68 Narrative Ethnography

My third pregnancy was unexpected to say the least. I had a miscarriage before my first child, and another before my second. They both started the same way, with heavy spotting. So, when in the middle of my Juvenile Court Conference I began spotting, I assumed this was another miscarriage. After all, it fit the pattern. So, I scheduled an appointment for as soon as I got home with the same doctor who had delivered both of my other children. Not that I had much choice, he was the only OB/GYN at our local hospital. He had the same nurse as before; her name was Destiny. He did a vaginal ultrasound for a heartbeat, and I prepared for a third round of sad eyes and sympathies. But he found a heartbeat. And then another?

In a matter of minutes, I went from expecting a miscarriage to twins. In fact, I had told my husband not to come to the appointment, because it wouldn’t be very exciting, so he was at home with our 3-year-old and 1-year-old. My doctor handed me a pamphlet titled “So You’re About to Have Twins!” in excited bubble letters. When I got home, I simply handed the pamphlet to my husband. This was scary. I was 33 years old, and pregnancies become significantly higher risk at 35, a number far too close for comfort. Being a black woman makes pregnancy high risk. Having twins makes a pregnancy high risk. Everything about this was screaming high risk, flashing bright red lights, and blaring sirens at me. Stress is something you’re supposed to avoid during pregnancy, so to help with my worry, my doctor let me set my own appointments and come in whenever I wanted. Oftentimes, I would visit him every week. I knew he had to be busy handling every pregnancy in our small town, but it eased my mind. High risk pregnancy meant extra appointments with specialists and equipment that our hospital didn’t have. Cost wasn’t the issue, accessibility was. So, to get my 3-D ultrasound I had to drive nearly two hours to a larger hospital in a bigger city.

At around 20 weeks, I was diagnosed with pre-eclampsia, which meant that my blood pressure had begun to climb. So, I was put on bedrest until delivery. I was allowed to stay home and walk around, but not do much else. That was a level of boredom that I hope to never experience again.

At 36 weeks I went in for a regular appointment. My doctor informed me that 36 weeks is considered full term for twins, and that they were going to keep me at the hospital to try and manage my blood pressure. When that proved difficult, the doctors said it would be best to proceed with an immediate C-section. We scrambled to send our toddlers to their grandparents’ house, then they wheeled me down to the operating room. They lay you like Jesus on the fricking cross. The harsh lights are directly overhead, and everything smells sterile. This wasn’t my first C-section, so I knew what to expect to some degree, and the medicine makes you groggy, so it’s like being in a daze. This time there seemed to be a million people packed into the room. My husband and the anesthesiologist were up by my head, so they were really the only people I could see, but I could hear the chatter and movement of an army of doctors and nurses. At one point my blood pressure crashed wildly to 60/20 and alerts started going off. I don’t remember that happening, but my husband swears the anesthesiologist looked terrified and had to rush to inject me with something. C-sections are weird, because you have an idea of what is happening, but there’s a sheet keeping you from really knowing or seeing. They took out the twins one-by-one. They bring the baby up by my head and let me see them for a second, then whisk them each away. They were like flashing of lightning, there and then gone.

I was taken to a room to recover, where I was informed that Baby #2 was breathing too fast and needed to be taken to a better equipped facility. The closest children’s hospital was the same two-hour drive I had to make for my appointments. Baby #2 was supposed to go by helicopter, but a thunderstorm came in and so instead, they rushed him by ambulance. My husband went with, and I stayed with healthy little Baby #1. I had to stay in the hospital until the nurses could get my temperature up from 94. A couple days later, I was released, and Baby #1 and I went to stay at the Ronald McDonald House by the Children’s Hospital. Baby #2’s breathing was quickly fixed, but then he refused to eat. They gave him a feeding tube, and eventually, he began nursing regularly.

It was tough. My husband and I had to take turns going back home to take care of our toddlers. After 10 long, long days, Baby #2 was released from the NICU, and our full family got to be together for the first time.  There really is a light at the end of the tunnel, and, as long as you can find it, and as long as you can focus on it, you can reach it.