A few days ago I participated in a prompt on Twitter called “storytweeting”. The theme was “breath”. I shared a story, and it ended up a bit long… as in 18-20 tweets long. Wowza. The word count was almost 800 when I added up the words in all those tweets. Oh jeez. I sort of went overboard. However, I can tell you I did enjoy it. I’m happy some others seemed to enjoy reading it, too.
Tweeting a story is quite different than posting it on a blog. I am very thankful for those who did stick with reading it. Next time, I’ll make sure to make the story shorter. 🙂
I thought about rewriting the tweets into a narrative for this post- and which I will do at some point. I decided, however, to simply post the tweets in below and let you read it the way it appeared on Twitter. Reading it this way is a bit different; the sentence fragments stand out. I’m not sure it has the same effect as it does on Twitter. Let’s see. Hope it encourages you.
Source: pixabay
*
“We’ll have to put you to sleep.”
I remember the mask going over my face, and then nothing.
Blackness.
It was my first child. I heard the words “fetal distress” and “slowed heartbeat”. No time to wait, they said. No time to wait.
*
It’s Christmas Eve. An epidural wasn’t going to be enough, which I had but hadn’t planned on. I hear the words ‘emergency C-section’ and ‘general anesthesia’. All of a sudden, many people dressed in scrubs are shuffling around the room. I hear the popping of gloves.
*
My eyes follow the flurry of movement across the room. Sounds are muffled. “Do you have any questions?” I was barely able to speak. I don’t know what to ask. Besides, I didn’t want to know the answers.
Breathe. Relax.
How?
*
They didn’t talk about this in the general childbirth class I attended. All of that information seemed so insignificant and superficial now: diets, vitamins, exercise, pacifiers or not, how to change diapers, breastfeeding, breathing during labor… none of that mattered anymore.
*
How should I breathe now? They didn’t tell me what to do in the event of an emergency C-section, or that general anesthesia was even a real possibility. It was rare. Here it was, happening to me. The rare statistic. There was no choice and no time to explain.
*
It felt surreal. Was this real or a nightmare? None of this was supposed to be happening. I didn’t prepare for this. I could only see doctors and nurses in scrubs. I only heard life and death and the world faded to black and white. And then the world turned black.
*
Sometime later, I woke up with my parents looking at me. “She’s awake.” I don’t say anything. They ask me how I feel. How I am. I don’t know what to say. I speak, but not of that- the unspoken thing. The big question hangs in the antiseptic air. I don’t want to know.
*
Should I be breathing now? I don’t want to ask any questions because I am afraid of the answers. So they tell me. And I am glad, because I can’t ask. ‘Do you want to know? Do you want to see her?’
*
She’s a she. The ultrasound said so and this confirms it. ‘Do you want to know?’ I still don’t know. Do I? She’s in NICU. They wheel me there to peek into an incubator, to see her through glass. Wires are strapped all over her. A tube is down her throat.
*
Do you want to know? No. She’s not breathing on her own. She’s connected to a machine. ‘We don’t know if she’ll make it on her own. If she makes it, we don’t know what kind of life she’ll have.’
Apgar score at birth was zero. Zero. No life. No breath.
*
Too much time without oxygen, they say. They don’t know. Nobody knows anything, except be prepared for the worst. No oxygen, no breath = brain damage.
Is my heart still beating? Am I still breathing? Should I be alive? Do I want to be?
*
Prayers. New in town, but the few people I know pray. I try to pray, in between the fog of anesthesia and this strange new reality. They tell me I have to get up and walk to heal. I walk with the pain of a new incision and this unforeseen future.
*
They give me a pumping machine. Incase. Incase she’s able to… incase she can…
How many different alternatives can my drugged brain and beat up body consider?
What will they do if she can’t? Throw it away?
*
In 24 hours, she is breathing on her own. She’s trying to yank the tube out of her throat. She’s a fighter.
We don’t know, they say. It’s too early to say. But, she’s breathing on her own. She’s breathing.
*
The days go by. I’m there. Each day, she improves. Fewer tubes, fewer wires. I am able to hold her finally. Someone puts a pink headband on her head. I don’t think of this. Do I have a pink headband? I feel bad I didn’t think of a pink headband.
*
Day 6. She is acting like a normal baby. Can she nurse? Yes, she can. She proves to the doctors and nurses she can. People there say: Wow. Miracle.
Day 7. New Year’s Eve.
We go home.
*
Skipping past many years & details related to her story to today, 20 years later. ‘The girl who was born dead’, as she has referred to herself, is in college now on full scholarship. Her goal? She is planning to be a doctor…. to help others, like herself. It’s part of her story.
*
Because of all that, I’ve learned some things. I’ve witnessed prayer and a miracle. I know, because for whatever reason, God allowed me to be there and see it. I know, because she is alive. He has a purpose for her.
*
He has a purpose for me, and for you, too. Even in hard seasons, when I wonder myself if life is worth it, I remember this. I remember her story. God has a plan, a purpose. Our breaths serve a purpose.
*
Our breaths serve a purpose.
***