a big black case into my room labeled, “Seizures,” and placed it on the counter. Directly across from my bed. All I could do was laugh, because that was probably the least comforting thing someone could have done after telling me that my blood pressure was spiking like crazy and oh, by the way, pre-eclampsia can cause seizures and yes, even death.

Awesome.

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[This week marks the anniversary of my pregnancy saga, so for the next few days I'm going to take some time to reflect on what happened last year and how it's affected me since.]

Last year on October 5, I went to the hospital and I didn’t go home for eight days. For eight long, scary, crazy days, I lived in the hospital. Here’s part of my story.

For two days I’d been on mandated bed rest – sitting on the couch, making lists and plans, and finishing projects for the job that was no longer mine. On Thursday, I started feeling some heartburn, a symptom they’d warned me about on Tuesday, a feeling I hadn’t had during my pregnancy. I wasn’t worried. After all, it was probably just the power of suggestion. And besides, my friend, Mandy, had terrible heartburn during the entirety of both her pregnancies. I could hardly complain if it started in my third trimester.

But by Thursday night, I was so uncomfortable that I couldn’t sleep. I finally fell asleep for a couple hours on the couch, but Friday morning came too quickly.

To compound my physical discomfort, Friday was the day I had to train my manager on Quark Xpress, the software I used to lay out our monthly newsletter, a project she would take over in my absence. So, sitting on my couch with my laptop, my cell phone and a program that allowed me to see her work computer screen on my home computer screen, I tried to train my 60-year-old manager on a software program.

My manager is a lovely lady. But that afternoon really tried my patience. We were on the phone – her trying to figure out which questions to ask and me watching her painstakingly move text boxes and photos into place – for over an hour. By the time we got off the phone, the heartburn was bad. And the Rolaids weren’t helping.

I complained to my husband, but he thought the same thing I feared – that I was just a big baby. That the shooting pain in my chest and side was normal heartburn that other, stronger women just deal with. He was sorry I felt bad, but he had to leave for work.

I thought about calling my doctor (they’d said if I had any of a list of symptoms – including bad heartburn – to call), but by then, it was after 5. I told myself to just suck it up and deal.

Thankfully – God and His mysterious ways – my friend, Amy, called just then to check in. When I vented to her about my heartburn and being after doctor’s hours, she reminded me that I could still call the office and the on-call doctor would call me back. I didn’t want to bother anyone, but she reminded me that this is what they’re paid for. As I thought about how much I’d already paid out of pocket for this pregnancy, I decided she was right.

So I called.

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[This week marks the anniversary of my pregnancy saga, so for the next few days I'm going to take some time to reflect on what happened last year and how it's affected me since.]

Before I was born, my parents had a baby. His name was Michael, and he was born in March 1976. He also died in March 1976, due to a genetic spinal disorder called anencephaly. This greatly influenced my family, especially my mom and how she related to my dad, my younger brother and me. So I’ve always been a little nervous that it could happen to me. My mother’s warnings of taking folic acid to prevent the disorder since I got married didn’t help to ease my fears.

Unfortunately, even knowing what I did, I still didn’t take folic acid supplements. (I don’t drink juice with breakfast to avoid its empty calories, and vitamins are just too yucky to take with water. I know that’s not a good excuse, but it’s all I’ve got.)

So when I found out I was pregnant last March – unexpectedly expecting – I immediately went into panic mode. Some of that adrenaline rush was normal: “How can we afford this?” “Our house isn’t big enough.” “What if I turn into my mother?” “What color should the nursery be?” “I hope Mark is happy about this.” But underneath the usual concerns was a layer of dread. A fear that history would repeat itself and we would have a baby with that disorder.

And yes, a good deal of my fear was based purely on the fact that I had not been taking folic acid supplements. I know it’s irrational, but I felt guilt along with that dread and fear.

Thankfully, a friend shared a reminder with me that worrying would not solve anything. (Yes, sometimes I need that reminder, even though it’s a pretty obvious point!) She pointed me toward Matthew 6:27, which says, “Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?” God had a plan for the baby I was carrying, and nothing I could do – from taking enormous prenatal vitamins or thinking repeatedly (not even really praying), “Please, please, please let my baby be healthy!” – would change His good plan for my life or add an hour to my baby’s life.

I should also have remembered and focused on Psalm 139:13-14, which says, “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.”

These promises should have comforted me. But they didn’t. I know that God works all things together for His good, but I was so desperately afraid that His good would involve painful things for me. I know that’s selfish. But it’s how I felt. I was also afraid of the decision I would be asked to make, should my baby have the disorder my older brother had.

See, my mom knew for the last three months of her pregnancy that her baby would die. She chose to carry him to full term. What an amazing choice! And so devastating. To this day, my mom feels the effects of that decision. And she’s shared with me that she’s not sure she would make the same decision today. Knowing that, knowing how deeply she was hurt, my God-loving and Bible-reading mother, I was terrified of being asked to make that decision. I just didn’t know if I was brave enough. Or strong enough.

You’d think this would have pushed me toward God’s promises. But it didn’t. I spent the first half of my pregnancy paralyzed in fear. Once we had an ultrasound and a few tests that came back negative (which is positive), I finally let myself breathe. And start to come to grips with the fact that I was going to have a baby. I was going to have a baby! Only then did I register at Babies R Us and begin to decorate the nursery. And thank God for His unending patience and undeserved blessings.

Of course, letting go of that fear didn’t help me sleep better. (And my aching back and sore hip didn’t help, either!) Because now I could no longer put off coming to terms with one, big scary fact: I was going to be a mother! I was going to have a baby! YIKES!