Summertime

Michael has long teased by calling me a hillbilly. I guess compared to him, the description is apt. He has a citified air about him, the comfort around crowds and culture, a keener awareness of political and world matters. Maybe that’s just been my idealized perception of him. Comparatively, with my firmly rural background, I am a virtual country bumpkin (fresh as frost out on the pumpkin).

No time makes me as aware of that distinction as summertime--the part of the year my siblings and I were let loose in the woods surrounding our home to roam barefoot and semi-feral until school came back in session.

It is hard to reconcile that former version of myself with the current. When did I become so domesticated? Was it simply a part of growing up, or did I abandon a piece of my country roots along the way? Is that such a bad thing?

Summer was (and is) my favorite season. I have a belief that we are conditioned to prefer the weather surrounding our birthdays because we spend all year looking forward to it as children. To April-born Michael, gray and foggy days are ideal; with my mid-June birth, the best weather is optimally over 100 degrees, golden and sunny.

My hometown was a suburb of a suburb of Dallas/Fort Worth, this moment on the map you pass through on the way to real cities. My siblings and I were part of the last generation to get to wander; I can't even imagine letting my little ones freely roam the neighborhood as I did at that age.

Royce, Jarrod, Amber, and I would ride bikes until Dad’s whistle would call us home for meals. After it rained, the creeks behind our house overflowed so we would go out with the Summers girls to catch crawdads. Wild green onion grew all over which we would harvest to present as bouquets to our mother, dirt still clinging to the small white bulbs.

When the sun went down, Amber and I would hunt for bullfrogs, gathering them in ten-gallon buckets to release en masse on our front porch, watching them hop away and disappear into the night. Fireflies we held in our hands, their little lights flickering a message to the swarm of their compatriots flittering around our head.

My grandparents--my dad’s mother and father--had a swimming pool with a deck around it and lived just a few minutes away. We spent a lot of time swimming over there, never-ending games of Marco Polo and making whirlpools that would carry you around on the current. I'd lay out on my Little Mermaid towel and let the sun warm me until I was too hot, then jump back in. Pawpaw grilled hot dogs, saying that he made them special just for me, and I'd smile and say they were my favorite, even though I didn't like hot dogs. Sometimes Grandma Pat would make a pallet for us in her room so we could rest, watching California Raisins or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle cartoons.

Barbeques are pretty traditional for every southern kid I would imagine. Dad and his buddies would get together and get out the smokers to fill them with meat that slow cooked for hours. Standing around drinking cold sodas and beer fished out of galvanized tubs full of ice, they'd keep an eye on the meat; inside, the ladies made all manner of mayonnaise-based salads and beans while sipping on margaritas and telling the kids to get outside and play.

A lot of summers, before Dad got sick, we’d get up one morning while it was still dark outside and load up in the car to drive to Great Grandma Hill’s house. She lived in Littleton, Colorado, in the part that is Centennial now, so it would take twelve or so hours of straight driving. Dad has a weakness for hole-in-the-wall restaurants in dinky towns, places that made better stories than food. We’d break up the drive by staying in cheap motels occasionally, but Dad prefers to drive straight on through with as few breaks as possible, except for those little restaurants.

I can still remember Grandma’s house. Not everything, just bits and pieces. She loved butterflies, and collected dolls, including Little Miss No Name. We drank out of jam jars with cartoon characters on the side while she taught us how to play cribbage. If we were lucky, she'd make what we called cabbage rolls--German runzas filled with hamburger and cabbage that we couldn't get enough of.

Between summer visits, Grandma was my pen pal. I'd send her drawings and accounts of school, and she would tell me about her childhood and how the other members of the family were doing. Letters cost around 32 cents to send at that time, so I’d scrounge around to find enough loose change to leave in the mailbox. They don't let you do that now; you have to have a stamp. Maybe they didn't let you back then either, but our mailman always took it and the letter. When a bird built its nest in our mailbox, mom and dad started using a p.o. box and it became harder for me to maintain a correspondence.

Grandma started me on my ceramic cow collection. I loved cows when I was growing up, so she gave me the cows that held creamer for coffee which poured out through their mouth, beautiful handpainted ones with scenes on the side. I named them all and kept them for years, until they unfortunately got smashed during a move.

In Colorado, mom and dad would take us hiking in the mountains. Dad would carry me over the streams that I was too frightened to walk through. We used birthday money to buy fool’s gold at mountain gift shops, plotting how we would use it to buy a mansion for mom so she'd never have to work again. Drawstring bags of gum that looked like coal turned our mouths a most becoming shade of black.

Ten was a special birthday because then you were old enough to go to camp. We went with our church youth group to Camp Deer Run (where the deer run) in Winnesboro, Texas. That was one of my favorite places in the world, a place I felt an unparalleled closeness to God.

Summertime was always heavy on church activities. Summer Youth Series brought kids from congregations all over the metroplex to sing and worship together. Volunteer projects, lock-ins, devotionals, and outings outside of regular service kept our hearts and our minds in the right place and out of trouble.

In High School, summer always ended in band camp. For a while, they are all day--get there early in the morning and practice hard until dinner. The band director kept it fun by bringing orange juice and kolaches in the morning. Taco Bueno would sell us tacos four for a dollar for lunch, or she'd bring pizza. At the end of the long, hot day of practice, we’d put a movie on in the band hall and wind down before starting it all again the next day.

I've had all of this on my mind because Emerald has said, loudly, daily, and to anyone who will listen, how very much she hates summer. She misses school, misses her friends. She isn't learning anything. And (as Benjamin so succinctly put it), “two months!? But that's too much time with mommy!”

How could anyone hate this magical time of year? The time of going fishing and camping, boating out on the lake and sleeping under the stars. Of visiting family you rarely get to see and go on adventures in places unknown. Getting pickle slushes from the public swimming pool, attending vacation bible school, lounging in the sun, and reading a new pile of books from the library every week. This season was a celebration of enjoying yourself, a break from the stresses of school.

It's made me question if I just don't plan enough for the kids to do over the summer. We are somewhat tied to the house in an effort to miss as few therapy sessions as possible, as well as finances and having three difficult children (Benjamin is less difficult and more of the “grab and go” variety).

But she still gets a fair amount of trotting around. She goes to vbs and swim lessons, visiting family. We enroll her in activities and take her on as many vacations as we feel we can safely manage. We have a lot going on.

Which makes me wonder: was I appreciative enough at the time of what a good life I led? Did I thank my mother, or did I complain that it was too hot and I was bored? Were we begging our parents to take us to Disney World, pouting that we “never got to go anywhere fun”?

Was my mother as discouraged as I get, feeling like no matter how much we do, it's never enough?

I may not be able to fly the kids to Hawaii as they suggested, but I can take them fishing. Teach them how to tell the difference between a frog and a toad, and how to catch a firefly without squishing him. Make cabbage rolls for them and tell stories about their Great Great Grandma Hill that had this laugh that made you feel happy to your toes. We can make whirlpools and let the current carry us away, and eat hot dogs laying in the sun.

And, with any luck, they will look back on their summers when they're grown as fondly as I do mine.

Tula's Birth

At my March 16th obstetrician appointment, the doctor told me he had scheduled my repeat cesarean section for Monday, April 10th at 9 am.

I smiled, thanked him, made an appointment for the following week...and cried all the way home.

Twenty-five more days.

Because of extensive scarring from the three previous surgeries, my uterus burned and struggled holding this final little fetus. I couldn't stand or walk for more than short bursts because her head had been firmly and deeply in my pelvis for weeks already; even if she was still, it was uncomfortable, but if she moved, it was agony. Her substantial little body was compressing nerves that sent pain shooting all over. Her tiny tush was lodged in my ribs, causing a numb spot about the size of a lime under my left breast, her feet and knees stretched to kick the other side. The Braxton Hicks "practice" contractions left me breathless and curled in on myself, occurring every night for hours. The only relief I could get was taking three baths a day, laying in the tepid water for as long as I could to let my sore and over extended body rest.

All of these things...the most mundane pain in the world. This is all just pregnancy. Everyone suffers like this, and those last few weeks can range from uncomfortable to downright miserable, with everyone counting the days until the beloved they have been waiting on and praying for is politely (but firmly) evicted.

I was just so tired. I couldn't sleep through a combination of heartburn and restless legs, waking up to pee or starving or nauseous. During the day, I was barely able house a toddler sized meal in my ever-shrinking stomach, a fact that left me frustrated and dissatisfied most of the time.

The plan had always been to deliver me early. Three high risk pregnancies are a pretty good reason for them to keep an eye on me. This was compounded by the uterine rupture--or full thickness separation of my uterus--during the last c-section. I was lucky then; it was controlled because it happened while they were already performing the surgery so there was minimal risk to me or the baby, and they were able to get the bleeding under control without having to resort to a hysterectomy. There is not much data on whether a uterine dehiscence (an incomplete rupture) or true rupture in a previous delivery will put the mother at higher risk for developing the condition again. There were concerns however.

So they monitored me very closely. Measured the thickness of my uterine wall and watched for even slight signs of labor. They tested and retested my blood to check my glucose, a1c, iron, platelets.

And time after time, everything came up normal. Healthy.

I have to admit, I found it disconcerting. I wasn't hoping anything would be wrong, but I was expecting it. During my pregnancy with Gabriel, the nurse assumed I couldn't possibly have diabetes for having no risk factors, misfiled me as having passed, and it ended up causing problems later on down the road. I didn't trust that everything was going to go smoothly, perpetually waiting for the other shoe to drop.

But here we were, a month away from delivery and with no medical justification for delivering any earlier than the standard 39 weeks.

I was somewhat devastated. Partially because I was in so much pain so much of the time that I was convinced I was not going to be able to make it another three and a half weeks; but also because I felt like I was being marched precariously close to my womb shredding like a wet paper bag, putting both my life and the life of my unborn daughter at risk.

Over the next couple of weeks, I fell into a bit of depression, spending the time the kids were in school staring blankly off into space in the dark. Unable to sleep, unwilling to eat, I stopped going anywhere that was not strictly necessary, stopped doing anything that might be considered "enjoyable". I existed, and that was all I felt I was capable of doing.

The final week in March was kind of a blur for me. Sleep deprived and undernourished did not leave me with the sharpest mental status, but biologically, there are some things your brain just doesn’t care to remember. The final times before giving birth being top of that list.

My mother comes to help as personal care assistant three days a week. During her Wednesday shift, I was struggling more than normal, the contractions fairly consistent and strong. She recommended I call and talk to the nurse. This is usually her suggestion. I gave her my stock answer: nah, I’ll be fine.

So she shrugged and left me kneeling on my hands and knees in the kitchen. Can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make a stubborn jackass call the doctor. Or however the phrase goes.

Over the next two days, I struggled a lot with anxiety. Specifically over letting the kids leave the house. I have never had problems with them being gone before, but now I was talking about homeschooling. I would just feel better if they were -with- me.

Friday, Benjamin had a field trip to the zoo with his class. The urge to be with him was overwhelming; I called Michael several times in tears to try and calm myself down. Nothing could take my mind off of being with him, so I succumbed and went to the zoo. He was thrilled to have me there, even if I was panting heavily and sitting on every available surface.

I couldn’t convince Benjamin to leave with me, even with bribes of lunch with Daddy, so I left him to finish out his school day. Michael and I had sandwiches for lunch, the contractions persisting. Michael said it would make him feel better if I would just go and get checked out at labor and delivery.

The nurse hooked me up to the monitors and do all their little tests. Michael and I are sure we will be deemed fine and sent home in time to get Benjamin from school at 2.30.

After an hour of monitoring, she comes back in and says my contractions are three to five minutes apart. The doctor thought I had been jumping all over the room because the monitor was so active. They decide to give me demerol (pain killer) and phenergan (antinausea) to see if they can ease or stop the contractions; she said it would make me very drowsy for a while but it should help with the pain. Michael had to get back to work, so we called Mom to pick the kids up from school. I took the meds and laid still for a couple of hours, spinning on my axis, in pain and not sleeping.

I had been keeping my mother-in-law in Lubbock updated during the process; she kept asking if she needed to come down. I assured her time and again that there wasn’t going to be a baby, they were just keeping an eye on me. There was no way I would have this baby before April 10th.

The on-call doctor, my sister and sister-in-law’s obstetrician Dr Tadvick, came in to tell me they were admitting me for the night. While labor wasn’t progressing in that my cervix was resolutely thick, closed, and in hiding, they didn’t want to send me home with my contractions so close together. Because I have never actually labored before, my body still acts like it is the first time and doesn’t know what to do--I could be in this false labor for days. They just wanted to keep an eye on me.

They move me to a different room for the night. At 7, Dr Tadvick goes home for the night. The new doctor comes in and administers some medication that is supposed to stop the contractions. He says that they will monitor me overnight, but it is likely I will have a baby in the morning. Michael and I are still highly skeptical. Sure, okay. If you say so. We both know we still have nine days.

At 9, about an hour and a half after they started the new medication, the doctor comes back in. It had had the opposite effect, contractions were now one to three minutes apart. He said we couldn’t leave me like this overnight; he was going to perform the surgery now.

All of this was so surreal; neither of us were expecting it at all. While they ran a last sonogram to check the position of the baby and the placenta, I asked Michael to call his mom and ask her to come. She had left hours before, was already past Sweetwater.

We had been reassuring people all afternoon that we weren’t having a baby, and here it was, 10 at night with me walking in an open-backed gown down a deserted l&d floor to get this show on the road.

It is so different having a c at night. During the day, there are so many people, extras of everyone. Tons of nurses, tons of people running around. At night, it felt like I was the most exciting thing on the floor.

The anesthesiologist got the spinal block taken care of. When I laid down, there was a brief period of panic. This was all happening so fast, after all. I remember that I kept moving my legs while the nurse tried to insert the catheter, much to her annoyance. I just wanted to know that I could. I wanted to curl up, cover up. Felt so exposed. She sternly told me to sit still because I was sterile now and I needed to stop.

My legs got warm and heavy and I couldn’t feel anything down there anymore, little less wiggle all over the place. They got started. I was overcome with nausea, I say to no one in particular. Luckily, they hadn’t let me eat from the time I came in at 12.30, so now ten hours later Michael didn’t have to worry as I turned my head and heaved violently toward him several times. They gave him a small bucket to catch anything just in case and the quick anesthesiologist gave me something to settle my stomach.

They made a small incision, exposed the baby’s head, and yanked and tugged the rest of her out behind. She was the first baby of mine I got to see while still gick covered. She looked enormous, as big as she felt living inside me. The doctor mentioned that my uterus had a dehiscence again, further assuring me that waiting any more would have been a bad mistake.

Though we had gone back and forth for months of should we, should we not, ultimately I knew that I could not physically handle another pregnancy so we signed the paperwork and asked the doctor to please tie my tubes. It was a hard choice for me personally. I knew I didn’t want more kids, but destroying a perfectly healthy fallopian tube that God made for me felt wrong; making such a final proclamation on any matter like that felt so definitive. I didn’t like it. But I knew it was the right choice.

They had to remove my entire uterus to expose the fallopian tubes for the tubal ligation. I kept telling anyone that would listen that my stomach hurt. This wasn’t pressure, this hurt, it hurt. I repeated myself because I needed them to know. The anesthesiologist assured me that it was perfectly normal and expected, to relax, I was alright. He said he could give me something to relax, but they were almost done anyway. I declined. I wanted to be able to see my baby.

After removing her, they checked her out right there in the operating room. Michael went back and forth between us for a while, updating me. She weighed seven pounds, three ounces. She was twenty inches long. She had a big bruise on her bottom lip and chin where she had been smooshed in my pelvic bone. They were giving her some oxygen with a mask. I asked what her APGAR was. Michael had no idea what an APGAR was. I chided him for sitting through three of these and not knowing. They called out the numbers to me; I believe they were 8 and 9.

At Hendricks, they don’t bathe or take the baby for a while after they are born so that the parents have a chance to bond. They wrapped her up in a blanket and Michael sat in a chair by my head holding her and talking to both of us. It was 11 at night at this point; I was exhausted.

Everything finished so quickly. They moved us to recovery for two hours to do skin-to-skin with me and the baby. She was much too tired to make an attempt at nursing, but we tried. She was also quite chilled and had to spend some time in the warmer.

Michael is dead on his feet when they finally say they have our room ready for us. I could already wave my toes to shift my legs; that made me feel better. They kept smashing on my uterus to make it contract and check for clots. It hurt, a lot.

There is no nursery at Hendricks; the baby stays in the room with you. She laid in the plastic bucket by my bed while we tried our hardest to get some rest in between nurses coming to smash on my belly or wake the baby to feed.

I wanted to get out of bed as soon as possible. The leg compression garments were the first to go, after I repeatedly assured the nurse that I would continue to wiggle and flex my toes all night to prevent clots. She wouldn’t yield on the catheter though, saying I was still a risk for falling if I tired to go to the bathroom.

Staff change in the morning found me with a new nurse that removed the catheter and that I convinced to let me go without the pulse-ox monitor, despite having 14 more hours to have it checked. I told her it was interfering with my ability to nurse the baby and that if I felt light headed or like I was having trouble breathing, I would call right away. I pointed helpfully to the nurse call light on my bed. I guess it wasn’t worth the argument because she unhooked it.

Tula was perfect. So quiet and good natured. Family came in steady streams all day to come meet her. Such a pretty baby. It was hard to wake her to feed, but she nursed well. Such a good baby all the time. So alert, bright eyed, intelligent. Never has there been a baby such as this. I was ridiculously happy.

Breakfast from the hospital--cream of wheat--was disappointing because they don’t make it like I do: rich and thick, buttery and comforting. Theirs was watery and lumpy and made me sad. My sister Amber came first thing and brought me Starbucks sous vide eggs with roasted red peppers and a white chocolate mocha. Pretty sure that was the best meal of my life.

I wasn’t bouncing back as quickly this time. I hurt more, was more swollen and slow. It was frustrating. I don’t like feeling weak and invalid, but I did. This did not set well with me; I pushed myself hard to get back to feeling like myself again, probably slowing the healing process further.

The second day, Dr Tadvick came back and said we could go home if we wanted to, or we could stay an extra night. We started packing before he even left the room. There was nothing wrong with me or the baby; I was ready to start acting like myself again so I could feel like myself again.

When we got home, my mother and mother-in-law were cleaning the house. They had fed everyone KFC and now everything was ready for me at home. I laid down to rest, so happy--

I did it. I didn’t think I could, but I carried Tula to term and brought her into this world.