I believe in miracles cause I have you.

Twelve years ago today was a day very much like this one here in lovely Virginia. Autumn was creeping in, the morning air greeted me with a crispness, to walk out into it was like biting into a granny smith apple that had spent time in a refrigerator. I remember the sensation of taking in my first breath as I exited my house for the short walk to my car. I remember noting the infant car seat in the back seat, a glare from the sun forcing me to squint through the reflective plane of glass to see it. I remember every motion I made that morning, how it all felt tainted with a million different meanings, a million different possible outcomes could occur. Would the tart apple air, mark the last breaths of ease I would ever inhale? Would that infant car seat make an endless empty journey and eventually have to be removed while I tore my hair out on the familiar bathroom floor where I always went to cry? Nothing about that day was singular. The country had just suffered an unspeakable terrorist attack and the community of American citizens were still reeling from a numbness, a disbelief and a horror, that is still so difficult to articulate. It is a rare experience that every person you encounter is thinking of the same thing, America was that way on September 17th 2001. I of course was thinking of my country too, but on this particular day I was thinking more about how the terrorists had terrorized me specifically, sending me into the day of a million possibilities without my best friend and birthing coach. Mary was grounded from air travel and grounded to a phone line instead of grounded hand and hand with me while I faced my destiny unknown, the unknown always such a hard concept for me to wrap my head around, even on days where possibilities were just part of the landscape and not my very horizon line. I was angry and I was scared. More scared than I have ever been, an anxiousness so much a part of me by this morning that to remove it, would have effectively left me with no identity whatsoever. For nine months I had carried a child inside of my body, felt him grow, heard his heart beat, memorized the squiggly lines on one half of his brain and read a case study sent from Israel on unilateral hydrocephalus until I had it memorized line by line. The words postmortem examination, cerebral spinal fluid, ventricle, compression and death were the words that I heard in my head with each one of his tiny kicks inside my womb,I said them in my head repetitively to comfort myself, a familiarization process, like counting sheep and making close friends with the enemy. I was living a life that I had grown somehow accustomed to and now, one outcome or another, it was about to all change, my son was about to become his own case study, either by postmortem examination or life. All of my life I have seen things in detailed scope. Mary and I say "we go there because we have to" as if playing out the most acute details prepares us for the worst possible outcome should it come to call - I remember thinking that very morning in grave and disturbing detail that if Matthew were born dead, I would ask them not to cut the umbilical cord until I was ready to be severed from my life and that I myself, not a doctor, not my husband would do the snipping. I cry now to remember that, how I pictured it all in my head, that crazy fighter stance scaring Doctor Blommel into submission as she motioned to the nurse to call down to the psych unit because I was definitely going to need grief counseling and maybe some drugs to quiet the screaming. I missed Mary there with me in that moment, I remember missing her desperately as I envisioned the scene that would ensue - I couldn't share my craziness with Dan because he never understood me, Mary however would have pushed my face into her bosom and said with a hint of humor only she could have gotten away with, something to the effect of "Honey if you need to let that cord dangle from you for all of time, I will go out and get you some long skirts." I needed the safety of her so badly, she was the only one who would have thought preserving his cord was a totally legit and sane thing to do. She has always given me permission to be me. I set out that morning having to be me in the most me moment of all my life, completely and utterly alone. As Dan and I drove to the hospital I held my hands tight around my belly, rubbing at my baby thorough the layers of my body that separated us, I was grateful that he was, at that moment very much alive and wondered with each kick, how many more I would feel? I concentrated hard on each one, giving them the same attention I would for a graduation day, a wedding day... I felt like I had to live a lifetime of gratefulness in every movement he made on that car ride to Martha Jefferson hospital. I remember being overwhelmed in a way that I had never ever before encountered. My judgment day had arrived....I would never insinuate that God gives us tragedy to punish us for out sins, I don't subscribe to that crap for an instant. I do know however after this spiritual journey of mine, that God was testing my grace under pressure and challenging me to rise above the confines of simplicity. I had met the challenge with courage and knew without a doubt that whatever the outcome, I was prepared to handle it and then, share my appreciation for my new found knowledge whatever it may be. If it were loss, I would go out and find Mothers like me and hug each and every one of them so they didn't feel so alone. If it were gain, I would not live so selfishly wanting to gain more but rather share and again, hug a lot. I knew I was ready for whatever was about to happen, I just so desperately wanted my baby to live and to have a shot at his own life beyond me and our chord. There are endless complex thoughts that accompanied me throughout that day, if I shared each one with you they amount to a book and me missing his cake and ice cream celebration this evening for I wold still be here at my desk, typing and crying. I just cannot share it all....I will however tell you that I will never forget the moment before my doctor inserted the tablet and placed it on my cervix to induce Matthews birth. It was one of those moments that could only happen to me....I was spread eagle, my privates just a hanging out in the natural light of the hospital room, I was laying back trying to relax, the TV just beyond my knee cap was tuned into NBC and there was Matt Lauer and Katie Couric doing their morning gig. They then announced that wall street would be reopening after the 9/11 tragedy and that there would be a moment of silence to honor the victims before the ringing of the opening trading bell. So, there I lay with my legs spread as far east and west as legs can go, Doctor Blommel before me with her blue gloves on, her right hand high in the air and a small white pill on the tip of her middle finger, encased nicely in a dollop of gel that sparkled in the streaming sunlight like the hope diamond. We paused, because what else do you do when the Nation is taking a moment of silence and for a moment held suspended in time just as we were. The bell rang, cheers rung out on Wall Street, I was told to "take a deep breath, a little pressure...." and game on, the birthing process was open to bidders. I suffered that day like all laboring women do it was a long hard day full of conflicting and overwhelming emotions. At about five that afternoon my doc began talking about epidurals and my need for one despite the fact that I wanted to go naturally and without any intervention at all. we fussed back and orth at each other and finally I caved when she insisted I have one, explaining that my stress over Matthews outcome was working against the progression of my contractions and that I was stuck at 7 centimeters for two hours because I was working against my own body. I needed numb and I needed pitocin and I needed to push this baby out and face my destiny once and for all. Looking back on that afternoon now, I realize my brain was trying to keep him inside of me where he was alive and safe - I was in fact working against the process of childbirth successfully by controlling my labor with my mind - the human brain and it's emotions, undoubtedly the most powerful power tool ever. I hated the needle being inserted in my spine, I was an absolute basket case as I envisioned paralysis and a dead infant all on the same day, I begged the anesthesiologist to not heap any more on to my already full and overflowing plate - he was so kind to me as they all were, they knew I was a special kind of fragile and handled me beautifully in absence of my best friend Mary who I told each and everyone of them about - they missed her being there too, we were all so worn out by the affects of terrorism...the meds began to work and I couldn't feel a thing, I had no idea that my contractions were suddenly much stronger except for watching the numbers grow on the monitor which stood by my bed. Just then my two dear friends and coworkers, Heather and Jenn appeared in the doorway hesitantly - they were just dropping in to share some love. Doctor Blommel had also delivered Heather's babies and suddenly a very still and anxious room became alive with energy and smiles. The nurse checked my cervix as the spirited chatter went on around me, she interrupted that I had reached ten centimeters and was ready to push. I was in shock and felt like the room began to spin furiously like those damn tea cup rides at the county fair. I was not ready. I was not ready. I was not ready and it's loud in here. This is it.....he will live or die now and I am not ready WAIT WAIT WAIT STOP - how about another moment of silence of like a hundred WAIT I am not ready. But I was and the pressure between my legs grew stronger and I had no choice but to let my muscles move his precious abnormal ventricled head out of my body. Heather took a camera, jenn took a video camera and everyone got quiet then. I was so scared. I was so very frightened. I remember it now and tears are streaming down my face with such force, it takes my breath away to go back in time to those moments. I pushed once and it felt wrong because I couldn't really feel my legs, I took a breath and remembered how I had done it so effectively with Brian and Kevin, legs out, thighs down, push from the bottom and bear down at the top....I pushed again, I felt him move outside of me, I paused for the next contractions and I prayed in my head the same prayer I had prayed at each and every visit to the hospital chapel "Please God make him well". He was pulled out of me and raised n the air before me. What I remember most is Heather's laugh/cry it is a sound that will never leave me - it was the sound of relief. Matthew Joseph Poulin came out of my womb and into this world with his hands extended above his head like his favorite team had scored a touch down. He cried like Rocky Balboa after a bout, screaming into the crowd for Adrian, his mouth open and to the side in full on wail. he reached forward then as Dr. Blommel wiped him clean a little, grabbing the mask that covered her mouth just as she said to him "you have no idea how many prayer lists you have been on little one, do you?" - he pulled it back from her face to reveal a smile that was as big as the sky. I remember that all I saw were smiles as I lay on the bed below all the standing people around me, I was forgotten for a moment, all attention turned appropriately to the miracle in the room. I asked over and over "is he okay?" "does he look healthy?" I must have repeated those words at least a dozen times in the span of just a few moments - I needed reassurance that this was real and not just some wild fantasy I had concocted in the throws of hormonal surging. Everyone answered back in the same Heather laughing/crying voices - "he looked perfect." When he was finally given to me, I un-swathed him from his receiving blanket and took off the little blue stocking cap they put on every newborn baby. I looked over his head afraid to make contact with his eyes until I knew that I could. His head was so beautiful, no swelling, no abnormal skull formation, no trace of everything that had gone on in that little head for five months. He was so strong, he squirmed in my arms distracting me from my obsessive inspecting. I kissed him all over the left side of his head, the sweet smell of my womb dense in his fine baby hair. I looked at his face through the swell of tears, his eyes tried to focus on mine as I drank the details of his face in, every drop of that moment like a water bottle appearing in a desert sand dune. He was so beautiful and looking at him, I realized I had spent so little time on what he might look like in my day dreamy moments - what he would look like barely came to mind - I was so focused on will he just, please dear God, live. He lived.....I can never adequately express the gratefulness that I feel for the gift of my sons life. There are just no words that can ever get it right. It is somehow too sacred for words, too privately mine to be shared in totality. It is a pact of emotion and meaning between me and God and me and God only, only we know what we know. I will say, with every year that passes between me and the moments leading up to and following his birth, I gain more clarity and remember more vividly - I am not losing details with time, rather gaining them. I think this is Gods way of reminding me that I must continue to evolve in the gratefulness of my life, these moments are not meant to pass but rather resonate. Today is Matthew's 12th birthday. It's my birthday too - the birth of a completely and totally different me. Matt and I came into this world on September 17th, 2001 together in a new life for us both. I look at him sometimes and get overwhelmed by emotion. I am overwhelmed right now. I know I will never stop being overwhelmed. Happy Birthday Matthew Joseph, may you know each day how much I love you and when you get older and life keeps us from one another may you look back on these writings and find me again whenever you need me. I love you my Matteo xo