The Journey Begins

Thanks for joining me!

“Faith is not for overcoming obstacles; it is for experiencing them—all the way through!”
― Richard Rohr

Another election day, 1984 to be exact, changed my life in more ways than I’ll ever know. Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush were running against Walter Mondale and Geraldine Ferraro on that long ago November sixth. I didn’t vote. I had more important things to do.

We were up well before dawn, and Mark and I left the house and kids with my Mom as we headed for St. Peter’s in the dark. My pregnancy induction was scheduled for seven AM. I was three weeks overdue with my fifth child. (One of my babies I had sadly miscarried the year before.) Sleeping soundly were our three beautiful little boys. Mark was five, Paul, three, and Matthew, not quite sixteen months old. With no traffic in those lonely, wee hours, we arrived at the hospital within twenty minutes. I was quickly taken to Labor & Delivery and my IV was put in place. The Pitocin was begun . . . . we were off!

Everyone was sure our baby girl (My ultra sound shot had provided a pretty clear indication that I was likely carrying a daughter.) would arrive fairly soon. The joke of the day was “Are you going to name her Rhonda or Geraldine?” But the hours began to add up and I wasn’t progressing. A nervousness began to take over. My nurse, Liz, kept saying to Dr. C. “I don’t like the looks of her heart rate. It isn’t varying much.” (That lack of variability could either be a sign of fetal distress or just a less precise reading because I had on only an external monitor. These abdominal belts were not always accurate.) It made me uneasy, but then when the head nurse, Kathy, came in, she said “Oh, some of us nurses just like to play doctor. You have a good doc. He knows what he’s doing.” I relaxed. Kathy had grown up in the house next door to my grandmother, “Gaga”. She had babysat for me as a little kid. I trusted her.

As noon approached and my progress dilating was negligible, my OB decided to break my water to both speed things along, and to place an internal monitor in Cate’s scalp. He never got the chance. Suddenly, there was dark greenish black amniotic fluid all over the bed. Old meconium (baby bowel movement) in the fluid was a sign of fetal distress. Everyone flew into high gear and my bed careened the short distance from the labor room to the delivery room and they prepped me for an emergency Caesarian section without even transferring me to the delivery table.

With all the confusion and commotion, the resident seemed to be having a difficult time getting the needle in me to provide spinal anesthesia. I was stunned, but also calm, as I laid there curled up providing as much spinal access as humanly possible. I felt repeated and painful stabs, when the newbie anesthetist loudly directed blame at me with “You have to stay still lady.”

“All I’m doing is breathing” was my puzzled response. Kathy, pushing him aside, would have none of that and sternly glared at him with “YOU’RE doing fine Patty!” Someone else took over and before I knew it I‘d been painted in Betadine and cut open. I could feel the sensation of Dr. C’s hands pulling out Catie. There was silence as everyone rushed around the cool room. More masked doctors and nurses arrived and scurried here and there with instruments and equipment. Despite the masks, I saw somber faces and heard only hushed voices. Nobody even said “It’s a girl!”

“What did I have?” I yelled before I began to wretch uncontrollably from the medication. Kathy answered “Patty, you have a little girl.” Valium was then administered to stop the nausea and I became extremely groggy as a neonatologist came close, and with a heavy accent,in broken English, began to tell me Caitlyn’s fate. “Your baby, she have some problems. . . . Hypoxia. . . . ”

“What’s her Apgar?” That’s all I could get out before sleep took over. The last thing I remember was Kathy yelling over from Catie’s side “1 and 6, Patty.” (10 was normal). I succumbed to the Valium terrified. Catie was whisked away to the NICU without me even seeing her, save a far away glimpse of my baby’s grayish skin inbetween all the medical people.