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| Cole Rainier could not wait to join the world! |
Dear Young Scholars,
I have been trying to write this letter ever since I entered
another world on February 14th. It has been an astonishing journey,
and leaving behind the world I once knew with you all has been very hard.
The new world began with a trip by myself on Valentine’s Day
morning to the Labor and Delivery floor of UCLA’s hospital because of a sense
that something was off: a tightness in my chest, breath coming too shallow,
something not right. I thought it would turn out to be nothing, but when the
nurses took my blood pressure, they measured a severely high reading: 187 over
110. That blood pressure reading meant I had severe preeclampsia, something I
knew little about when all this began.
What I learned is that eclampsia means stroke, or seizure in
pregnancy, so pre-eclampsia is the high blood pressure that can occur in the
last three months of pregnancy that, if untreated, can lead to a stroke or
seizure for the mother. Way back in the day, it usually meant death for mom or baby or both.
So when my blood pressure came in at 187 over 110,
indicating severe preeclampsia, an avalanche of interventions were set in
motion.
In less than 10 minutes I got an IV, a proper labor and
delivery room, a massive dose of magnesium sulfate which, according to my nurse
“is going to make you feel AWFUL, like you can’t move,” but it would hopefully
prevent the stroke/seizure scenario. I also got some blood pressure medication,
and some steroids which were meant to stimulate my 27 week, 6 day baby boy’s
lung development, in case he had to make an early arrival.
When my husband texted me to find out what the status of my
simple routine check-in was, I called him, and while I was on the phone I said
to the nurses, “So, will I be here a few hours, or…” and the nurses looked at
me, apologies in their eyes, and said, “Oh, no, honey, no…a few days, at
least.”
When I said, “So, what about work?” they said, “Oh, no,
dear, you’re all done with work.”
That was when the severity of the situation really hit. The
faces of you all, my students, the people I had the pleasure of spending my
days with, flooded through my mind, and I lost it more than I’d already begun
losing it. My work was so much of my identity, and to lose all the things I’d
planned and looked forward to doing for the next few months—Literature Circle
Projects! To Kill a Mockingbird! Animal Farm! Great writing!—was devastating.
Everything I knew, my entire world, had suddenly been wrenched away, and I was
entering an entirely new universe, where nothing was recognizable or reassuring.
The avalanche was one of not only interventions, but people.
Suddenly, I had lots of visitors. There was the high-risk OB team of doctors who
were now in charge, as my pregnancy had taken a swift turn from normal to
high-risk. There was the midwife who helped deliver Gray three years ago, and
as soon as I saw her I burst into fresh tears, and said, “This is not the way
this was supposed to go!” There was the NICU (Newborn Intensive Care Unit)
doctor who came in to tell me what it looks like when babies come out at 28
weeks and what the doctors can do for them. Of all the people I met over that
hour, she was the person I wanted to hurl from the room. I was not having my
baby yet. These people did not understand who they were dealing with. I was
going to do whatever it took to keep him inside, growing, gaining strength, so
that he had the best shot when he did join the world.
I heard what I wanted to hear: that some people with
preeclampsia can go on bedrest and keep the baby in until 34 weeks, or 37. I’m
an overachiever, I was going for 37. I would do whatever it took. I’d stay in
the hospital for weeks if I had to, as the nurses said some people did. I’d
stop everything, I’d focus only on getting this boy strong and healthy. We were
strong, we could do this.
That was not in the cards. The thing about severe
preeclampsia is that it is a problem with the placenta, the organ that delivers
nutrients and everything the growing baby needs to flourish in the womb. Not
much is known about why preeclampsia strikes, but the doctors said that it is a
problem with how the placenta connects to the mother’s uterus. If the placenta
doesn’t implant properly, it doesn’t do its job of nurturing the fetus as well
as it should.
So my big dream of keeping baby boy inside didn’t take into
account that he was not being nourished in the womb. The doctors did an
ultrasound and saw that though he was almost 28 weeks, he was about 26 week
size. Furthermore, the blood flow from the placenta was not strong. He was not
getting what he needed by being inside.
For four days I listened to his galloping heartbeat on the fetal
monitor: ba-bump, ba-bump, ba-bump,
140 or so times a minute, so fast it seemed like he was saying we gotta go, we gotta go, we gotta go. During
that time the doctors dosed me with magnesium to keep my muscles slow so I didn’t
have a stroke or a seizure. The magnesium also kept me entirely bed-bound. It
was like a forced coma, except that my mind was pretty awake and aware, and the
writer in me was perched inside my head, scribbling notes—remember this, remember that, you will have to write this story.
I was leashed to all kinds of monitors, the blood pressure
cuff took its reading often, and continued to show very high readings. Nothing
I did—meditation, deep breathing, visualization, resting—seemed to help that
much. For the first day or so I still told myself and others that I was keeping
this boy inside until he was full term, 37 weeks, but I was deluded. I thought that
sheer will alone would cure all this, that we were superhuman, and would
prevail over preeclampsia. It was hubris and foolishness and a lie I had to
tell myself at first, because I could not imagine having my baby at 28 weeks.
But after few days, the doctors got through to me. They
presented the evidence, the reasoning. They pulled images of my boy up on
screens and watched for signs that he was ready to join the world, or just
ready to leave the womb. The magnesium bought us the time to get the two doses
of steroids he needed to stimulate his lung development. And then on day four,
when he was twenty-eight weeks, two days, it was clear that it was time for him
to join us on the outside. He was not getting what he needed in the womb, and I
was not getting better. The only cure for preeclampsia is to not be pregnant
anymore.
I delivered via Caesarean section because that was safest
for baby. I was terrified, but also relieved when the doctors said it was time.
I understood this was best for both of us. I had to do some serious meditation
to manage the fear. My husband was beside me. I kept my eyes closed. I sang
songs I sang when I was in labor with my first boy. We made it through. And
baby Cole Rainier came into the world tiny, but crying and safe and amazingly
complete.
I stayed in the hospital several more days, because the risk
of stroke and seizure increases in the days immediately following delivery. I
had to take more of the terrible magnesium, because that lowers the risk, even
though, as one doctor said, she’d never seen anyone have such a strong adverse
reaction to it as I did.
The day following Cole’s birth was my “dark night of the
soul.” I was loaded with magnesium, nothing of my former life existed anymore,
my blood pressures were still high, the hormones that follow delivery were
crashing, I couldn’t get out of bed, and I thought there was a good chance I
was not going to make it. I had not yet been able to see my boy, though my
husband had, and he said he was small but strong, and the doctors said he was
doing well.
The dark night passed, and slowly I returned to myself. Many
small steps added up to measureable progress. My blood pressures started to go
down. I got off the magnesium, I got out of bed, I began to recover.
One of the most reassuring things the doctors said was that
nothing I did caused this to happen. It was lightning striking, and it was good
that I had the intuition to know that something was not right, and to get
myself to the hospital where they could help me. That is comforting.
But our world has changed so much, and I am still mourning
the loss of my old life. I know I will return to it again at some point, but
right now it feels light-years away. My days are choked with challenges. My
three-year old son had his world turned upside down with mom gone for eight
days in the hospital. He is doing better, but for a while there he was having
regular meltdowns from the stress. My three-week old son is in the NICU,
leashed to as many or more monitors and tubes as I was. He was born 1 pound, 10
ounces. He is doing the standard preemie dance: steps forward and back, many
stressful in the moment, but marching toward good progress. Overall he looks healthy—his
brain scans are great, he has all his fingers and toes, he’s growing, though
his digestive system has some developing still to do, which is expected for
babies his size. Most likely he will stay in the NICU until his original due
date, or even a few weeks beyond, depending on when he reaches different
milestones.
I spend hours with him every day, and for the last two weeks I’ve been able to hold him for long sweet sessions where he is curled up like a tree frog under my chin, tucked in under lots of blankets. He smells of warm bread dough. He already is bigger by about half his body weight, and from the beginning we knew he was a mighty spirit. At first he looked pretty ancient—skinny and like the oldest baby in the world, a being that still belonged to the universe. In just the last few days I have gotten a glimpse of baby-ness, where he looks more like a newborn. A friend, one of our many angels, shared a Mexican dicho that captures preemie life: "Poco a poco, andamos lejos." Little by little, we walk far.
I inhabit a world of missing right now: the often anguished missing
of my baby boy, who I can only spend a few hours with a day, and only an hour
or two actually holding him. I know he is where he needs to be, surrounded by
phenomenal caretakers, but everything in me wants him close.
I miss my three year old and our carefree old life when I
could give him more energy and attention and patience than I can now. I miss
the comparatively unharried, unstressful life my husband and I used to lead. I
miss what I expected my newborn maternity leave life would look like: long
hours cuddling and caring for a full-term infant who could nurse and cry and
move without a mess of wires and tubes tethering him to health. I am very busy
with trying to juggle all the new responsibilities of being a NICU mom while
still being a toddler mom.
I miss my old writing life, that world of mornings in the
café with my writing partner, who, by the way, had her second baby just fifteen
days before I did—our second children were supposed to be 3 months apart, not
15 days! I miss my relatively controlled life now that I have a mountain of
paperwork for all the various bureaucracies I have to deal with: the school
district, the insurance company, the hospital, my own follow-up care.
And I miss my professional life, spending invigorating days
with exceptional young minds—you all—engaging in the meaningful work of
language arts. I have wanted to reconnect with it everyday. It has been such a
gift to have Mr. Rios step in from day one, pretty much without any sub plans
from me, and continue right along. He has been hugely supportive to me, and I
hear that classes are going very well, which is a big relief. I hope you seize
every opportunity you are offered, and enrich the class with your enthusiasm
and engagement. I will be gone for most of the semester, though I hope to work
a bit at the end, and check in when I can. Nothing is clear yet, and won’t be
for a while.
I hope to stop by and say hello, but again, it is really
hard right now, and I’m a bit afraid of how emotional it will be to see you
all. I got teary just driving by Venice the other day. I am so honored to have worked with you all for as long as I
have been able to, and I look forward to being present for most of the rest of
your time at Venice. I really feel like I am part of a larger family that has
been so supportive during this rough time.
I leave you with a quote from Cole Rainier’s literary
namesake, words that resonate with me even more now, after all this. His middle
name is the name of a mighty mountain in Washington state, where some of
Cole’s grandparents live, and it is also inspired by Rainer Maria Rilke, a poet
and writer of great depth and insight.
“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and
try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are
now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot
be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to
live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually,
without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”
~Rainer Maria Rilke, from Letters to a Young Poet
With love and gratitude,
Ms. Witham
