{Guest Post} All That Matters

I've heard it dozens of times and said it myself at least that many:

"I don't care whether it's a boy or girl. All that matters is that it's healthy."

It is an answer that really has nothing to do with pink or blue. It's something we say in an effort to show that we will love our child unconditionally.

Since Collin came into my life, though, these words have taken on new meaning to me. For a while, they hurt my feelings (My son isn't healthy. Does he not matter?). Then, they made me angry (Would you say 'All that matters is that it's smart?!). But finally, I think I see this statement for what it is: a way to block ourselves from thinking about the worst possibilities. It is a hopeful assumption that all will be well. Which, in a way, is perfectly natural. Who doesn't wish for the best for themselves and their child? But I've come to think that in closing our eyes to potential complications or hardships, we actually do ourselves a disservice in preparing for parenthood.

Because what if something is wrong? What if, in counting the proverbial 10 perfect fingers and toes, something doesn't add up? What if an examination of your precious one brings worried looks to the doctor's face? What if the uttering of a diagnosis causes your imagined experience of motherhood or fatherhood to fall away and leaves you stranded in a world no parent would choose? That would be terrifying, wouldn't it?

Yes. It would.

But, listen.

To you, expecting parent, I say: Don't be afraid to be me.

I -- my life, my son -- am the thing you are hoping won't happen. Many of the 'what if's came true for me. You think you wouldn't be able to bear the impossible decisions, the heartbreak, the crushing uncertainty. But you would. You would do whatever you had to do.

And the thing is that my life is good. Really good. Not make-the-most-of-what-we-ended-up-with good. More like so-much-better-than-I-could-have-thought-to-ask-for good. It is rich and full of beauty because of Collin. Your life will hold love and happiness, too, regardless of the physical or developmental characteristics that come along with your precious little one.

Yes, we've endured horrors; but I can't help but think that they wouldn't have been quite so horrific if I hadn't denied all outcomes other than health and perfection before Collin came. Of course, there is no sense in dwelling on everything that might go wrong. That will drive you crazy and steal your joy. But ignoring those possibilities will do the very same thing by creating a false security that hinges on a completely uncontrollable factor.

So, the next time someone asks you about your preferences regarding your child, take heart. Take it as an opportunity to step out of the whirlwind of showers and registries and nursery planning and remind yourself of the magnitude of what's happening. See your coming parenthood in all of its scary and wonderful possibility. Remember that all that matters about this child is that it's yours. And answer with confidence that you will love this little one, no matter what.

~ Annie Kratzsch This piece was reposted with permission from Annie's blog Collin the Champ.

The Time I cried to get into a pool

Since I'm at the peak of my reproductive years, I always have about nine friends who are pregnant at any given time. No matter where I am, one of them is there. With her swollen belly, she insists she is the biggest pregnant woman to walk the earth. I smile. I promise her I was bigger...MUCH bigger. She smiles—sure I'm just trying to make her feel better.

Then, I pull up this picture on my phone.

I tell her about the time I cried due to my belly so I could swim in a hotel pool. You see, a belly that size makes you do things you wouldn't ordinarily do. My aunt used to insist Griffin was sitting with his back to my back and his feet sticking straight out. It was enormous. It was heavy. It was pushing me to my brink.

Towards the end of my first pregnancy, I knew I couldn't carry that belly one step further (or for one more loop around Surplus City). Everyone had told me going swimming was the best. thing. ever. You felt weightless! You could actually breath! It sounded like heaven.

The only problem was in early May it was too cold to swim outside. Even as miserable as I was, I wasn't looking for the polar bear plunge. I knew an indoor pool was my only option. We had just moved back to Paducah and the only places I could think to go to in my hormone -nduced stupor were hotels.

There were about five national chains lined up next to each other near my house so I picked an afternoon, put on a bikini (God save me, it was my only option!), and headed over. The first place I stopped was a huge hotel chain. To protect their reputation, let's just say it rhymed with Drury Inn. (It was Drury Inn, y'all!) I waddled inside and saw a nice, older lady behind the desk. Maybe I should have known that since a hair on her head didn't budge, she probably wouldn't either. I explained that I was very pregnant, very miserable, and I would be eternally grateful and pay whatever it costs to go for a swim in the hotel pool. She said she couldn't help me. That hotel policy strictly forbid it and sent me on my way.

My eyes were filling with tears before I was through the revolving door.

I was already a hormonal mess. I was already frustrated and stressed and emotional. It didn't take much. By the time I got to my car, I was sobbing. I drove to the next hotel and scoped out the entrance to the pool to see if I could just sneak in. I walked around and around and decided the only thing worse than being that pregnant was to be that pregnant and in jail.

I went to the front desk. I was still sniffling. I kept my sunglasses on but the young man behind the counter could tell I was upset. I tried to keep the emotion out of my voice as I asked if I could please, please, please swim in their indoor pool. He said they weren't supposed to let anyone but guests swim in the pool but he would go get his manager. He seemed a bit panicked. I think the size of my belly freaked him out and he didn't want a weeping pregnant lady on his hands. Smart kid.

His manager came out. It was a woman, only a few years older than myself and I was instantly relieved. The moment she saw me she picked up her pace and came quickly to my side. She put her hand on my shoulder, smiled at me, and said the words I will never forget.

"Oh honey, I've got three of my own. Go on in and take as long as you need." 

Turns out that wasn't the last time I would cry over my belly because her kindness in my moment of need still brings tears to my eyes. 

~ Sarah Stewart Holland 

Early Summer Babies Are The Best

 

My life is crazy right now. Griffin's birthday was yesterday, which means his party is on Saturday. A play-doh factory blow-out I've been planning for weeks would be enough to fill every second, except I've got Amos's first birthday two weeks later...Nicholas's birthday a week later, followed in short order by my mother's birthday, our anniversary, my birthday, and my dad's birthday.

Then, it's Christmas.

Not really, but that's about how it feels. Summers are crazy and I love it. I can't imagine having babies any other time of the year. I chose May primarily because my mother would be out of school. As most of you know, I have my babies at home, but not MY home. I have given birth to both Amos and Griffin at my mother's house and then we usually live with my mother and stepfather for a couple weeks as we settle in to life with an infant.

It is an IDEAL arrangement and I am incrediably blessed to have it. 

There are a couple of other reasons I can't imagine giving birth at any other time. I am less blessed to have about six weeks of mind-numbing nausea. It usually kicks in right around the time the weather turns cooler, which is good because if I had to be sick in the heat I think it would be more than I could handle. The nausea usually clears up just in time for the holidays, which is nice as well.

Also, I am HUGE by my ninth month. HUGE. People started asking me if I was due any day with Griffin at SIX MONTHS. I've seen dear friends suffer through the heat of the summer at seven/eight/nine months pregnant. I can't even imagine dragging around my nine month pregnant belly in 90 degree heat.

So, despite the fact that our summers are turning into one long (sometimes stressful) celebration, I can't imagine having a baby at any other time.

But wait!

"Sarah," you say, "why are we spending so much time on when to have another baby? I thought your husband was opposed."

OH! Did I forgot to mention? Guess who rolled out with a "Let's have another baby" recently?

That's right! Holland #3 is officially on our To Do list for 2013. I'm nothing if not a planner. 

What did you love or hate about the time of year you were pregnant? 

~ Sarah Stewart Holland 

A Letter to My Disappointed Self

Dear Sarah of 2009,

You just found out that ultrasounds can be wrong. After two (count them TWO!) ultrasound techs informing you you were having the baby girl of your dreams, you have just learned you are in fact having a baby boy. I know you are very, very sad and very, very scared. You’re an only child and boys are scary and intimidating and unknown. All of the worst stereotypes are running through your head. Boys don’t read. Boys aren’t verbal. Boys are rowdy and loud and dirty.

The good news is...

Read more at Raising Boys World where we discuss why it's great to be mothers to sons (even when we once wanted a girl).

Strength: Some Scars Don’t Matter

Everyone loves to tell their birth story.  Even if it's more of a war story, people rightfully wear it like a badge of honor.  I don't.  My son, Liam, was born 8 months ago, and my stomach still turns when the topic of his birth comes up.  I dreamt for months about the beautiful, natural birth I was going to have. Needless to say, that didn't happen, and I have a scar halfway up my stomach to remind me every day of Liam's very unconventional birth five weeks early.

Unfortunately for me, there was nothing conventional about my recovery either.  By the time Liam was two months old, I had been in and out of the hospital more than once, had been on nine antibiotics, had more scans than a person should have in a lifetime, and was 10 pounds below my pre-pregnancy weight.

After living the whole cliché—what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger—I was glad when Sarah asked me if I would tell my story.  While what happened to me will literally NEVER happen to another pregnant woman (I mean NEVER), I still have many lessons I would love to share from my experience.

Lesson 1:  You know your body best.  Trust your instincts and never completely defer to your healthcare provider.  As Liam’s baby furniture was being delivered last December 22^nd, I sat on my couch in total misery.  I was 35 weeks pregnant and had been battling a weird stomach bug all day.  I say weird because, prior to being sick, I had horrible back pain that kept me up most of the night, the first real back pain of my entire pregnancy. I had been in touch with my OB’s office throughout the day, and I followed their advice to stay home and hydrate.  Until 7pm.  At 7pm I had an awful pain in my stomach that I could barely breathe through.  It felt like a bomb had exploded inside me.  The pain lasted around a minute. I was scared because I had no idea what was going on and was worried it was the baby.

We called the OB immediately (mine was on vacation, which was a bummer).  The doctor on call told us not to come in because it was “just a virus” and was a total jerk about it.  I told him I’d be at the hospital in 20 minutes.  It’s the best decision I’ve ever made because we found out (too many) hours later that the pain I felt was my appendix rupturing—filling my stomach with a dangerous infection and putting my baby’s life at risk.

Lesson 2:  Don’t try to be a hero when you’re sick and in a busy hospital.  And don’t let anyone tell you how sick you are or aren’t. So by the time I got to the hospital, I thought it was pretty obvious I was in bad shape.  I was doubled over while walking, but I felt reassured I was there and would be hooked up to monitors to make sure Liam was okay. My nurse, however, was clearly annoyed I was wasting her time and one of the first things she said to me was, “I hope it’s not the flu, and I hope I don’t get it.” Unfortunately, I dealt with this type of BS from my OB and nurse for many hours until Liam started have decelerations in his heart rate, finally getting everyone’s attention. No one even bothered to examine me for the first FOUR HOURS I was at the hospital.  Basically, I was labeled the hormonal whining pregnant lady.

To not totally throw the doctors under the bus, for a while Liam was looking good on the monitor, and I was feeling a touch better as I received IV fluids. We eventually stopped trying to convince the doctor about how bad I was feeling because I wasn’t running a fever, the blood work initially came back okay and as long as Liam seemed good I could suck up the discomfort as long as I needed to.  I did not want him to be born that night, so I convinced myself maybe I was okay.

But quickly things turned when my OB saw me walking down the hall completely hunched over. He FINALLY did an abdominal exam for less than five seconds, because that was all it took for him to know that things weren’t even close to okay.  In a matter of minutes several surgeons were standing in my room with very confused looks on the their faces.  The words, “I don’t know what this is,” were uttered several times.  The options were gallbladder, appendix, Listeria or we have no f-ing idea.

So, I finally got real attention from the doctor, but only after Liam had been inside me with a massive infection for almost five hours.  It was a bad combination of a nurse and doctor not taking me seriously and me trying to be a hero and not wanting to believe I was sick.  My strong instincts that got me to the hospital in the first place evaporated under the hostile environment of the doctor and nurses.  You can’t let doctors and nurses intimidate you!

Lesson 3:  Your health IS your baby’s health.  A healthy Mom is a healthy baby.  By 3am, things had turned south, and I was in complete denial mode.  I totally forgot why I was there and decided that the best way to protect my baby was to make sure the surgeons didn’t operate prematurely.  With all the questions surrounding my diagnosis, I would have never forgiven myself if Liam was delivered early because I was being a hypochondriac.  Unfortunately, making a traditional diagnosis was not possible.  A CT scan was too much radiation for the baby.  An ultrasound would have been too painful for me.  An MRI meant no baby monitors. So we were stuck.  We had basically zero information and had to decide whether to operate.

It’s hard for me to describe the difficulty of the situation. My OB still did not want to operate, but the general surgeons did.  I was trying to ask ways they could operate on me without delivering the baby, and my in-laws (both doctors) were pacing not understanding why the baby hadn’t been delivered five hours ago.  It was agonizing and ultimately it was our decision to operate, and I’m grateful for the level-headedness of my husband for helping to convince me.  I was being stupid and separating my health from the baby’s health.

Ultimately, the insane decision was made to deliver Liam without having a damn clue what was wrong with me.  Yes, this was terrifying. Doctors don’t want to operate on anyone without knowing what’s wrong, much less operate on a pregnant woman who isn’t full term.

Liam during his first week.

So I was wheeled back to the OR and got two needles in my spine—a spinal so they could operate immediately and so I could be awake for Liam’s birth—and an epidural further up my back for possible pain management after the surgery.  When they cut me open, someone yelled “PUSS, PUSS!  Call the NICU!”  But Liam came out screaming to the relief of everyone in the OR.  My water never broke and the infection never reached Liam.  I got to see him for maybe a minute before being put under general anesthesia so the surgeons could finish their exploratory surgery of my abdomen.

I am grateful my body did what it was supposed to do that night.  It protected the baby from harm.  But if I had let my health get any worse, Liam’s health would have gotten worse too.  I was foolish in trying to separate the two.

Lesson 4:  Babies need healthy Mom’s.   Liam was in the NICU for two weeks as he learned to eat, but otherwise he was healthy.  We were beyond lucky.  We were both on IV antibiotics. (A precautionary measure for Liam and a necessary measure for me to ward off any infection.)  It broke my heart to see him with all those tubes and needles, but we both were doing well all things considered.

Things went relatively okay for four weeks.  Breastfeeding was improving with Liam, and he was growing great.  Small, but steady.  But then I started having back pain. Over several days the pain escalated until I was in so much pain I found myself back in the ER.  Pumping in the emergency room for my premature, four-week old, 6-pound baby boy at home with my mother-in-law was one of the most depressing, yet kick ass moments of my life.  No doctors messed with me that night.

It turned out I had an abscess (a ball of infection) near my colon.  Yes, that will land you a stay in the hospital.  This was a complication from my ruptured appendix that clearly beat out the initial antibiotics.  The scary part though was my kidney.  It was indirectly being affected by the abscess causing it to not empty properly.  This was also the source of my pain.  I spent that night alone in the hospital as my husband went home to take care of Liam (in a blizzard).  I have never felt so alone as I watched the snow fall.

I recovered from this infection within a couple of weeks, but it did cost me my chance to breastfeed.  It was another tough decision.  Many tears were shed.  The plan was to pump and dump for two weeks while I was on antibiotics, but it was a disaster.  I was so sick and was exhausted from all the pumping and still trying to take care of Liam.  My supply took a huge hit from everything going on.  I even hired a lactation consultant to help.  Ultimately, all this effort meant I wasn’t getting the rest I needed to recover, and spent all of my awake moments focusing on my breasts, not on Liam.  So I gave it up.

I was devastated, but I started sleeping more, recovering from my infection faster and spending more time with my baby.  Liam needed a healthy Mom more than my breast milk.

Lesson 5:  Ask for help.  Once I was off the latest round of antibiotics, things were sort of okay for a week or so.  And then the worst thing of all happened.  I got another infection much worse than the first.  (And this infection was the result of all the antibiotics I had been on.  Hilarious, I know.)

The infection is called C.Diff.  It attacks your colon, and it kills people every day. The next six weeks were much worse than the first six weeks.  The infection led to me developing pseudomembranous colitis, which meant I was literally starving my body because my colon was so sick I couldn’t absorb the food I was eating.  Thirty times a day to the bathroom is not an exaggeration.  It was physically impossible for me to take care of my baby.  Thank goodness for Moms and husbands, but emotionally I was torn.  Liam was spending so much of his time without me taking care of him I was worried sick he wouldn’t know I was his Mom.  We no longer had the bond of breastfeeding, and he was definitely in other people’s arms more than my own.  My Mom insisted she come up from Kentucky to help (she had already been here for a week in the beginning).  She changed our world.  My husband was able to go back to work (he had been off for six weeks), and I was able to spend all my time with Liam.

Me & Liam at 8 months

Lesson 6:  Birth plans are important, but remember what’s most important.  A healthy baby.  The rest is details.  So all in all, Liam was 5 months old before I started feeling like myself.  I had been on 9 antibiotics, had multiple ultrasounds, two CT scans, a colonoscopy and spent more time with doctors than I hope to for the rest of my life.  The first several months after Liam was born were certainly the best and worst time of my life.  I’m physically healed, but I’m definitely still recovering from the emotional pain.  My husband is pretty convinced he had PTSD for a few weeks following our scare around Liam’s birth.

I’ve lost a lot of sleep over the last 8 months feeling sorry for myself about what I’ve been through and being mad at the way I was treated at the hospital, and feeling cheated I didn’t get the birth experience I envisioned.  But at the end of those sleepless nights, I wake up to a beautiful baby who’s blowing bubbles in his crib waiting patiently for me to come pick him up. Ultimately, I’m thankful for the surgeons who brought Liam safely into this world (back in the day we would have both died). I’m thankful that my baby is happy and healthy.  I’m thankful that I don’t have any long-term health issues as a result of the trauma my body went through. And I’m even grateful I got my ass kicked a little bit.  What doesn’t kill us DOES make us a stronger.  And whatever happens with the next baby, I’m so ready.

~ Jennifer Niloff

Salt & Nectar thanks Jennifer for sharing her story. Jennifer, originally from Kentucky, lives in Boston, Massachusetts with her husband Eric and son Liam.  Before having Liam, Jennifer worked for seven years in the public relations/communications field while living in Kentucky, Washington, D.C., Boston and London—primarily in the political space, along with stints in corporate and non-profit.  Since returning to the States, Jennifer has been lucky to stay at home and focus on her expanding family, but hopes to soon fulfill her aspirations of becoming an entrepreneur.  In her few hours of spare time, Jennifer can usually be found at the gym or tucked away in her home office scrapbooking or reading a good book.

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This piece is part of an ongoing series presented by Salt & Nectar. The Strength Series is meant to share the stories of mothers who not only demonstrate physical, mental, and emotional strength but also bravery, grace, and unbreakable spirits. Read more Strength pieces here.