Tag Archives: humor

Dr. Potato – Cold as Ice.

19 Nov

I find it quite remarkable that I don’t have a specific memory of learning I was pregnant with Oli. Such a life altering moment should bring forth some special moment in time. When I think of learning about my son I instantly think of a small bathroom with light blue walls, a blue flecked tiled floor and a gleaming porcelain sink. I remember standing at the sink in my faded blue scrubs and peering down at two faint pink lines on the pregnancy test.  I was overcome with giddiness and an unabashed excitement bubbled up within me as I ran to grab my phone to call my mom. Too elated to abide by the societal norms of not disclosing a pregnancy until the third month; I couldn’t wait to tell everyone, and I wanted to tell them now!

When I think of that moment with Oli, there is nothing.

On Oli’s second day of life, I again awake to a nurse gently shaking me, instructing me that it’s time to feed my baby.  In contrast to the dark circled, glassy eyed, middle-aged woman from the night before, this nurse’s eyes are clear and focused. She is young, sporting a short bob that frames her heart-shaped face. She smiles warmly at me as I attempt to rub sleep from my tired eyes. I do not recommend having a baby so late at night.

Worry immediately intercepted my thoughts. Still half asleep, I’m not entirely sure why because I feel reassured that although Oli was born over a month early, she is breathing fine and nursing okay. Because she is so small, she did have a little trouble latching the first time I nursed her.  I asked the nurse for a bottle of formula, paranoid that she wouldn’t get enough milk and end up dehydrated. I was also worried about her weight. Newborns usually lose some weight in the first week, but I didn’t want to take any chances or give the doctors any reason to keep her.  I wanted to do everything I could to make sure she came home with me and didn’t have to go to the NICU.

My thoughts instantly returned to what the nursery nurse said the night before and my daughter’s continued insistence on keeping her eyelids squeezed tight.

I couldn’t get her eyes open.

I’m anxious for the pediatrician to come in today.

Several hours later, I sit alone in my hospital room eating slightly cold chicken fried steak, lumpy mashed potatoes and enjoying some kind of orange flavored, jello-y, marshmello-y, foamy dessert that can only truly be enjoyed when confined to a hospital bed.

Seth left an hour before to go and pick up my son from his grandma’s house. I’m excited for him to meet his new baby sister. We practiced for weeks, buying him his own baby doll, so he could work on holding and gentle touches.

“Bee-bee” he said, as he looked up at me with his enormous aqua blue eyes and smiled as he proudly cradled the doll in his arms.

“Yes, baby. That’s right! I see you’re being so careful and loving with your baby. You’re going to be the best big brother.” I would pull him into my lap, squishing my nine-month pregnant belly between us, trying to soak up the last few weeks of solo time with my boy.

I’m finishing my delicious dessert when a short, dark-haired man in his 50’s knocks on my door, barging through before I have a chance to say, “come in”.

“Hi. I’m Dr. Wagner. I’m here to look at your baby.” His demeanor is serious and cold, emphasized by his inability to make eye contact with me as he speaks.

He’s wearing a blue checkered button up shirt covered by a crisp white lab coat that looks as if it’s been freshly pressed. His brown hair is short and combed to the side and his wire rim glasses continuously slide down his nose, needing to be adjusted every few minutes.

I’m so nervous now that he’s here to look at her and I’m even more nervous because he’s so serious and stoic. He walks across the room and begins unwrapping Oli, who is soundly sleeping in the clear hospital bassinet next to me.

“Nice to meet you. I’m glad you’re here. The nurse last night told my husband that she is worried about the baby’s eyes. I haven’t seen her open them yet, but I’m sure it’s nothing. I’m sure her face is just swollen. I was in labor off and on for a few weeks you know. That could cause some swelling. I took ready good care of myself during my pregnancy and always remembered to take my vitamins. I’m not on any medications and all my ultrasounds were normal. I’m sure they would have noticed if there was something wrong. I’m sure there’s nothing wrong. I just need you to look at her and make sure.”

Oh my god.  I can’t get the steady stream of word vomit coming from my face to stop.

 Shut. Up. Stop talking Shannon.

I don’t stop. I continue. “I’m a NICU nurse and I’ve taken care of a lot of babies, and I know that there is no way her eyes can be fused at 35 weeks and like I said, I was in premature labor for a while and maybe that has something to do with it. I’m really glad you’re here. Did I say that already?”

I can feel my face flush red hot, still unable to stop the verbal diarrhea spewing from my lips.

I could be speaking Chinese, German, or Swahili for all the attention he is paying me. He isn’t listening to me at all.

“Mmmm..hmmm.” Is his only response to my diatribe of nonsense.

He is inspecting her tiny form. Unwrapping and unzipping, lifting, turning, listening, palpating, looking at every inch of her little body…that is located below her neck. He has yet to look at her eyes.

Deep down in that moment, watching his hesitation and unwillingness to look at the part of her body that he had been summoned to inspect, I knew in that moment that my fears were about to be realized.

There is something wrong with her.

Suddenly he stops his prodding. He has finished the exam. He hastily tries to rewrap her tiny form in the most half assed, “I don’t have time for this” kind of doctor way and finally raises his eyes to meet mine. He remains cold and stoic.

“I think she either has really small eyes or no eyes at all. Microphthalmia is what it’s called, and she’ll probably be blind.” The words are hurled out of his mouth at me like hurricane propelled rain drops blasted against glass, shattering me to pieces. Each syllable strikes with the power of gale force winds, relentless and unforgiving, as if intent on breaking through the fragile barrier of my composure. In that moment, I am nothing more than glass under the assault of a storm, fragile and vulnerable to the onslaught.

I do the only thing I can do. I freeze.

As soon as he was finished with his initial word assault his eyes again fell to the floor. Now he raises his gaze to meet mine again and with all the emotion of a potato asks, “Do you have any questions?”

I am a statue. Unmoving. Unbreathing. Unthinking. Maybe if I just don’t blink, don’t speak, maybe if I can hold this stillness forever, I won’t have to acknowledge his life changing words.

“Oh, we should check her kidneys too. She may not have any kidneys. I knew one other kid, about 15 years ago, that kid was born with no eyes. He didn’t have any kidneys either. I’ll order an ultrasound, and we’ll make sure.” This cold, unfeeling, unemotional man then has the audacity to smile at me. Even as I sit with my mouth ajar, tears filling my eyes, still not able to speak, he smiles at me as if he’s just told me about the weather.

“It’s going to be 85 degrees and sunny today!” (warm smile) “Do you have any questions?!”

I stare blankly at him as he mistakes my stunned silence as understanding and acceptance and turns towards the door.

“Well, it was nice to meet you. I’ll put in orders for a CT of her head and face and an ultrasound of her kidneys.” Once again, his eyes fail to meet mine as he ducks his head and turns toward the door. It quickly shuts behind him and then he’s gone. He’s gone and I look around my drab hospital room and no longer recognize my environment. The tan curtains look the same, the bedside table looks the same, my half-eaten lunch looks the same. I lift my hands up in front of my face. I look the same. Why do I feel so different now?

I look over to the peaceful baby soundly asleep in her bassinet, barely bundled back into her blanket. She doesn’t look the same. She doesn’t look the same at all. She’s different. She’s someone that I housed inside of my body for nine long months and now I don’t recognize her. She is a stranger.  Two sentences. 10 minutes, and my entire life has changed.

How am I going to tell my husband? How in the hell am I going to utter the words, blind…no kidneys. Why did this burden fall on my shoulders? Desperate not to be the one to shatter my husband, I also don’t want that doctor to come back in here with his emotionless tone and his slightly bored attitude. I don’t want that guy telling him that all his wonderful dreams of showing his daughter the beauties of desert mountains and Hawaiian sunsets are never going to happen.

I know in that moment what I must do. I must be strong for him.

Stuff. Stuff. Stuff.

I have to pretend that I know we are going to get through this.

Stuff. Stuff. Stuff.

I have to put on my big girl panties and my brave face, and I have to tell him that it is going to be fine. That she is going to be fine.

Stuff. Stuff. Stuff.

Just stuff those feelings down.

Be strong. Be perfect. Be fine.

At that moment my husband walks through the hospital room door. He walks in holding my beautiful blond haired, blue eyed, baby boy. A baby that I do recognize. A baby that I do know.

I am young. I am unprepared. I’m alone. It’s Mother’s Day weekend.

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There were not enough drugs.

21 Sep

2.

Months before Oli was born, I just knew there was something wrong with her. At the time, I was working as a nurse in a neonatal intensive care unit. I would express my concerns to my friends at work, but they would dismiss my worries, attributing them to “medical student’s disease,” a phenomenon where individuals studying medicine or nursing start to experience the symptoms of the diseases they are learning about. I remember being in a MedSurg class during my second year in nursing school, reading about different disease processes, and mentally ticking off my symptoms.

“Are my eyes tinged yellow? I have been having some abdominal pain and I have been looking rather bloated lately. How many weekends in a row have I been out drinking with my friends? OMG I have LIVER DISEASE!” The reality was that my eyes were clear, I was suffering from normal gas pains, I had my period, and I had hardly been out drinking at all. I was working a full-time job and was in nursing school. Who had time to go out? But sitting in that classroom at that moment reading about cirrhosis of the liver and I was sure that I had it. It would be a reasonable assumption that I was just being paranoid and that my fear of having a sick child was due to my work environment. After all, 100% of the babies that I saw being born were unhealthy or premature. To me, that was normal.

My anxiety about something being wrong intensified when, at 32 weeks pregnant, I began experiencing premature contractions. After visiting the OB/GYN, it was confirmed that they were indeed real, and I was instructed to stay in bed for a few weeks. I must admit that I am not the most compliant patient. My family can attest to that. So, after about 2 weeks, I convinced myself that I was miraculously healed and returned to work. Predictably, the contractions immediately resumed. I was still having regular contractions the day before she was born, and I called my friend Michelle, a former labor and delivery nurse, for advice. “Michelle, I think something is wrong with her. That’s why I keep going into labor early. Something is wrong.” She tried to reassure me that everything was fine. My mind desperately wanted to believe her words, “She’s fine. You’re fine. You’re just working too much and on your feet.” It’s true. I had been working extra shifts in preparation for my maternity leave, not all of which would be paid.

“You’re probably right.” I conceded. “I’ll lay down and I bet they’ll be gone in the morning.”

But the contractions continued throughout the night and into the morning.  I called my OB/GYN right away at 08:00 the next morning and said, “I’m still having contractions, and I think they’re getting worse! I’ve been timing them, and they are steadily every five minutes.”

I knew that Braxton Hicks contractions, or practice contractions, were common at this later stage of pregnancy, but they weren’t regular like the ones I was experiencing. I could hear my own fear layered deep within my voice. I was scared.  

A few hours later I was sitting in my doctor’s office being told that I was going to have my baby that day.  I was dilated to 5cm and there was no going back.  The fear instantly melted away as excitement became my primary emotion.

I was going to meet my baby girl that day.

As my husband drove us the 30 minutes from the OB/GYN office to the hospital, I forgot my fears and smiled the entire way.

What was she going to look like? Would she have any hair?

My then-17-month-old son, Kekoa, had the unfortunate luck of inheriting my bald baby gene. I, too, had been born a cue ball. He didn’t have one single hair on his head or anywhere, until he was a year old. On the day he was born, the nursery nurse marveled, proclaiming, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a completely bald baby! He doesn’t even have any eyelashes!”

I hoped that this baby would at least have a little peach fuzz on her head.

Hair- That was the worry I remember going through my mind on that bright spring day.

Looking back, it seems ridiculous, but I had no idea what would come. Part of me is extremely thankful that hair was what my mind chose to dwell on.

A few weeks earlier, when my contractions began, I had been consumed with flashes of neonatal nursing books reflecting pages depicting different genetic conditions and examples of how a women’s body could expel their unhealthy inhabitants. It was as if their body was deciding unconsciously that the tiny form contained within her womb may not be deemed well enough to survive and be better off experiencing an early demise.

Of course, with technology and where we were in medicine in 2007, we had ways of keeping those tiny fetus’s alive even if nature had deemed them unsuited. We now had the means to intercept evolution; with tubes and machines, we could prolong and even thwart those babies’ destinies. Was that always the right thing to do? I struggled between the grey area of being a nurse and wanting to save lives and feelings of cruelty when performing chest compressions on a tiny premature body that weighed less than two pounds.

The medical team would perform painful procedures and tests and give medications and do surgeries, all trying to save the life of a tiny human who, in the end, usually ended up with severe complications as a result of our attempt to “save” them. I imagined these babies spending the rest of their lives hooked up to feeding tubes and breathing machines, never able to walk or talk. Run or play. Smile or laugh. At least, that’s what I thought would happen to them. It would be years before I understood that disabilities don’t equal unhappiness or the inability to give and experience love and life. It doesn’t take away from their personhood. Back then I didn’t know this so I would lie awake at night wondering if I was actually helping or dooming these babies to a life of misery and pain. The truth was, after a few months, I would completely forget many of them. As their parents pushed extra-large strollers out of the NICU lugging oxygen tanks behind them, I would go on with my life. Some of their tiny faces would cross my mind from time to time, the ones that I spent months caring for, but many wouldn’t grace my conscious thoughts again.

 I am grateful that I wasn’t thinking about those tiny faces and that I had been able to contain her safety within my womb for a few more weeks. My baby was going to be born a little early at 35 weeks, but she should be able to breathe on her own and drink from a bottle or nurse from my breast. However, just to be safe, I called the NICU to see if a neonatologist was available for her delivery. In the months and years that followed, I often thought back to the drive to the hospital. I would try to remember my excitement as I waited to meet my new baby girl. I would close my eyes and think about the person I was before May 10, 2007. I was so naïve, happy, and content. Looking at old pictures of myself, I would cry and tell the girl in the picture, “Enjoy that smile. It’s never going to look the same again.”

On May 11, 2007, my excitement was replaced with sadness, which consumed my heart so completely that I thought I would never feel carefree or happy again.

3.

When we arrived at the hospital, I was experiencing regular contractions, five minutes apart. Strangely, I didn’t feel any pain with these contractions. The pain only started when it was time to push and the baby was ready to be born. It felt like my body, the universe, or some higher power knew that I would experience pain for years to come, so it delayed my suffering for a few more hours. I was so comfortable at that moment that I even delayed getting an epidural. That would turn out to be a mistake.

“Are you sure you’re not in any pain?” The labor and delivery nurse Julia asked, as she clicked away at the computer at the side of my bed. She looks to be a little older than me, slim, with long blonde hair pulled back and bangs that remind me of 80’s hair band bangs.

 I shook my head no and glanced at a nonstop stream of paper pouring from a small printer on a shelf beside my bed. The paper was covered with the mountains and valleys of my contractions.  I watched intently as the mountains grew taller and closer together, finding it odd that I couldn’t feel anything beyond a distinct tightening in my belly.

“Don’t you think it’s weird that I’m not hurting?” I looked over at my husband, who was slumped in a chair in the corner of the small L&D room.

“Are you complaining?” he replied, barely opening one previously closed eyelid. It had been a long 24 hours, and we were both exhausted. I, however, had the energy and inertia of labor hormones rushing through my veins and didn’t feel tired at all.

As the hours crept by, my labor progress slowed. I was still feeling nothing and wanted to close my eyes for a few minutes when the doctor came in and decided it was time to break my water.

Dr. Lin entered the room with an air of eagerness and exclaimed, “Let’s get this show on the road!” He turned to the nurse, “Julia, grab me an amnihook, please.”

The nurse smiled sympathetically at me, her long blonde ponytail flipping over her shoulder as she quickly left the room to grab the piece of equipment used to break the amniotic sac and rupture the membranes.

I’d been to many deliveries as a NICU nurse, being called to scheduled deliveries when we anticipated the baby needing support, and emergencies when there was a problem. I knew what this long, crochet hook looking piece of equipment was and what it did, but the thought of that coming anywhere near me, my vagina, or my unborn baby made me feel queasy.

“Um… is that necessary? Do we have to do that?” I hesitated to question the doctor or object, but since I wasn’t in any pain and the baby was tolerating the labor well, I didn’t see the need for intervention.

Looking at the clock, which was slowing creeping towards 11:00pm he responded, “I think this is what is going to be best for both you and baby.”

“But I haven’t received my epidural yet.”  The last thing that I had planned was a drug free delivery.

“No worries. You’re only dilated to 6. There’s still plenty of time,” he assured me as he gloved up and took the hook from the sterile package the nurse had opened for him.

“Okay, try to relax, this is going to feel strange,” he said. As he finished speaking, I felt a pop in my abdomen, like a rubber band snapping, and water gushed onto the towels and pads the nurse had placed beneath me.

It was show time.

 My water breaking seemed to unleash all the pain from the previous 8 hours of contractions, hitting me like a tidal wave. The pain crashed into my body, and the edges of my vision blurred as I called out, “I’m going to be sick!”

Anticipating what was coming, Julia was already right beside me, handing me a small pink tub as the contents of my stomach erupted out like a volcano.

 “Now we’re in business,” Dr. Lin said, smiling as he slipped off his now-wet gloves and strode out the door.

In between waves of nausea and body-racking convulsions of sickness, I was suddenly acutely aware of the sound of the fetal monitoring system.

The “tick.tick.tick.tick.tick.” of the baby’s heartbeat had suddenly slowed to a “tick..tick..tick..tick…tick…..tick….tick……tick……..tick….”

“Roll onto your left side!” The nurse rushed over to me from the other side of the room where she was setting up a delivery table and shoved me onto my side. Instantly, the heartbeat returned to its quick metronome.

“Let’s keep you lying on your left side,” she said. “Just to be safe.”

 I agreed compliantly. With the baby happy again, I begged the nurse to call anesthesia for the epidural as I continued dry heaving into the little bucket.

They came in quickly after the nurse rechecked me and discovered that I was now dilated to 8 centimeters. Sitting me up at the side of the bed, the anesthesiologist didn’t have any trouble inserting the long needle into my back and finding the small epidural space in between my vertebrae.

“All done!” he proclaimed, taping a tiny line to the right shoulder of my hospital gown.

I laid back on the pillows to wait for the relief I knew would be coming. I’d had an epidural with my son and it worked perfectly. As the next contraction washed over me, I gripped the sheets of my bed with all my strength. Something wasn’t right. I could still feel everything!

“Let me recheck you.” Julia was already lifting the bottom of my sheet to see if I had progressed. “You’re complete!” she exclaimed, shocked. “I can feel the baby’s head! She’s right there; it’s time to push.”

“What? But my epidural hasn’t taken effect yet! I can still feel everything! I’m not ready!” This was not going the way that I had expected. I DID NOT want to feel everything, and I was starting to panic. “Your baby’s ready. You’re ready. It’s going to be okay.” She softly looked me in the eye and gently touched my shoulder.

 Man, she was good at her job. “Okay. I can do this.” I was not entirely convinced, but I mean, what was I going to do? This baby was coming out of me whether I had an acceptable amount of drugs in my system or not.

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Chapter 2: I knew

20 Sep

Then…

1.

I’m driving on an unfamiliar road in the middle of the day.  The windows are rolled down, and I can feel the warm summer breeze blowing across my face.  Abruptly, something happens, and I can no longer see where I am going.  Darkness had obscured my vision, and I was suddenly plunged into a black abyss. Terrified, I cried out and tried to pull the car off the road and stop. I can’t see anything, and I panic. I know I will crash the car, but no matter how hard I try, I cannot make my eyes work.

 I am blind.

Suddenly, I’m ripped from sleep, wake up sweaty and breathing heavily.   A dream. Haha! It was a dream!  I wait for my sleepy eyes to adjust to the darkness and realize I can still see. I have not been suddenly struck by blindness.  It was only a dream. Vivid and unshakable, but only a dream.

 Strangely, I would continue to have that dream, off and on throughout the years, as it plagued me. For some reason, I was usually either driving or in some state of peril where I desperately needed my eyes to stay in control. I would always wake up at the last possible second, right before disaster struck before I crashed the car or unintentionally walked off a cliff.

Then, one hot, dry afternoon in May, in the gleaming desert brightness of Las Vegas, my dream merged with my reality.

A few major components separated my dream from my real life. I was not the one suddenly struck by blindness.

 And it was no longer a dream. It had become a nightmare because it happened to my daughter.

My beautiful baby girl Oliana had been born blind.

2.

“I just knew.”

I often heard mothers say, “I just knew he was sick. I just knew she was in trouble,” when talking about their children. I even heard it from my own mother. My mom seemed to know everything about me and what I was doing, sometimes before I even knew. I couldn’t get away with anything.

One story my mom loves to tell is from when I was in high school. My friend and I decided to skip school and go to the mall. This was the very first time I had ever thought about cutting class. It was a cold February morning in Iowa, and my friend had just gotten her driver’s license.

“We should skip school and go to the mall in O town today,” she told me as she lathered cream cheese onto her toasted bagel.

“Skip? Really? The mall?” I wasn’t a fan of the mall and preferred the local Goodwill. My friend, Maria, and I had been best friends for a few years. She had a rebellious streak, just like me. We wanted to fit in, yet tended to color just outside the lines. People often called us “weird” because we preferred 90’s grunge fashion and music. Our tiny Iowa country town was years behind in the latest clothing and music trends. We preferred grandpa’s cardigan-stripped sweaters and too-big, ripped corduroy from the local thrift store.

“I want to get my boyfriend a Valentine’s Day card and a gift from Spencer’s. They have the new Nirvana and Soundgarden posters. Besides, it’s not like we have any shopping options here. Where else would I go?” Maria said.

I couldn’t argue with her about that. In the tiny town we lived in, there wasn’t even a Walmart or Target, but O town was 40 minutes away.

“You don’t think we’ll run into someone we know, do you?” I hesitated. The thought of randomly running into my mother at the mall in the middle of a school day made my throat instantly dry. She would ground me for the rest of the school year, maybe for the rest of high school. My mom was lovely, but she had a zero-tolerance policy for rule breaking. If I was one minute past curfew, there were consequences. She didn’t mess around.

“No way,” Maria chirped back at me. “My mom’s at work at the hospital, and I don’t see your mom hitting up the mall in the middle of a Wednesday afternoon. Besides, isn’t she working at her new bank job now?”

“Yeah, she started last week.” Both of my parents were working. I had a better chance of winning the lottery while simultaneously getting struck by lightning than seeing my dad at the mall, but my mom… well, that woman seemed to know my every breath. Even though I knew she was working, she made me nervous.

“Ok. Let’s do it,” I replied. We were driving to a whole different city, and really, what were the chances of getting caught?

Famous. Last. Words.

It turns out, the chances were exactly 100%.

We walked into Spencer’s and were looking at silly gag gifts and laughing at some obscenely inappropriate cards when I looked up and saw… my mom.

My mom just happened to have an urge to go to the mall on a Wednesday afternoon during her workday because she “had a feeling” that I was skipping school. I will repeat that I had NEVER cut class. Never. And I never would again. I didn’t do much for the rest of my sophomore year. I was grounded.

Years later, my mom revealed that she had exaggerated her “Momtuition” just a little. It turns out that what had actually happened was that she had received a call from my school asking her to confirm that I was at a doctor appointment. My friend and I had the brilliant wherewithal to drive to school before first period and turn in “doctor notes” to the office excusing us from class. Why two girls, who were best friends, would have two different doctor appointments on the same day at the same time didn’t seem suspicious to us? Teenagers.

My mom swears that after getting that phone call, she just knew I would be at the mall. Not only that, but she also walked directly to Spencer’s store. I must admit, I’ve always felt that was weird. We could have gone anywhere, so how did she know exactly where I was?

Momtuition, it turns out, it’s a real thing. More than 10 years later, I would discover that for myself. I often heard mothers say, “I just knew he was sick. I just knew she was in trouble,” when talking about their children. I even heard it from my own mother. My mom seemed to know everything about me and what I was doing, sometimes before I even knew. I couldn’t get away with anything.

One story my mom loves to tell is from when I was in high school. My friend and I decided to skip school and go to the mall. This was the very first time I had ever thought about cutting class. It was a cold February morning in Iowa, and my friend had just gotten her driver’s license.

“We should skip school and go to the mall in O town today,” she told me as she lathered cream cheese onto her toasted bagel.

“Skip? Really? The mall?” I wasn’t a fan of the mall and preferred the local Goodwill. My friend, Maria, and I had been best friends for a few years. She had a rebellious streak, just like me. We wanted to fit in, yet tended to color just outside the lines. People often called us “weird” because we preferred 90’s grunge fashion and music. Our tiny Iowa country town was years behind in the latest clothing and music trends. We preferred grandpa’s cardigan-stripped sweaters and too-big, ripped corduroy from the local thrift store.

“I want to get my boyfriend a Valentine’s Day card and a gift from Spencer’s. They have the new Nirvana and Soundgarden posters. Besides, it’s not like we have any shopping options here. Where else would I go?” Maria said.

I couldn’t argue with her about that. In the tiny town we lived in, there wasn’t even a Walmart or Target, but O town was 40 minutes away.

“You don’t think we’ll run into someone we know, do you?” I hesitated. The thought of randomly running into my mother at the mall in the middle of a school day made my throat instantly dry. She would ground me for the rest of the school year, maybe for the rest of high school. My mom was lovely, but she had a zero-tolerance policy for following her rules. If I was one minute past curfew, there were consequences. She didn’t mess around.

“No way,” Maria chirped back at me. “My mom’s at work at the hospital, and I don’t see your mom hitting up the mall in the middle of a Wednesday afternoon. Besides, isn’t she working at her new bank job now?”

“Yeah, she started last week.” Both of my parents were working. I had a better chance of winning the lottery while simultaneously getting struck by lightning than seeing my dad at the mall, but my mom… well, that woman seemed to know my every breath. Even though I knew she was working, she made me nervous.

“Ok. Let’s do it,” I replied. We were driving to a whole different city, and really, what were the chances of getting caught?

Famous. Last. Words.

It turns out, the chances were exactly 100%.

We walked into Spencer’s and were looking at silly gag gifts and laughing at some obscenely inappropriate cards when I looked up and saw… my mom.

My mom just happened to have an urge to go to the mall on a Wednesday afternoon during her workday because she “had a feeling” that I was skipping school. I will repeat that I had NEVER cut class. Never. And I never would again. I didn’t do much for the rest of my sophomore year. I was grounded.

Years later, my mom revealed that she had exaggerated her “Momtuition” just a little. It turns out that what had actually happened was that she had received a call from my school asking her to confirm that I was at a doctor’s appointment. My friend and I had the brilliant idea to drive to school before first period and turn in “doctor notes” to the office excusing us from class. Why two girls, who were best friends, would have two different doctor appointments on the same day at the same time didn’t seem suspicious to us? Teenagers.

My mom swears that after getting that phone call, she just knew I would be at the mall. Not only that, but she also walked directly to Spencer’s store. I must admit, I’ve always felt that was weird. We could have gone anywhere, so how did she know exactly where I was?

Momtuition, it turns out, it’s a real thing. More than 10 years later, I would discover that for myself.

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Why Do Our Children Do This To Us?

30 Mar

1. This: When you return home from grocery shopping and have your arms full of grocery bags, the onslaught of requests will begin. BEFORE your shoes are off and the bags are set down. “Can you get me juice? I need a snack. I’m STARVING! Can you wipe me? Here mommy. Take my booger.”

2. And This: When you wear a black shirt to hide the stains from sticky, nasty kid hand smears, someone will throw up on you. You just can’t hide that. No matter what color you’re wearing.

3. Never This: When you wear a white shirt. . . Lol! No sane stay at home mom with little kids ever wears white!

4. And This: You’ll find yourself arguing with a 3 year old about things like why she can’t put picked boogers back into her nose. “But mommy! You told me not to pick my nose! I’m not picking the boogers! I’m putting them back in!”

5. What About This: As soon as you drift off to sleep. . .finally. You will hear a little voice in your ear. “Mommy. Are you awake? I’m scared. Can I sleep with you?”

6. Yeah This: There is no sleeping WITH you. That would imply that both of you are sleeping. They are sleeping BESIDE you. With their feet in your face and their butt poked into your stomach.

7. Always This: You will wash their favorite sheets, get them put nicely on their bed, put them to sleep. . . and they will pee. They will pee the bed every. single. time. And then demand that you wash them again immediately. Because those are their favorite ones.

8. And This: You’re planning on going out somewhere. You make your kid go to the bathroom 5 minutes before you leave. And then you make them go again 1 minute before you leave. You arrive at the store or restaurant or park which is literally 3 minutes away from your house. As soon as they step out of the car, “Mom. I have to go potty! Now! It’s an emergency!” What? Didn’t we just do this? It doesn’t matter. You can try restricting liquids for hours before leaving the house. They won’t pee for DAYS at home. As soon as you are out in public. . .Whoosh! Open up the faucets. Let the pee fest begin.

9. Seriously! Wth? This: The phone. The PHONE!! Why must they torture us while we are on the phone? My children will ignore me for hours. “Go do your homework.” Nothin’. “Stop fighting with your sister.” Nothin’. “Clean your room.” Silence. The phone rings and suddenly I’m the most popular person ever. “Mommy. Oh mommy. I HAVE to tell you a story. Yesterday at school Johnny had a red pencil but really wanted a blue one so he was sad and did you know that one time when I was 4 it snowed and do you remember that you didn’t let me go out and play in it and I’m still really mad at you and I have to poop so I need you to stay right here because I may need help wiping and keep listening because I still have soooo much to tell you and. . . .” Aaggghhh!!!! Where are their mute buttons?

10. Finally This: When you’re sick they will do all of these horrible things plus a thousand more.

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They wouldn’t let me adopt a puppy, but they gave me a baby?

24 Mar

This whole pregnancy, motherhood, taking a baby home, and child rearing situation in our society is whacked!!

Did you know that when I was in college I wanted to adopt a puppy?

Yep.

I lived in a little duplex with a few girls and I wanted to adopt a Boxer puppy from the local Boxer rescue society.

You know what they told me?

No.

Nope. No way in hell we are letting this young college girl, with no yard, a small house, who is not home all day long, adopt one of our cute, precious little puppies. No way lady!! Come back when you graduate, are more responsible, have 3,000 square feet of living space and at least a yard big enough for the dog to take a proper dump in.

They grilled me like they were from the FBI and I was on their Top 10 Most Likely Not To Take Proper Care Of A Puppy List. They wanted to make a home visit. I had to answer a bunch of questions. I thought they were going to ask me for a urine sample and then hook me up to a lie detector.

After I failed and they deemed me unworthy of caring for one of their dogs, I was kind of relieved. I mean, who can handle that kind of pressure? I was too scared and they intimidated me so much that I became convinced that I could not care for their puppy. Maybe there was so much more that goes into the proper raising of a good, respectable, descent, loving, nice puppy that I had not considered. Maybe I would mess it up and it would turn into a Beggin’ Strips addicted, too lazy to fetch, dumb, can’t even walk on a leash, toy stealing, co-dependent dog that I would be ashamed to take to the dog park.

People at the dog park would look at my dog and then think “Well that dogs owner clearly should never have had a dog. Look at him! Sniffing my dogs butt like that. He didn’t even ask if he could play with Fluffy’s ball! He just took it and ran away! Where is his owner? Oh, there she is. Of course. Young. She probably isn’t even home all day to train him properly. She probably just gives him treats when ever he wants and never taught him to sit. Look at her. On her phone, of course. She’s probably wasting time of facebook. She doesn’t care about him. What kind of people gave her a dog? Didn’t they do a background check? Did they even visit her home and make sure that she was capable of taking care of a dog? Obviously not. People like THAT just should not have dogs. Hmph…”

You know what they told me when I gave birth to a baby?

Okay! Time to take him home!

What? Don’t you need to check my pee? Make sure that I’m not hopped up on crack? Where’s the lie detector? I didn’t really weigh what I told you I weighed before I got pregnant. I lied. If I lied about that maybe I lied about more. What if I don’t have a big enough house for a baby? You should know that I don’t have a yard. Nope. No yard. Apartment liver here. Isn’t there some sort of rule that you can’t live in an apartment if you have a baby? Don’t you need to make a home visit? Make sure that I baby proofed it correctly. My husband put together most of the baby furniture, but I did try to help him and put some together myself. You may need to come check it out. I’m not so good with directions. It’s entirely possible that the whole crib will just come crashing down one day. Don’t you want to know what brand of baby formula I intend to feed him? What if I choose a cheap, off brand? Surely you wouldn’t let me take him home if I just choose any old formula and didn’t research it. What about clothes? He’s a boy. What if I choose to dress him like a girl because I’m weird? How do you know I won’t make him wear outfits full of teddy bears and give him a complex later? What if I choose to put a blanket over him at night? What if I let him sleep on his tummy? What if I put him in a Bumbo seat on the table and then leave to go to the bathroom? What if I have no money in savings? What if I never even thought about where the money for his college will come from?

No one is interested in learning these things before you let me take him home? What if I mess him up so badly that if I do end up saving enough money for college he has to spend all of it on therapy?

The ONLY thing I had to have to take my son out of that hospital was an outfit and a car seat. And the outfit was optional.

No one asked me ANY questions. I begged the lactation consultant to come to my house to make sure that I was doing it right. I called my mom hundreds of times in tears certain that I was doing it wrong. I called my husband even more in tears because my baby was nothing like the babies that I had taken care of in the NICU. He did NOT sleep for 3 hours and then wake to be fed. He wanted to eat every 1-2 hours which totally threw me for a loop. He was not supposed to eat that often. Didn’t he know the schedule? We were on a schedule here! He wasn’t supposed to want to nurse for 45 minutes. 30 minutes was the maximum he was allowed. That was how long his lunch break was. He quickly informed me that he did not agree with this allotment of time. Our whole first month was me trying to set rules and schedules and him crying and breaking every rule. He never followed my schedule.

He cried, I cried, and my husband laughed.

“Relax. Relax. He’s going to be fine. You need to just calm down.”

“Don’t tell me to calm down. Don’t tell me to relax. You don’t understand. Just because you’ve had a baby before doesn’t make you the expert.” I was ready to rip his head off when he mentioned my step daughter’s name.

Didn’t he understand what a big deal this was? Didn’t he know that in the past I was unqualified to care for a puppy? I never told him about that. I was afraid that he wouldn’t want to have babies with me. “Well, I can’t have babies with HER. They wouldn’t even give her a puppy She would mess our kid up FOR SURE!”

Yep.

Our society is whacked.

NO PUPPIES FOR YOU!

But we are handing babies out to every neurotic, crazy, young, under qualified, terrified new mother on the block.

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Don’t Put Me In The Room With The Big Comfy Couch!

5 Mar

When I approached the information desk and made eye contact with the woman behind it I must have looked a little “frazzled”. When I asked her if Oli was out of surgery yet she must have sensed my panic, noticed my tightly clenched fists, or saw me on the verge of crying because she immediately went to check for me. She even bypassed pretending to know how to work the phone or computer.

She came back a very long 5 minutes later and said “No. She is still back there, but they will be done soon. She’s doing just fine.”

“Oh okay. Thank you. I knew everything was fine, but you know…..well, I had to check because you see, she’s blind and autistic and has this rare gene deletion, so we don’t really know a whole lot about it and this gene caused her eyes not to develop so she wears prosthetic ones and she started having seizures in 2011 and…..”

Crap. I lost her.

She’s “working on the computer” now and trying to politely get me to go sit down.

What?

You don’t want to hear Oli’s life story?

Are you sure?

I can tell it 2.5 minutes if I talk really fast and run all my sentences together.

No?

Whatever. You’re missing out on a really good moment of mommy-gone-mad. Especially since I didn’t sleep last night. It’s an even better show when I don’t sleep. I’m much more likely to cry and then burst into fits of uncontrolled laughter.

Oh well. Your loss. That’s some quality entertainment your missing out on.

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You better believe that I sat my butt down in the nearest chair and did not move until that pager lit up and vibrated.

I finished my much needed cup of coffee, checked my Facebook (thanks for the prayers guys!) and waited.

6 hours later…..no, it wasn’t really that long. It just felt like it. They called my name and walked me back to another little waiting room.

This one was WAY better. It had a nice big squishy couch, a table and chairs, a little TV….

Wait!

No!

I don’t want to be in this nice room!

This looks like a “bad news room”!

You never give parents bad news in uncomfortable chairs. That’s just plain mean. You give them bad news in rooms with big comfy couches and little TV’s. Rooms with a circular table and chairs for having “discussions”.

I want to go back to that other room! I want to go sit in those crappy vinyl covered chairs with the fish again! NEMO! HELP!
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“Make yourself comfortable. The audiologist will be with you soon.” The volunteer tells me.

Make myself comfortable? I am going to get the worse news of my life, well….the second worse, behind “Your baby is blind, do you have any questions?” It will be the same. “Your daughter is deaf, do you have any questions?” I should call the School for the Deaf right now and just get this ball rolling. No need to waste time…Good thing I have my Tab, I’ll just Google it.

I mean…the news cannot possibly be good. This couch is just way too comfortable.

Maybe I’ll hold off just a minute. Google will be there in 5 minutes. Maybe I’ll take a nap.

I’m feeling a little over-tired and the craziness has begun to set in quite rapidly.

Luckily I did not have to wait long enough to be able take a nap. (Well I guess it wasn’t so lucky for everyone else that had to deal with me the rest or the day.) The audiologist walked in and sat down.

Uh-oh. She’s sitting. Number one rule of doctors and nurses: always sit and be at eye level when delivering bad news to parents.

Stand up lady! Stand up!

“The results of Oli’s hearing screen were 100% normal. She has perfect, beautiful hearing. No problem.” She doesn’t give me the chance to spin out of control with panic.

“Really?” I exhale for the first time all morning.

“She’s fine. But her eardrum on the right is still not moving well. I think that it’s probably just scarred and thickened from having so many infections in it and then rupturing. It DOES NOT affect her hearing. She can hear you just fine.” She explains.

SHE CAN HEAR! OLI CAN HEAR!

To say that I was ecstatically, fantastically, wonderfully, overjoyed…would be an understatement.

I now knew, 100% without a doubt, that my sweet girl can hear me.

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(I know how to carry on. I just do not know how to keep calm while doing it.)

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Don’t Go And Get Coffee While Your Child Is In Surgery

5 Mar

If you can’t laugh at yourself, nothing else seems very funny. -me

As soon as the nurse’s walked out of the doorway carrying Oli, I began to cry. Some of the tears were shed from fear. That irrational fear that I would never see her again. Fear that the audiologist would walk back into the room and tell me that her hearing on the right was lost. Fear that she felt alone and scared. Some of the tears were shed because I was just sad because she is so young and has been through so much. No child should have to go through the things that Oli has had to go through. And the rest of the tears were shed because I am a mother. What mother wouldn’t cry if her child has surgery? What mother doesn’t cry when their child has anything that she can’t fix herself?

I waited in the pre-op room until the ENT came back to talk to me about his recommendations for putting tubes in her ears. He walked back into the room about 20 minutes later.

“She does not need tubes in her ears again at this time. They were perfectly clear. No sign of infection and no fluid. I was surprised. I’ll keep a close eye on them and we’ll see if they stay clear.”

I was surprised too! Usually when she has a runny nose and goopy eyes (which is did that morning) she also has fluid in her ears. I thanked him for his time and gathered my things to go wait in the surgery waiting room until they called me for the results of the hearing screen.

I walked back out to sit in those very uncomfortable waiting room chairs. Who designs these waiting rooms? It’s like they said, “What kind of chairs should we put in here? We know that these parents are nervous, afraid, and will be unable to sit still while they wait for hours for their child to get out of surgery. You know what would be the best idea for chairs in here? Hard, plastic ones with a thin vinyl covering with just enough padding to avoid bruising and corporate complaints. Why make this process any easier by providing sufficient butt comfort? Oh… and let’s put a few gazillion gallon fish tanks in here. Who isn’t comforted by Nemo and Dory? And make sure to build the cafeteria at least 5 miles from here. It’ll give them something to do.”

“Sounds like a great idea Bob! I have one more! Make sure the person at the information desk is at least 100 years old, has no idea where anything is located and can’t work the computer or the phone. Parents will think that’s hilarious and won’t be at all frustrated or annoyed.”

Before the ENT left the room and sent me to this wonderful waiting area he said that the audiologist would come find me in the waiting room sometime between 1 hour and next Tuesday to tell me the results of the ABR. They gave me this little blue pager that was supposed to light up and vibrate when Oli was done. I had to keep it with me just in case they couldn’t get a hold of me by my cell phone. I really wanted to go get a cup of coffee, but I hated the thought leaving the waiting room. What if the little blue pager only works within a certain distance from the surgery area? I doubted it would work 5 miles away and in an underground cave-like area, which is where the cafeteria was located. I seriously doubted that my cell phone would work there either. My cell phone only works half the time, above ground in my apartment.

I spent the next 10 minutes having an inner debate about coffee.

Did I really need it? My butt was really starting to hurt already. Maybe a little stroll would take my mind off imaginary surgical catastrophe situations. No, I can’t go. What if Oli needs me? What if the pager and the cell phone fail and something happens that requires the one thing that no nurse, doctor, tech, therapists, specialist, aide, helper, or 100 year old woman can help with. What if it can only be fixed by my immediate action or Oli will die? I don’t need coffee that bad. Wait…that would never happen. Oli’s fine and in good hands. I will only be gone a little while.

I decide to make a go of it and fast-walked my way out of the waiting room. My pager and cell phone were clutched tightly in one hand. A few weeks later I stumbled back into the waiting room, pager and cell phone non-vibrating, lit, or ringing. I sat down and glanced at the brown card attached to the pager. It was directions on how to use the pager. Aaaaa….I had been in enough restaurants (pre-children) to know how to use one. I didn’t bother reading the card when they gave me the thing. I read it now.

________Do not place pager and cell phone in direct contact. The pager may not work properly if this happens._____________

What?!

I was holding onto them both in the same hand!

Oh My God!! Something terrible has happened and I was GETTING F****** COFFEE IN EGYPT!!

I rushed the old lady at the information desk.

“My daughter Oli is in surgery. I went to go get coffee and I had my cell phone and the pager on me, but I didn’t know that I wasn’t supposed to put them in the same place because I didn’t read the card because, you know, I thought I knew how to work one, but then I got back and I read the little card and now I think you probably definitely tried to get a hold of me but my cell phone doesn’t work very well and of course the pager didn’t work because I had it in THE SAME FLIPPIN’ HAND AS MY CELL PHONE, STOP LOOKING AT ME LIKE I HAVE LOST MY MIND AND TELL ME MY DAUGHTER IS OKAY!!”

Of course I didn’t really say any of this. They might not let me take Oli home with me. I steadied my trembling hands, took a deep breath, and said “Can you tell me if Oliana is out of surgery yet?”

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I Choose To Call It “Helpfulness”

1 Mar

“No one is ever quite ready; everyone is always caught off guard. Parenthood chooses you. And you open your eyes, look at what you’ve got, say “Oh, my gosh,” and recognize that of all the balls there ever were, this is the one you should not drop. It’s not a question of choice.”

― Marisa de los Santos, Love Walked In

All I have to say today is: Good thing I started a blog when Oli was born and updated it a few times because I have forgotten half of the things that Oli did between the ages of 1 and 2. Stress induced amnesia? Sleep deprivation?

She started talking around the age of 2. She had about 15-20 words back then. She only said one word at a time except on one occasion where she used two. I guess this happened?.. because I blogged about it. True to my absent minded, fog clogged brain self I didn’t mention in the post what that two word sentence was. I have no idea now. That sucks…

She used to say the beginning or the end of a word. For milk she would say “ka” and later “ilk”. For drink she would say “dri”. She did say mamma all the time. It started as “ma-ma-ma” and later became “mom-mom”. Always strung together.

Maybe she got it from Kekoa? That boy never said my name just once and still doesn’t. It’s always “Mom. Mom. Mom. Mom. Mom.” It doesn’t matter if I answer right away or not. Of course I tell him he sounds like a broken record. Apparently I am no longer allowed to use this terminology with children, per the husband. He told me yesterday “People under the age of 25 have no idea what that even means. You can’t say record, tape, VHS…”

I can say it as long as I want. I can even yell it into a phone and then slam down the receiver!

When did I become old?

What was I talking about?….

Oh yeah, Oli. The main character in my story.

She also started learning to walk around this age. Not walk- walk, but Oli walk which started with me holding her up and moving her legs in a walking like motion.

So…basically it was just me, puppeteering her around the room.

I guess now that I think about it, it was ALL me.

I should describe this part instead of Oli learning to walk as Mommy forcing Oli to learn to walk. I was so impatient. Instead of waiting for the poor girl to do things at her own pace and in her own time I would impose my “helpfulness” on her.

I can only imagine what Oli is thinking when I set out to help her learn something new. Walking… talking… perhaps braille reading?

“Really mom? Why don’t you just go ahead and do that by yourself and come on back down to earth when you’re done. I’ll be here waiting in the land of reality when you get back.”

I chose to pretend that I helped her learn to walk.

Okay, really I didn’t. But I tried. I tried for almost 2 years. When Oli was ready to walk she did. When she was 3 and a half. Despite my deceptive attempts to tell people she was learning to when she was 20 months old. Who did I think I was fooling? If you came over to my house and saw me hunched over, carrying my 2yr old with just her feet dragging on the floor, would you have been convinced that she was walking?

“Look World! I am a genius! I give you—-Oli’s first steps! Just pretend you don’t see me here doing everything for her.”

I can’t help but laugh at my faked enthusiasm, my I-rock-at-this-parent-thing attitude and blatant foolery in my old blog posts.

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Flies, Trash, and Dead Bodies

25 Feb

“Like a corpse left in a garbage dumpster in the middle of summer.” -Sin City quotes

Right around the time that Oli turned 1 and got her first pair of prosthetic eyes, my mom moved in with me to help with the kids.

Which means she moved to the town of. . .Pahrump.

I wish I could tell you that it was a quaint little cozy city with white picket fences and the scent of fresh flowers in the air.

It was more like a city from Stephen King’s book Desperation with trailers sporting rotting sideboard and the scent of dead bodies in the air.

When we moved there we were sold on the idea of Parump becoming an up and coming city. With the housing prices sky rocketing in Vegas, we thought it would be an excellent idea to purchase a house in another town and wait for their market to increase. We thought there would be an influx of buyers recognizing the beauty and the quiet peace of living in the middle of the desert.

At least. . .this is what my realtor told me.

“Buy here! Buy now! You won’t regret it when your house doubles in value in a year!”

It didn’t work out quite like that.

Apparently everyone else spotted what I missed when touring Pahrump. The poverty, high rate of meth use, decaying landscape, trash, and a disturbing amount of flies. I guess the fact that Sherry’s Ranch was just down the road didn’t encourage families to move there either. Yes, this is a brothel.

What in the hell were we thinking?

And then I asked my mom to move there?

Granted we technically didn’t live in Pahrump. We lived in a track community about 5 miles outside of town.

It wasn’t far enough. The trickle of garbage, fly larvae, and stench of unbrushed teeth eventually made it’s way right to my front door.

The housing market in Vegas started on its downward spiral the year after we moved, which subsequently really plunged the value of my house into the toilet.

After my mom moved in with us she began to recognize that my optimism when describing my city was really just an act of desperation to get her to move to Nevada.

I used to tell her “It’s really not that bad. You’ll get used to it.”

I think she wanted to believe me at first until one afternoon she told a coworker that she had a blind date that night. The woman looked at her with hope and jealousy in her eyes, and sincerely asked “Does he have all of his teeth?”

That was the last straw for my mom.

It also didn’t help that her date turned out to only be in possession of most of his teeth and then offered her a sad plastic rose at the end of the evening.

She stayed though. She didn’t hightail it out of there fleeing like a woman who is being chased by smelly, aging, toothless men.

It did, however, end her dating career in Pahrump.

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