Aug 28

Aug 28 Reckoning With Risk

As far as I know, none of the baby books everyone tells you to read while expecting starts off with a: “So, you’ve experienced a sudden medical emergency now you’re categorized as high risk.” Maybe they should? But they probably shouldn’t. I really don’t think it would be much help to most pregnant people unless they’re going through it, especially me, a chronic over-thinker, preparer, and worrier. So when the past month of our lives took a nosedive and I ended up unexpectedly admitted to the hospital with pregnancy complications and the constant threat of going into an emergency delivery, I didn’t have much of a guide for how to process everything.

I’m still working through all of it, hence this brain dump of jumbled feelings collected from 4am Notes app entries and scribbles on scraps of paper and medical release forms. I sit here writing from my hospital bed — my fourth room at this hospital, snugly positioned between the antepartum ward and mother/baby recovery — simultaneously fearful about oversharing and of losing my grasp on this moment in time, when I’m in the throes of something entirely foreign and frightening and new and complicated, without getting it all down in words. So, here we are.

Risky business

In early August, I woke up one day to discover a frightening amount of bleeding that had, apparently, happened while I slept. While I cried and panicked, Christopher’s cool head and emergency responder demeanor managed to call my OB’s office for guidance, shoot a 911 email to my boss, gather our “Baby Botkin 2021” folder of paperwork, get me dressed, and load me into the car, for us to safely arrive at the Emergency and Labor & Delivery ward at our hospital within about 25 minutes. It was a sight to behold, and I’m not quite sure how he managed it while I know he was also internally panicking. I’ll never forget it. For this and countless more reasons that he’s shown over these past few weeks, I’m so thankful that he’s been the one by my side through this whole thing.

Upon arriving at the hospital the first time, I was quickly admitted and underwent a whole roster of blood draws, tests, and ultrasounds, ultimately resulting in both my OB and the emergency perinatologist explaining that baby and I were experiencing some rare placental complications that have no clear cause, but that I’d need to be kept at the hospital under close observation until we either 1) had the baby or 2) collectively felt confident about my ability to safely return home.

At 10 weeks early, we obviously all preferred the latter scenario, but I began a cocktail of meds to hopefully slow down my body’s response to the complications (bleeding and contractions) while also preparing our 3.7-lb. nugget of a human to enter the world early if that’s where things headed. Enter: a pesky IV drip, a series of (bizarrely painful) shots in the ass and thighs, and a bunch of monitors to keep close watch on the baby’s movement, heart rate, and my own body’s response to treatment.

The doctors told us to get comfy and that we’d be required to stay for at least the duration of my IV meds, 48 hours, but that they could make no promises beyond that. We transferred into a more permanent room in the antepartum ward and began the dreaded “We don’t want to worry you, but Brinton is in the hospital” calls to immediate family. Christopher ran home to grab some essentials like chargers, toothbrushes, computers, and clothes while I got to know the nursing staff, underwent a COVID test, and tried to process exactly what the hell had just happened to my random Thursday.

The following several days were an emotional and physical roller coaster of being told that we could probably go home soon, then reverting due to the baby’s heart rate dropping or contractions stopping and starting, then being told we could probably leave soon again, then flip-flopping back to needing to stay under observation. It was a lot of laying in bed to the rhythmic sound of the baby’s heartbeat, being woken up every hour or so for vital checks and IV changes and monitor adjustments.

Because of newly increased hospital restrictions due to the Delta variant, Christopher was the only visitor who’d be allowed for the duration of my stay, so while my mom drove several hours to come stay at the house with our pets, neither she nor any other loved ones could come see me in the hospital. (This was probably for the best, as I wasn’t able to take a shower for the first three days.) We developed a routine of frequently interrupted sleep — Christopher on a plastic cot next to my hospital bed — and distractions — painting models, trying to get some work done, texting friends, researching pediatricians, binge-watching F Boy Island — all undercut with an unending sense of fear and anxiety. I glumly watched the sky outside change from vivid blue to a smoky wildfire brown and back again, and grappled with how much to share about what was happening, and with whom.

Two exhausted and overwhelmed parents-to-be on our first night of many in the hospital.

A new not-so-normal

After several days that felt like weeks, we were finally given the all clear to head home under strict new orders: thrice weekly testing at the high risk clinic, twice daily kick counts, no standing or walking for longer than about five minutes, no strenuous activity or lifting over five pounds, and constant vigilance for anything out of the ordinary. I walked in the door of our home to be greeted by all of our excited pets, a big hug from my mom, and a massive rush of emotions far too complicated to parse through after many crappy nights’ sleep and a post-med haze. Christopher held me while I fell asleep sobbing, embarrassedly trying to articulate that I’m thankful and fearful and too many other things to put into words. It was… a lot.

I spent the following day shuffling around in short spurts trying to get life back in order and prepare for bed rest, working, and baby while being lovingly chastised for doing things like making my own tea or folding laundry, feeling much better rested and better prepared to sort through my thoughts about the whole experience. I started the process of untangling the spaghetti noodles of my feelings, finding that they fell cleanly into three categories: gratitude, grief, and overwhelm. I started writing this blog post to sort through it, only to get up and find — yet again — that I was heavily bleeding.

Tears, an emergency doctor call, frantic packing, and a tense drive later, my mom and I arrived at the hospital. Wanting to ensure that Christopher would be allowed as my “designated visitor” should I remain admitted in the hospital for a long stretch, I left my panicked mom outside the hospital front doors and waddled into the labor and delivery ward to sympathetic choruses of: “Oh no, what are you doing back here? We didn’t want to see you again for another nine weeks!”

While Christopher sped as fast as he could to the hospital despite the rush hour traffic, as he’d dared return to work for a single shift, I was readmitted and again underwent blood tests, emergency ultrasounds, and various scans in attempt to determine the cause of my body’s distress. Ultimately, I was put on another IV drip of medications to calm my uterus and hopefully prevent pre-term labor.

They moved me into another permanent room in the antepartum unit and I tried to come to terms with the fact that we could have a premature baby at any time, spend the next several weeks in the hospital, or (realistically) both. We met with the neonatologist to discuss scenarios about our baby’s future: what challenges might a baby born at 30 weeks encounter? How long would they need to be in the NICU? Would we be able to see them or hold them immediately after the birth? How would they eat, breathe, and grow? What would be the best case scenario for baby at their current gestational age, and what would be the worst alternative?

Kissing “the plan” goodbye

At the same time that we were navigating this fearsome unknown, it also became clear that things couldn’t continue as normal. At my doctor’s insistence, I started the process of transitioning onto medical disability from work, two whole months (and one organized transition plan) earlier than planned. I tearfully canceled the baby shower that my mom, stepmom, and mother-in-law had been working hard to organize over the past several months. I wrote to our beloved wedding photographer to let her know that we wouldn’t be able to attend our maternity photo shoot after all. All the while, Christopher and I fielded endless questions, concern, well-wishes, and check-ins from every direction, never really knowing what to say except: “We don’t know, we’re taking things day by day.”

After a week in antepartum where my body was seemingly receptive first to IV meds and then to oral treatments, the doctors made the decision to allow me to continue full bed rest (with “bathroom privileges”) at home with a stacked schedule of weekly checkups and monitoring. My mom and Christopher bought a paper calendar to work out a “Brinton-sitting” schedule for the next two months, which ensured I always had somebody with me at the house (enforcing that I stayed still and seated) and had reliable transport to my almost daily medical appointments. We packed up our scattered belongings from yet another hospital room and I was wheeled out to the car, promising the nursing staff that they wouldn’t see me again until baby time and feeling deep gratitude for the feeling of the warm breeze on my skin.

Third time’s a charm

The following week went by uneventfully, thanks to my strict bed rest orders. Limited to my bed, the couch, or the recliner in baby’s still-unfinished nursery, I spent the days equal parts frustrated by my own physical limitations, mortified about having to ask my mom, husband, or friends for every little thing, and thankful that I could at least while these hours away snuggling with Pickle, Winky, and Jiji. Christopher returned to work for a few days, leaving me under my mother’s diligent care. Eventually they passed the torch, with my mom finally heading the few hours home to return to her own spouse, house, and life for a little while after three weeks spent selflessly attending to mine.

Then, after a day of back-to-back medical appointments — non-stress tests, ultrasounds, and OB checkins — that baby and I passed with flying colors, the proverbial shit hit the fan yet again. Heart suddenly thudding, I was jolted out of bed by overwhelming gut pain, clamminess, and sense that something wasn’t right. After a few minutes trying to figure out if this was a fluke like food poisoning or something more serious, Christopher called ahead to the hospital to let them know we were on our way. Again.

As we stumbled out the door to the car, him laden with our pre-packed “go bags” and me clutching my incessantly contracting stomach, we both acknowledged that the next time we returned to the house together, it would be as parents. Regardless of what the night ahead held in store for us, it had been made clear upon my last release that if any further complications arose, I wouldn’t be allowed home from the hospital again until after baby’s arrival.

Because I was in real-deal labor, things were immediately different when we burst through the doors of Labor & Delivery at midnight. I was immediately hustled into a room where I was equipped with an IV, handed surgical intake paperwork about any final directives (yikes), given blood draws, and underwent a cervical dilation check. Because I was having long, painful contractions every 20-30 seconds and was partially dilated, they wheeled me into a delivery room (equipped with a baby incubator to really hammer home the “shit just got real” feeling) where the doctor came in to tell us that she was positive we’d have a baby within the next 72 hours. After I got another COVID test and MRSA swab, was strapped up to my usual array of monitors, and hooked up with my cocktail of IV fluids, I was encouraged to rest as much as possible before labor progressed. With a little help from some heavy painkillers, I was able to drift off to something close to sleep for a few hours, anxiously awaiting the arrival of this tiny human.

Imagine my surprise then when the next morning, my contractions had mostly abated and the doctors changed their tune, declaring that we might be able to hold this baby in utero until 34, 36, or even 38 weeks after all! We’d stopped labor in its tracks (isn’t medical science amazing?) so now the next steps were to re-admit me to antepartum to begin my most extended stay yet.

After another day in L&D under observation and continued medication, I was wheeled back to my now-familiar second room in antepartum — complete with a faux tropical view — and set out to make things comfortable. Christopher brought some Halloween decorations from our house, my roster of necessities to make the room comfortable for a long-term stay (I’ll write a post about this), and some snacks, and we settled in. Now, a week and several additional labor scares in, I’m at peace with the fact that this room is my home for the foreseeable future and feeling as Zen as I can be about the idea that the baby can come at any time.

Whether I’m here for the next seven weeks leading up until baby’s due date, or if we deal with a pre-term delivery tomorrow, we’re in the safest possible place for baby and for me. I’m trying to stay optimistic and keep things in perspective: there are far worse positions to be in than on bed rest in a private hospital room, attended to by a top-notch medical team and supported by an incredible spouse, with a healthy baby hanging out in utero. Even if right now it’s overwhelming and stressful and scary, someday this will all feel like a distant blip in the rear view mirror.

So, I’m back to trying to parse through the Jackson Pollock of emotions that’s been painted over the past month, wanting to get them all down in writing so that someday — in that beautiful "third trimester trauma fading in the rear view” scenario — I can revisit this frame of mind and remember everything this experience has meant to me.

This little face makes it all worthwhile. I can’t wait to meet them!

Gratitude

Above all else, my clearest emotion throughout this experience has been gratitude. There are so many reasons for us to walk away feeling grateful, but here’s a short list:

Baby’s safety. At the end of the day, baby is healthy and (for now) staying put. Hearing their heartbeat on loop for days on end is a constant, joyous reminder that I’ve got a little person who is going to be joining the picture soon and that despite the complications, I’ve literally grown them from scratch. Knowing that we’ve repeatedly acted swiftly in the baby’s best interest has made me feel more like a real parent than I have this entire pregnancy. It all feels real now!
A community of care. Our loved ones have shown up in full force during this experience in a way that’s left me lost for words. We had friends who delivered burritos and other snacks to the hospital after we found out that the cafeteria was closed to visitors during COVID. My stepdad sent flowers. My parents-in-law spent their wedding anniversary at our house doing household repairs and miscellaneous work, even setting up a new bed frame that would allow me to get in and out of bed with more easily if I was recovering from an emergency C-section. My siblings in law gave up their weekend to Extreme Makeover Home Edition our backyard when Christopher wasn’t able to tackle some urgent projects.

I had colleagues constantly checking in and sending memes, articles, and TV suggestions as distractions. My mom packed up and drove for hours at the drop of a hat to come provide pet care and peace of mind for us while we were stuck at the hospital, and will probably be here plenty in the coming weeks to keep things running smoothly and ensure our pets are being properly doted upon. My brother tidied house, vacuuming and mopping our floors a few hours before we got home from our first hospital stay.

My parents who live out of state have checked in multiple times a day every day, sending words of encouragement and offering to drop everything and fly out if we need them. We had friends who gave up days of PTO to come assist with random tasks around the house while I was on bed rest at home: laundering and organizing baby clothes, meal prepping, dusting, cleaning the kitchen.

Other friends drove from out of town to drop homemade meals off on our doorstep, or load me up with perfect-for-me snacks and entertaining reading material. My boss, colleagues, and friends have sent flowers, cookies, soups, DoorDash gift cards, and more. I feel so much gratitude for this community.
An attentive and empathetic medical care team. The nurses and doctors who’ve overseen my treatment are fantastic despite their crazy work load, and have filled me with confidence about the different choices we made for the treatment plan. They always err on the side of caution (even when it means disappointing me when I just wanted to go home!) and catch the tiniest changes to baby’s behavior. They chat and joke with me when they can tell I need distraction, and never fail to answer my questions.
A labor practice run. In a similar vein, this experience has presented something of a chance to re-evaluate my birth plans and expectations through a realistic lens after learning my body’s response to specific medical treatments, familiarizing myself with the hospital, meeting my medical team, and learning new COVID restrictions. Being suddenly thrust into the high risk category led me to learn a lot more about emergency C-sections, recovery, and all the other possibilities for how my labor and delivery might go.
A partner who does it all. There aren’t words to describe the thankfulness I feel for Christopher, who was overnight thrust into the unfortunate position of becoming my everything. As my sole visitor at the hospital, he’s become my only connection to the outside world, my only outlet for intellectual stimulation, and the only one who can provide me with things like fresh laundry and pepper to spice up bland hospital meals. At the same time, he’s also needed to work overtime (literally and figuratively) to prepare for an extended time off in the event of our baby being admitted to the NICU, keep up with homework for the degree he’s almost finished earning, and keep things running at home.

Every time I look down at him sleeping on an uncomfortable hospital cot, or when he swings by with a coffee on his way to yet another 16-hour shift, or he helps me scrub the parts of my legs I can no longer reach in the cramped hospital shower, or he leans over to kiss my aching stomach, I am struck with an absolutely overwhelming sense of love and deep gratitude that this man is mine. Christopher is an unbelievable partner and already such a dedicated father, and I truly don’t know how I’d do this without him. There aren’t words to describe the gratitude I feel that the guy I’ve loved since I was 15 has grown into the devoted man who’s carrying me through the most turbulent experience of my life more than a decade later.
Assuredness in our decision to start a family. Despite all of the extra stress, fear, and complication that’s come from having the third trimester turn into a thriller movie, I feel more confident than ever in the choice to have this baby. Sharing a wall with the post-op room here in the hospital, I hear newborn babies and their parents in the hours immediately following their C-sections. I hear the instrumental tingling of the song that plays in the ward each time a new baby is born; I see the overjoyed, exhausted faces as the families are eventually wheeled down the hall to the longer term recovery rooms; I hear the tiny shrieking cries of babies navigating this world for the first time. Rather than filing me with the frightened anticipation for what’s to come, it’s a welcome reminder that all of this is for our son or daughter, who we’ll get to meet and learn and love.

My body might feel like a stranger’s and my mind might be in more turmoil than it’s ever been, but I can say without question that I would do all of this over again if it’s what will bring us our child — and that’s the validation that I didn’t realize I needed. Knowing that my little human and I are along for the same ride, at the whim of an out-of-order placenta, makes me feel closer to them and even more grateful to be their mom. We’re in this together, and every time they kick or twist or practice their breaths inside me, I feel connected to them on a deeper level.

Chronicling my third trimester bump has looked a lot different in the hospital compared to the maternity shoot I’d planned, but I am determined to remember these moments!

Overwhelm

Frankly, I suppose that all of my emotions about this process could be categorized as overwhelming. The flood of fear, trauma, gratitude, worry, excitement, joy, guilt, and everything in between is a hell of a lot to contend with! It’s been a total brain-fog of feelings that I’m sure won’t change anytime soon, but here are some of the many ways I’ve felt overwhelmed throughout this experience.

Fear and confusion. Learning just how quickly everything can go wrong for baby and for me, not having any real sense of what’s caused the complications with my pregnancy, and the sudden launch into the “high risk” category with constant worry about early delivery have obviously been a big source of negative emotion.
Severe discomfort. In many ways, I’m painfully independent, and I’m experiencing a visceral response to suddenly having to rely on others for everything: allowing my friends to do our laundry, my husband to carry the burdens of our household, and my mom to do our grocery shopping and cleaning. I’ve been beyond privileged up until this point in my life to never have relied on things like motorized carts in the grocery store, and the swift pivot to feeling entirely dependent on accessibility of resources, others’ willingness to help, and many other factors has been eye-opening. I’m coming to terms with my privileged attachment to my own physical independence and self-sufficiency, and the way I’ve taken doing everyday things in without spectacle or risk for granted.
Guilt in the sharing (or not sharing). Navigating the weight of which burdens to share with others has been a weird minefield to navigate. We’ve spent the past month torn between not wanting to worry the loved ones in our lives or spark panic in our friends, family, and colleagues, but also wanting to enable our community to show support in the ways they find comfort in. Personally, I’ve been working through the process of not wanting to overshare in public forums (like this one) but also wanting to memorialize this moment for myself in the present moment to reflect on in years to come.
Questioning my own relationship to productivity. I found myself expecting to work while going through this, envisioning tackling projects and performing job functions while heavily medicated in my hospital bed, and then in turn being disappointed at myself when I couldn’t really occupy that headspace at the hospital. Realizing that all of this was self-imposed — up until I went out on disability, my boss sounded a constant drumbeat to allow myself to be in the hospital and experience my medical crisis without worrying about the details of my job — has made me question what this says about me, my tendencies toward workaholism, and my sense of identity being closely tied to productivity.
Paralysis about what’s next. Ultimately, I’ve been reckoning with how to live my life in a state of pause over the next two months. Aside from not being able to present in my household to do the basics of keeping life moving, there’s preparing for baby and grappling with a whole new set of concerns I didn’t have before, like post-op surgical recovery from a C-section and the implications of a NICU stay during COVID if they come early. Not to mention the immediate, most pressing need of learning to rest without devolving into crippling anxiety that something will go wrong while I’m asleep.

My whole world — I don’t know what I’d do without Christopher as my support system through this experience. He’ll hate this photo but it’s so special to me!

Grief

When initially trying to talk through my feelings with Christopher, I realized that the hardest to articulate was actually a form of intangible grief. Namely, grieving my ideas about myself and the time I thought I had left before experiencing the crazy life shift that is first-time parenthood.

Grieving normalcy. It feels selfish to admit that I’m feeling a lot of grief for the two months of “normalcy” I thought I had left before becoming a parent, doing all the things that make me feel like me: enjoying alone time, standing in the kitchen and baking new recipes, having last pre-baby brunches with friends, taking long walks through my favorite neighborhoods, and even decorating my home in preparation for a new arrival. I am incredibly grateful that I will be surrounded by people who are caring for me and helping me until the baby arrives, but it also feels like so much of what I thought I had available to me in these last few weeks as a childless, independent adult has shifted.

Every time I log into Instagram and see one of my peers who’s expecting their own baby around the same time (there are tons of us right now!), I resent myself for the feelings of jealousy that bubble up as I watch them wear normal clothes, watch their bodies grow without impediment from cords and monitors, get spa treatments, put finishing touches on their babies’ nurseries, spend time at the pool with friends, snuggle their pets, and walk around their neighborhoods. Why did I have to be stuck with a whack placenta? I was supposed to have all of that too, I think, before kicking myself for being a envious, ungrateful jerk.
Grieving my sense of security. I spent 75% of this pregnancy in the blissful realm of confidence in my own body as a fully capable vessel, not something that could betray me overnight without me even realizing something was awry, and in my mind as “strong” and relatively untouched by hormonal fluctuations and shifts so often associated with pregnancy. Suddenly mistrusting my own body and processing the emotional overload that’s come with this whole experience has turned my internal sense of comfort and security on its head in a way I’ve never experienced before.
Grieving ideas about my future. While there were never any sure plans about having more children, this experience has certainly colored visions of what the future might hold. Will these complications impact my ability to have more kids if we want them? Will the experience taint my own ideas about having a larger family? What impact will this have on my future compared to what it might have looked like otherwise?

Perhaps 2021 wasn’t the right year to end things with my therapist.

While I continually work through the tangled web of processing this experience, I eagerly anticipate the next event that will turn our lives upside down: the arrival of our little one. I know that whatever new priorities, shifted perceptions, and complex emotions I’m feeling now, they won’t hold a candle to the experience of welcoming a new human into our world. Whether it’s tonight or in two months, I’ll greet that train with arms thrown wide when it arrives!