return

For the better part of a year I could not even drive by the hospital where George was born without my eyes welling up with tears.  When errands would take me to that side of town I would take circuitous routes to avoid the large buildings but occasionally I would have to pass by and thus I would find myself unable to look away from the glass windows, attempting to remember which one was ours.  In my mind the hospital had become a huge green and glass monster; hundreds of eyes peering at me and tempting me to remember everything.

At first, when I thought about having another baby, I was repulsed by the idea of going back to that hospital.  Every hallway, every door, every piece of equipment, every person seemed like a trapdoor to some unpleasant memory.  But another baby seemed so far away and it seemed so unlikely that we would even be in Los Angeles, since for a good while after George's birth we were still planning on moving to Portland.  Then things changed. I could not muster up the courage to leave the city in the wake of the trauma of losing George.  I was still learning how to live in a life that was never supposed to be my own and so the thought of trying to do that in another city and state was terrifying to me.

So we stayed.  Then eight months later I was pregnant again and now here we are, six weeks away from being back in that same hospital for the birth of our daughter.

I mentioned before in an earlier post how we had decided to take a birthing class at the hospital with the intention of a) educating ourselves about labor and delivery and b) dealing with any trauma going back there might expose us to before we have to go there for the real deal.

Our first class was this past weekend and walking into the hospital both Leif and I were expecting things to have changed in some way in the time since we were last there.  Instead we got coffee at the same Starbucks, walked the same hallway to the lobby and sat on the same couch and I cried, where I did the same thing numerous times before.  I think we had both wanted to see that something had changed here but instead it was just reinforcement that life (and death) had continued as usual.

There were eleven other couples and, of course, everyone went around and introduced themselves.  As it turned out we were second to the last and we listened as every single one of those couples said something along the lines of this baby being their first.  When it was our turn I just said our names, that were were expecting a girl and what her due date was.  I took the easy way out, I admit, but I couldn't bring myself to say that this was my first child or that I had a son who had died.

The class itself was fine, nothing too exciting or inspiring.  We talked about the stages of labor and the signs of labor and we practiced some breathing techniques.  At the end we watched a video of actual labor and delivery.  I was relieved we were in the dark because I was crying again at this point, watching and listening as everyone talked about how amazing it was and how much having their babies changed everything.  Words were used like, "perfect," and "beautiful," and "life-changing."  Tiny crying babies, filling up my vision on the screen.

As I sat there watching twenty-two other people watching the same video all I could think about was something I had read over at GITW during the early days after George's birth, which was this; "Birth Matters.  Until it doesn't."  An epidural matters.  Until it doesn't.  Birth position matters. Until it doesn't.  A birth plan matters.  Until it doesn't.  None of those things mean very much to me anymore while it seems like they mean so much to so many.  Perspective changes everything and while I don't fault anyone for placing emphasis on these things, I just don't feel the same way.  I'm not going into this experience with any expectations for what I want other than a healthy baby and a healthy me.  It does not matter to me if she comes out the usual way or the way her brother did- through an incision in my abdomen.

Three hours of class and I only cried twice.  Not too bad.  But next week includes a tour of the labor and delivery floor, which I am having some significant anxiety about.

When we left, we did so through the exit I had left two times previously. The first time, in a wheelchair, vomiting because of the digoxin, but pregnant and with a small hope that things might still turn out positively.  The second time we left, I was again in a wheelchair but sobbing because George was dead and we were leaving for good without him. This time I left walking on my own two feet and that felt pretty good.