Part 3 - Ten years ago

I remember calling Mary from the car, the first and last phone call I would make until much much later that evening. I have no idea what I said. I remember the drive home, remember thinking that I had taken all the simplicity for granted - I thought 'you had a good life' and now what? Nothing looks the same - not the roads, the trees, the darkening spring sky - what once was beautiful and easy is now gone and all you know is this hell. I kept thinking, just three hours, twenty minutes and sixteen seconds ago, life was good - just three hours, twenty one minutes and sixteen seconds ago - tick tock. I remember feeling disconnected from my previous life so significantly that my other children seemed foreign to me somehow - or maybe not them exactly, but my role as their Mother. Being the brain damaged baby's Mother was all I could be, it was all I had room for, all I could concentrate on. I took myself up the stairs, past the newly painted nursery into my bedroom and shut myself away in quiet to begin the bargaining process. I went to my jewelry box first and took out the rosary my Grandmother had given Brian for his first communion, I looped the beads around my fingers tight and put Jesus in my palm, held him so hard his cross dug through my skin. "Our Father who art in Heaven...." "Hail Mary full of Grace the Lord is with thee" Sobbing in the darkness I bargained. Okay God, if you wake me up and this has all been a test, I promise I will NEVER do a wrong thing again. Okay God if you want, you can take me, please Jesus, take me instead. Okay God I will do it, I will do whatever you want - just tell me and I will do it.... "Our Father who art in Heaven" around the beads for a second time, prayer after prayer, rocking on my bedside, back and forth back and forth, prayer after prayer after prayer. He kicked and I stopped rocking. I held my own stomach with my arms, placed my hand and Jesus to him, Oh God WHY? WHY MY BABY? I sobbed and I sobbed, I cried until there was nothing left inside of me to purge - except maybe for the baby with the bad ventricle and then I cried some more to imagine the sea weed sticks in my cervix, the labor, the pushing, the dying. I bolted up - this I can see in my mind, so vivid, so clear, I jumped up from the bed with purpose and I reached for the phone began pacing as I dialed - "Yes it is an emergency, please page Dr. Blommel now" I explained what had happened, I explained that Dr.T would call her with the report first thing in the morning, I explained about the "abortion" and I explained that we needed to do something to fix it all right the fuck now! She told me, "you must not cry like this Deb, you must calm down - remember he is alive inside of you, he can feel you, hear you, calm down honey, calm down" I felt as though she was placating me for a bad mood and I was angry - I felt so alone and so misunderstood - I wanted to scream "Don't you get it? I have interrupted your happy little dinner with your happy little healthy children because my baby's brain is black when it should be gray and he said sea weed sticks to induce a natural labor and I only have a week and there are no similar case studies to look at, and they can't see the fucking problem to go in and fix it, and I want to wake up now and my Baby is going to DIE!" I wanted to scream at God and the sky, at my Doctor, my husband - anyone - everyone. I felt so alone, I felt like the world kept on moving with no regard for the fact that my baby and I were all wrong, we were dying in the bedroom while everyone else was watching wheel of fortune or fucking jeopardy. "Our Father who art in Heaven" I remembered Nan's birthday - I have never missed her birthday and she knows the ultra sound was today.... I took a deep breath and dialed. As soon as I heard her voice, I cried openly, but this time not like an angry scared woman, this time to my Nana, I cried like a child - the way I did when that Bumble Bee in the back yard stung me for no reason... She soothed me, called me all the names I needed to be called, she told me to remember that we all have crosses to bear - remember that Jesus made his sacrifice for us.... Assured me that she would talk to God right away and together they would get this mess sorted out. I was raised a Catholic, but never, ever, in all my life have I had faith the way she did, and still does to this day. I wished that I believed like her, wished that I had a shred of confidence in the plan of God that she was always referencing - but I just didn't believe - except in her.... She assured me that God would fix it, and I trusted in her to do her thing with him, she would get the right combination of prayers and change the outcome of this nightmare - if any one could, it was definitely her. I hung up the phone feeling hopeful - Nana was working on God and I was working on being calm.... I called my Mother - with her I did not cry, I felt as though I was giving report off the evening chart at the end of my bed. Strangely, this is the most vivid memory I have from that first night - leaning on my bureau, biting my bottom lip as she said these words with the clench to her jaw that I could feel as well as hear "Well, if you hadn't moved to Virginia you could be here in Boston with the best hospitals in the country" Not - I love you..... Not - it will be okay. Not - what can I do? But rather "WELLLLLLL if you HADN'T....." - as if somehow I had asked for this by leaving home. I hung up the phone and cried for myself. I am a Motherless child soon to be a childless Mother. And I curled up into a ball and said the rosary again like Nana told me to - offer it up to Jesus. I offered it all up to Jesus over and over as I drifted into sleep that took me in spite of my need to keep on fervently praying. When I woke the next morning, the rosary beads were so tightly interlaced in my fingers that it hurt to unfurl them and free them from the twine. I called work and asked to speak to the principal, my boss - I would not be coming in, a leave of absence seemed appropriate and then she forwarded the call at my request to the third grade classroom of my friend Heather. She answered all cheerful as she rounded up the kids for the bus count before their field trip - "What?" she cried into the phone "Hold on" and she moved away from the kids so she could hear me - I sunk down on my bathroom floor, holding my head in my hands, panic rising again, leaning my back on the sink for support - "Heather I don't think I can do this." Two days passed and Dr. T faxed a case study from Tel Av iv Israel for me to look at - time's a tickin' five days and counting...These kids had hydrocephalus too, not even remotely the same issues as my son mind you, not the same blockage, not the same ventricle, but the closest it seemed in all the big world that we would get to my baby. A handful of kids in Israel with 'similar' issues was the best I had to go on while contemplating a late term abortion. All the babies but one, were severely impaired or deceased. The ones aborted showed major brain damage, except for one - the baby's brain dissection showed a resolved ventricle and a normal brain. I cried for that Mother, wailed at her choice, wailed for her guilt. I thought about mine. Could I do this? Late term abortion? Would I survive this? Did I have the right? And then, can I do this if he dies in my arms? Can I survive this if he is born to a severely impaired life of pain? What if he is damaged to the point of being hooked up to machinery to live? Can I unplug him then? Do I have the right to risk a life filled with pain and nothing beautiful for him? I read the case study. I took notes. I asked the same questions. I said the rosary. I read the case study again. I made a pro and con list. I asked myself all the same questions again, twice. I said the rosary. I did this over and over and over ...... And finally - I looked at Dan on the seventh day and said "I have decided to not terminate - I am going to carry til term" I think he disagreed, I think he thought the risk was too great - but, I never heard him out. My body, my decision, my child, my prayers, my guts, my feminist attitude - call it what you like. Thinking back on it now, I have no idea what I was thinking - I don't recall how I got to the decision, don't remember anything that led up to the words coming out of my mouth - they just did ...I knew nothing more or nothing less. I just knew that I knew.