bewildered by grace

I don't know how or when to write this. I need it to be fresh in my head, but I want a little distance from it. I also wonder if I can purge it like this - spit it out onto paper, if I can leave it there, pick up my daughter and walk away from it. That's how I picture it. How do I write it? It was awful and terrifying and graphic. It gave me my daughter, and so somehow I am grateful, and yet if I knew it would go the same way again, I know for certain I'd be done. I may be anyway. I don't need another child, may not anyway, but certainly not if that's what would happen.

On Saturday I went into labour. Not false labour, but steady contractions that picked up from 3pm and progressed until about 1:30am. Then they slowed until 5:30am Sunday morning when they picked way up. And then so suddenly that I wondered if I'd imagined it all, everything stopped. We went to the hospital to double check, and I was at 3cm, but it was over. They told me to go home and sleep. I was bitterly disappointed, felt like I'd worked half the night for nothing. But I went home and slept, and slept, and slept some more. And then waited for two days for it to start back up.

Tuesday I couldn't pretend I wasn't itchy any more. It was starting to wake me up. I kept hoping I'd just naturally go into labour, that we wouldn't need a doctor and a bunch of interventions, but when it became clear that it could be a while before that happened I went for a blood test. I knew it was positive anyway. I prayed like crazy that I'd naturally go back into labour, and that didn't happen.

Wednesday they called me and told me to meet them at the hospital, my levels were too high. We arranged a sitter for Bella, and went in with our overnight bag. We did a stress test, Emma was doing great and they repeated the blood test. The OB came in, same doctor that I had with Bella. He asked what we thought. I said given that I was 38 weeks that it would be stupid to go home and wait to get sicker given that the risk to cholestasis is sudden intrauterine death. He agreed, they gave me some gel to kick start contractions and said they'd check with me in an hour. 20 minutes later I had my first strong contraction, and an hour later we made our way to our room, somewhere around noon. Contractions picked up throughout the afternoon and by 4:15 I was in enough pain that I took my epidural. I had tried laughing gas and despised it, feeling like I wasn't in the room with my body. Once the epidural was in they began oxytocin, and they played with the dose, wanting my contractions to pick up strength, instead of just frequency, which is all that had been happening so far. I had a couple hours of painless epidural bliss, before one side of my body began to hurt horribly. During those hours they adjusted the monitors on my stomach, sure that Emma's heart rate monitor wasn't picking up correctly. When I'd have a contraction it would dip, but would bounce back quickly enough that they were sure it wasn't a concern. I was dilating, but she wouldn't move down, and things were taking much longer than they'd thought. They broke my water, and attached an electrode to Emma's head to accurately measure her heart rate. They ran another wire to measure the strength of my contractions, and also a catheter. I was starting to feel like a science experiment. I was wired everywhere, and could barely move without some serious organizational help. Meanwhile, my pain levels were skyrocketing and we kept being assured that the epidural should be working better than that, but they'd call the anesthesiologist back for me and he'd be there within the hour. They tried localized freezing which didn't help at all, and another drug they put through my IV that I found helped the resting period between contractions, but did little for the pain. They stopped oxytocin to wait until we could sort out my pain management. They did deduce that Emma was still face up, and that to work through contractions would encourage her to turn. The first sign I had that something wasn't right was all the nurses and my midwife leaving the room to chat. By then my contractions were coming too quickly to do anything but continually ask, "is Emma okay?"
The anaesthesiologist came back, fixed my epidural and watched me through a contraction or two. I felt better, so he left. Within the hour there was an incredibly painful spot on the same side, but at this point I was closing in on 10cm and there wasn't a lot that could be done, except the idea of my epidural suddenly being gone was frightening to me. I made it to ten, and was allowed to push through a very few contractions. It was very, very painful, and the OB mentioned that I'd really gotten screwed with my epidural. I agreed.
It felt to me like one second we were close, she was going to come, and it was going to feel awful but
she was about to be here. I felt every minute of the three years we've wanted her, tried to have her like a physical presence in the room. I cried again and again that, "I just need my baby" and everyone kept saying it would be soon, just keep trying. The next minute it felt like the doctor was making a face said something to the nurse and midwife and left the room. The nurse kept saying we'd prove him wrong, we'd have her before he got back, and that I needed to push hard, right now. I tried but it wasn't helping and suddenly the doctor was back, the overhead lights went on, the room filled with people and he explained that Emma wasn't turning, and couldn't descend, that every contraction was slowing her heart and she needed to be out, and now. He said he was going to try and turn her using forceps and I'd be allowed to try very briefly to push her out. If that wasn't successful, we needed a c-section. The room had been prepared and the team was waiting to rush me down the hall. Two nurses were putting leg braces onto the bed so high I didn't know how to get into the,and a table of very scary looking tools was rolled in. My anesthesiologist was there with consent forms I needed to sign for all these interventions and I couldn't pay attention with the contractions screaming through me, everything telling me to push, but my fear knowing I was slowing her heart dangerously every time I tried. I can't explain the fear, the utter panic and helplessness that those moments were, until suddenly I knew he was going to turn her and I closed my eyes and felt him push her backwards, and the sensation and horror of that pain is something that felt so completely wrong, so unnatural, that it was just indescribable. I knew she needed out, and I couldn't stop myself from pushing and screaming from the pain and the fear. I felt him turn her, and he said the cord was around her neck, and no wonder her heart slowed and she couldn't turn over. He freed it. He said he was going to pull her out on the next contraction and that I had to push and not to stop. It took only a few times, I think, and it felt like everything just stopped. I was so scared we were hurting her and somewhere in my mind every forceps horror story I'd ever heard played on a reel that I couldn't turn off. I couldn't look, didn't want to see what it was actually requiring to get her here until suddenly he told me to open my eyes, and I could see her head and little purple body following laying on the bed, and I heard her make a little sound and suddenly she was in my arms. I couldn't stop telling her I was so sorry, sorry I couldn't get her out, sorry we'd had to hurt her. They only let me hold her for a minute and then they took her away to check her and I heard her scream and Peter stayed with her and I held my mom and sobbed. I kept asking if she was okay, until after what felt like ages, they gave her back to me. I haven't really let go of her since. I can't yet. It's fine if people want to see her, and hold her for a bit, but in the end, I need her. I need her next to me.

She and I cried for a long time. Peter prayed for us both. She nursed, pulling away every so often to sob piteously. I joined her. Somehow he didn't hurt her too badly with the forceps and though it doesn't begin to matter to me, somehow I didn't tear at all. She has a dark bruise on the back of her head and a slight indentation, both of which should fade over the next few days. I'm in a good amount of pain but it fades when I see her, big black eyes and healthy pink skin, okay and sighing, making her little baby sounds. I don't know how we did it. It seems like something we conquered together, some little personal war we won. It's a shockingly violent way to have a baby, and they're so small and delicate and doesn't seem like it should work. The midwife told me later that out of the six OBs that could have been there, only three might have attempted it, and he is by far the best. She says it's something of an art and she'd have never suggested we do it with anyone but him. Somehow we got her here, and we are home. I just keep telling myself that it was just a bad day, even though it was the first. I get all the days from now on. She's going to be fine, I'm going to be fine. We get to go home and heal together and be a family. Everything about her feels hard won, from getting pregnant with her to getting her here, and I'm a little stunned by her, by what she can go through and by what she represents to us. I felt like Bella made us a family, and Emma completes us in a way that is incredibly beautiful and precious and fragile.

It's a part of her story, in the way that Children's Hospital is a part of Bella's story, but in the end, it's just one part. She has a future and a destiny and a purpose that I see when I look at her. She's a complete eternal being laying next to me in a pink blanket and I feel a little shell shocked, a little horrified, but mostly grateful. I'm beyond thankful that she's here, that she is what we spoke into existence when we named her Emma Camille. Whole and Perfect.

I'm sitting at the pool right now, in an uncomfortable lawn chair that may or may not buckle under the weight of me and the child that fills me to near capacity. I couldn't find my swimsuit today (not that it would have fit) so I'm on the sidelines, watching Peter and Bella swim. My jeans are wet from the hug I just got, and she's blowing me kisses from across the pool.

There's a dog in here. Sitting patiently at the edge of the hot tub, which strikes me as strange. Then a man gets out of the hot tub, and I realize he's blind. Ah, of course. This strikes me as an incredibly stressful place to be without sight. It's so loud, and it's slippery.  It's really crowded today, and the lifeguards seem to have their hands full. There are not guard rails but the dog leads him confidently to the edge of the large pool. The man is heavily tattooed, big bushy red beard. He looks like a pirate, someone you may not want to encounter in a dark alley, but something about the dog leading him tentatively across the wet tiles makes him seem vulnerable. Again I try to imagine navigating a public pool blind, and feel anxious at the thought.

Then I see her. The man and his dog have made it to the edge of the large pool and a little girl who seems a little too old and too confident for the life jacket she's wearing runs up, the strap that's meant to go between her legs dragging behind her. The man passes the dog off to an older woman who, like me, is occupying a lawn chair. He takes hold of the little girls dangling strap, like a tail, and she leads him into the deeper pool. She's done this before, and seems totally confident with it just being the two of them.

And then they play. He is WILD with her, and I can't take my eyes off them. They're laughing and he's bumping into things, splashing people as they get too close. She leads him into the rushing river, where Bella doesn't like to go because the water moves too quickly, and  it's usually so crowded. Today, it's like cattle in a chute, all being pushed wildly in the same direction. He's trying to keep his stick between them but they're laughing too hard. She's trying to keep him from bumping into others but the water pushes them into the walls. The make it out of the river and back into deep water. He tosses her in the air, she continually whacks him in the head with a pool noodle because he can't see to duck. She couldn't care less that he's "disabled". She's not careful with him. She points things out to him and doesn't notice that he doesn't look because he is solely focused on her. She's just a little girl playing with her daddy, and she has his attention. Totally and completely.

I'm smiling and trying not to cry. I think of him not being able to see her, not knowing one day what her wedding dress looks like and for a moment I'm so sad for him. But then I think of the things I don't see. Things I allow myself to be blind to because I'm tired or lazy or distracted. I know his life has more challenges than mine, but as parenting is concerned, I don't see a disability. He's just a dad playing with his little girl, and from where I'm sitting he's doing better than I am, likely because he can't take her for granted in the same way I can with Bella. If they're playing, they're touching, connected. She has to tell him everything and he listens. I wonder what it would be like to spend a day like that with Bella, and I can't help but think that she'd probably love it. His little girl is having the time of her life.

Eventually they get out of the pool and suddenly he's tentative again. His steps less sure. I have no right to have spent my morning being so unashamedly interested. To have even begun to make a call on what his life must be like. To assume anything about him at all or apply some lesson to myself that I don't begin to earn.  His life has so much more purpose than to simply serve as an inspiration to my own. I want to tell him what an amazing dad he is, but I don't want him to think that I'm saying it because he's blind. Because he isn't. All I could see when I looked at them was his sight and my own disability.

I think so far, the absolute hardest thing about parenting is making decisions for your kids. It's not the tantrums, or the sleepless nights. Sorry if you're a new mom and you're sure this is the hardest thing you'll ever do - it's not. Maybe some mom with teenagers will read this and say it's something else, and maybe she'd be right. But for me, it's this profound and crushing truth: I have to make concrete decisions for how I raise my child. She will live with the consequences of those decisions forever, for far longer than she will live in my house. They will shape and mold the person she is, the person she thinks she can be. And I've never done this before and have no idea what I'm doing. I think today's day and age make it so much harder. Every parenting decision you can think of is posted on some form of social media and debated with such intensity that if you try and do any research on the subject at hand, you'll be so confused and so sure you're about to screw everything up that you'll give up in five minutes, beat your head against a wall, slam your laptop shut and run screaming for a hot bath and a glass of wine. On the other hand, can you seriously make these decisions simply based on how you feel? That seems like a dangerous precedent to set. So I sigh, open my laptop, and try again. I ask people I trust and love, whose children I like and think are being raised well. And I try to trust my gut. Which I'm terrible at.

Emma is coming in a few short weeks, and we have to figure out Bella's first year of kindergarten at about the same time. These are the thoughts that go through my head:
"It's over. My time with my baby is over, and from now on a school gets the best hours of her day, five days a week. I'm going to miss her so, so much."
"Oh my gosh, how amazing will it be to have the best hours of my day back? Think of the alone time with Emma."
"Is she ready for this? Have I prepared her in any way for this?"
"Do I believe in my heart that any five year old is ready to spend 30+ hours of their week away from their family? I hate spending more than 20 and I'm an adult."
"Am I being a rebellious brat because I don't like the thought of public school? I had a crap experience, am I projecting that on her?"
"If we don't put her in public school, then the obvious answer is homeschooling. Do I want to homeschool? DEAR LORD I CAN'T HOMESCHOOL! I'm not smart enough, or trained enough to do it. And I'll have a new baby at home! No. Can't do it."

It's this, and a million other things. It's wondering if I send her to school full time if I'll lose her in some way. It's wondering if I homeschool her it will change our relationship and I'll lose her in some way. Most of it is wondering what she would benefit from the most. Who is she? How do you possibly know that about someone who is four years old? I don't believe that public school is right for every kid. I don't believe that homeschooling is right for every kid. So at the end of the day, who is Bella? What would work best for her? What's the best possible choice for her, right now? And I mean, right now. Registration for kindergarten starts in less than a month, at exactly the same time I should be in a hospital giving birth. Awesome.

I don't want to debate the merits of homeschooling over public schooling. I don't want to hear that I'm going to raise her to be a sociopath who will never leave my house if I homeschool, or the horror stories of what happened to your kid in public school. I've heard them. There's benefits and draw backs to both. I get it. But at the end of the day, I need to make a decision. Right now.

So in a couple of hours we are going to visit a classroom that's run by Regent Online Christian Academy. If we chose this path, Bella would go to school in a classroom for one half-day per week, would be able to be in a weekly lesson of some kind (she'd like to learn to swim) and the rest would be done by me, at home. The Ministry of Education would consider her enrolled at Regent, not technically a homeschooled student. They'd pay for it. I would be assigned a teacher to oversee her education and make sure she is meeting the marks that she should. This makes me feel calmer, because I like the idea of the responsibility being slightly lifted off my shoulders in that respect. I also feel calmer that at the end of the day, it's just kindergarten. If it doesn't work, then maybe next year we put her in school. I'm not ready to commit to saying that I'm going to do this until she's done high school, but the more Peter and I have talked about it, prayed about it, and talked about it again, the more we don't think we're going to enroll her in public school this year. I talked to Bella's preschool teacher about it the other day, and she said she thought it was an excellent choice for her, which surprised me. I also talked to a teacher friend in the public school system and she said the same thing. It's what she would choose for her kids. So we're going to see what we think, chat with the teacher and a few parents and take a look.

More than anything, I want to make the best decision for her. Not what society thinks is the best decision for all kids, not what I'm necessarily the most comfortable with. Honestly, I'm not ready for any of it. Both options scare the pants off me for different reasons. How did we get here already? I want her to be a baby again, where the best method of getting her to sleep was the biggest decision I made. Actually, that's a lie. This is still less terrifying than the medical decisions we made for her. And we did it and she's okay - and we were totally lost then, with nobody to ask because nobody we'd known had done anything like that before. And we did it. Maybe, like another friend says, I need to stop second guessing myself as her mom and trust myself a little more. All those parenting books tell you that you need to trust your instincts, and I have a really hard time doing that. I'm too honest with myself about my failings. I know that a lot of times, I'm not to be trusted. And maybe I need to embrace that I'm not always going to choose exactly right, and that's okay too. That she will still learn from my failings and shortcomings and that God is not beyond using those parts of me that I like least to do something great in her. I pray that he does, and that somehow he shapes me into being the kind of parent he saw in me when he placed her inside me what feels like a second ago. That would be enough for me.