5.29.17
“I think we both wish so badly this didn’t have to be a part of our story, but it’s completely in God’s hands. All we can do is pray for the best.”
It was a weird sort of unworldly experience, that first weekend in the hospital. We hadn’t fully understood what this phase of our lives was going to look like. We lived somewhere between bliss and denial. Baby girl was still on the inside, but so was I.
On Saturday, I was administered the second dose of my rescue round of steroids. Otherwise, over the weekend, I’d returned to steady, though steady now meant losing blood consistently throughout the day as well as the nightly gushes.
My husband stayed with me, sleeping on the chair/lounger, bless his soul, through Monday, it being Memorial Day. We had several visitors, family and friends, and I was given wheelchair privileges, so we ventured out into the beautiful weather for an hour here and there, making sure I was back in time for pills, IV flushes and vitals.
We marveled at how when we’d left our house on the 26th, we’d packed overnight bags for the wedding I was standing in the next day, and while our packed attire did not exactly fit the hospital scene, we were lucky to have our toiletries, pajamas/lounge clothes, cell phone chargers, my body pillow, and some other necessities right in our car. We were lucky to have had Kevin home from work early, on a day when we thought we were crossing the state in the afternoon, but instead admitted me to the hospital. We were lucky to have had our dog packed up and ready to go to my parent’s house for the weekend that would turn into the summer.
And then Monday evening came.
Our holiday weekend, filled with too much excitement and a getaway to the Medical Mile of Grand Rapids, came to a close.
For one of us.
Kevin had to return home, to take care of our house, to go back to work, to sort out our lives a bit.
And I was left alone.
We choked back emotions as we said goodbye for our first time in this new stage. We were supposed to be giggling, giddy for the birth of the baby that would take us from two to three, babymooning, putting together a nursery and dreaming of what life would be like in four months. Instead, Kevin walked out of my hospital room, retrieved our car from the emergency room parking lot and went home alone to the house I would not see again until our baby was born.
I cried. Oh, I cried.
You can be surrounded by people all day long as a hospital patient – doctors, nurses, visitors – but they all go home at the end of the day. This would be my first experience of significant loneliness in a time when I was never more than 25 feet from another person. However, the only other people who could truly understand the loneliness I felt were also locked away in their rooms until they, too, were granted wheelchair privileges and their family or friends retrieved them. Still, we didn’t chat even when we did see each other.
Though my body was best when still, my mind was not. I learned to keep myself busy. I continued working from the hospital. I crocheted more and more dish scrubbies. I shared my days with endless visitors. I chatted with my nurses. I read books. I journaled. I checked on and tweaked our baby registry almost nightly.
I did anything to keep my mind from reminding me just how isolated I felt.
In the stats:
Gestational Age: 23 weeks 2 days
Days of blood: 33
Days of bedrest: 54
Pre-Hospital Stay Doctor’s Appointments: 8
Ultrasounds: 4
Days in the hospital: 4
IV starts: 1
Magnesium drips: 1
Trips to Labor & Delivery: 1
Sets of visitors: 8
Sponsor Oaklee's March of Dimes team.
P.S. I have to note the real heroes in this stage of our pregnancy, my nurses. I’ll mention some here and there in the upcoming posts, but it shouldn’t go unsaid that yes, I was beyond lonely, but these girls were absolute godsends. They chatted with me, laughed with me, cried with me and cared about me as if I hadn’t just entered their lives a few days ago. 4 Center, OB Special Care, is a truly special place. While I hope I’m never their patient again, I so badly miss some of those girls who so quickly became my friends.