16 years ago today I woke up with swollen fingers and swollen ankles. I was about 37 weeks pregnant. I had no idea what was going on because I was rapidly swelling. I was living in Aldergrove at the time at my parents’ house with my boyfriend. I called my pregnancy program which was located downtown Vancouver and I explained to them what was going on. They told us to take a taxi directly to the office and they would pay for it. They had an idea of what was happening to me, but couldn’t confirm it until the doctor saw me in person.
Downtown Vancouver was a long taxi away from Aldergrove, but we made it. I don’t remember much of the details, because I was terrified. I was so young, and so scared about what was happening to my body. As soon as we got there they said we needed to go the BC Women’s hospital, which was another long trip away. They transported us there and immediately I was being poked, prodded and tested. My urine was dark red, and I was getting more swollen by the minute. They said my blood pressure was through the roof and that I was in a very dangerous and sick place, because I had developed pre-eclampsia. I had no idea what this meant for me or our unborn baby girl, but soon I would find out that it could kill both of us if we didn’t induce labour.
I was so scared. They told me they were going to induce labour the next morning, and so they put me in a room overnight. I just assumed that my boyfriend could stay with me in this big empty room, but they kept telling me no. I didn’t understand why I had to be alone. I was so scared. I suddenly realized the urgency of the situation, and I didn’t feel ready. I felt like the remaining few weeks of growing this baby inside of me was just being taken from me. I remember laying in that hospital bed that night, in the dark crying to myself. Feeling so confused by the size and emptiness of the room around me. I had never seen a room so big in a hospital before.
In the morning I asked if I could have a bath before we started the process of inducing labour. They told me I had to be quick. I just needed a moment with my unborn child. I needed a moment to regroup and centre, or do whatever it is that a scared 21 year old does before they give birth to their child.
I remember being interupted and told that my time was up. It was time. I was escorted to basically an open room with numerous other women and their partners and everyone was hooked up to a machine and they pulled the curtain around me and they inserted something inside of me. We watched her heartbeat draw pictures on the paper beside the bed and I waited. Then it happened, and I felt like it was almost instantly that I started to go into labour. And it wasn’t anything that I could handle because I was so emotional and I wasn’t ready, she was still growing. I didn’t know how to breathe through the pain because I only went to one prenatal class. I had no idea what was happening to my body.
I was in hysterics. I was crying. I was scared. She wasn’t ready. And I had no idea that my not breathing, meant that she was not breathing either. I didn’t know. I had the mind of a child. And so at about 8 cm, even after they gave me an epidural – they told me that they had to cut me open. She was in danger. She wasn’t getting enough oxygen. I didn’t understand.
And so the next thing I remember is being on that operating table. And it felt so tiny underneath my heavy body. Everything was frozen. I couldn’t feel my chin even. I was so scared, and everything was numb. When they cut her out of me, they didn’t pass her to me to hold. I didn’t get to hold her for the first time until days later – because they took her right away and performed surgery on her because she had duodenal atresia which meant surgery immediately after birth. They didn’t let me hold her. I felt a million miles away. When she was done her surgery she went into the NICU because she was premature. She was so small. She was so perfect. She looked tired. I just sat in my wheelchair beside her bed and would hold her hand. I was so proud of how strong she was. The nurses wrote ‘baby’ with my last name on her baby bracelet and I told them thats not what her last name would be. She would take her dads name. I thought this was the right thing to do, since I gave him no choice in her first or middles names. That was my idea of being fair.
She was so tiny, and so fragile. And still just a million miles away.
The truth is I have never felt like I gave birth, I felt like she was taken from me. Because she was removed from my womb. I couldn’t even handle the simple task of breathing. I couldn’t give her life. I wasn’t strong enough so the universe took over.
Like she was so great and so important that the universe just had to take her from my body because it was time for her to be born.
I wanted to finish the story, but honestly this was one of the hardest things I have ever written. I need a moment.
Becoming Brave 