Incoherently Yours

Friday, September 9 It felt like we were getting our miracle. At rounds today the doctors told us Rory was stable enough to be moved to the UofA and she would probably have surgery within 24 hours of arriving. My stomach churned. “Do you think they’ll let me ride with her in the ambulance?” I ask Sheldon “Hopefully.” He says and wraps an arm around my shoulders. We were having breakfast in the cafeteria of the hospital. We had called our parents to let them know the good news. The transport team had been arranged for. Rory would be on her way sometime today. Or at least that’s what we thought. Nothing could have prepared us for the news we received when we walked unsuspectingly back into Rory’s room. A doctor we had never seen before was standing over Rory. He walks over to us and introduces himself as a surgeon from the UofA. And then proceeds to tell us he will not be doing the surgery and Rory isn’t going anywhere. Because the small bleed in her brain turned out to be not so small. ...

Friday and Saturday: September 2 – September 3 Everything happened so suddenly. One minute it seemed as though Rory would be breaking records for getting out of the NICU early and the next we were forced to face the possibility of losing her. Sheldon and I had gone home Thursday night after Sheldon had held Rory for the first time. I wanted to get my nails done quick Friday morning and get back to her. It sounds so trite now, but I wanted my nails nice and short because I was handling her more. Changing her diaper, wiping her face, and giving sponge baths. Friday morning at 7:30am I got a phone call. Rory wasn’t acting like herself. She was irritable and seemed to have a tummy ache. With a sigh I relayed the message to Sheldon, saying it looked like Rory was going to have “one of those preemie bad days” and I probably wouldn’t be able to hold her that day. I went to my appointment and called the nurses a couple of times to see how she was doing. They told me they were taking her off ...

It wasn’t until they were loading me into the ambulance that I truly believed I was having a baby. Up until that point I had believed they could do something, anything, to stop the labor. But now the contractions melded into one another, filling my body with pain and my heart with fear. It’s too soon, much too soon. I suppose it all started three weeks when I began having Braxton Hicks. As time progressed I had more through-out the day and they began to feel decidedly uncomfortable. I had a doctor appointment on a Wednesday of the following week and mentioned it to the doctor. My doctor had been on holidays for two months and so I was seeing another doctor. We shall call him Dr. Nobody to protect the not-so-innocent. Upon telling him I had uncomfortable Braxton Hicks, especially when I was doing any sort of activity, Dr. Nobody's reply was to mumble something like, “Well then lie down.” Ok then. “I feel like I’m running out of room.” I told him, referring to my ...