Dodging Bullets

There are times when the the universe places people at the right place at the right time.

Thomas needed to go on a business trip which he scheduled a week after the baby's due date. This was very important for him and for our future, I knew. Both of us didn't want to spend the day he was gone alone, nor did I want to spend it at either of my in-laws. FIL was packing, he was going on vacation. I didn't really want to disturb him. Besides, I wouldn't classify our relationship as warm. MIL...well you know that story. So I said I was coming along. We went to the hospital. The midwife said that she wouldn't travel in my shoes, but if I felt well enough to go on a 6 hour trip, it was my decision. CTG scan was normal, I felt fine. We looked for possible hospitals along the way in case I go into labor. On our printed list was the Landes-Frauen-und-Kinderklinik which was near our destination, a small town near Linz.

Thomas slipped and told his mom. His mom freaked and tried to convince me not to go and it would be better if I would stay at home, alone. She brought me to tears, painting all sorts of worst-case scenarios. She offered to either stay with me, the thought of which I just found odious, or that I stay in her apartment in Jena, a one bedroom construction site. I said no. She called her other son, and her sister, in an effort to snowball pressure to get me to stay that one day. "I tell you, you will give birth in some Kaff in the middle of nowhere, and that is the most dangerous thing you can do for the baby!"

She successfully was able to insert doubts into my mind on whether this was the right thing to do. But I didn't want to spend the day alone, a week after my due date, nor did I want my meddling MIL nor my cold FIL at my side at the deilvery room. I wanted my husband. So I went.

The six hour drive was uneventful. We had dinner with the man my husband wanted to do business with. Then we went to bed.

I started feeling contractions at 4 am. I thought they were another false alarm, so I thought nothing of it. I went to the bathroom and saw that I was bleeding.

"Thomas. I am bleeding. We need to go to the hospital."
Groggily, he told me to relax. Spotting could mean anything to now up to two days. So I should go back to bed.

But the contractions started getting stronger, I was sure that this was it. Thomas, so stupid, left the car keys with his colleague, whose room number he didn't know. So we left the hotel at 6 and got to the hospital at 630. I was lying at the back of the car the entire 30 minute drive, howling, screaming, cursing at Thomas.

We got to the hospital, and was hooked to a CTG. Man, is labor a bitch. I was barking orders, being a general bitch. It all looked like a textbook birth. I was either lying on my back or on my side the entire time, so one of the nurses told me to go for a walk or sit down, saying that this would make the contraction less painful (as if!).

Forty five minutes later, as they were about to remove the CTG machine sensors, the machine started beeping. On the roll of paper coming out of the machine was one of the scariest things I've ever seen in my life: From 140 beats per minute, the jagged line just went one direction: down. To 60 BPM. With a snap of a finger, the mood shifted, right out of a scene from E.R. I saw the helplessness and fear etched in Thomas's face as three people descended upon me to prep me for an emergency C-Section. I didn't really know what was happening, I was confused, it didn't dawn on me that I was in the middle of an emergency.

The doctor jabbed a stick into the infusion thing they stuck to the back of my right hand, and my heart started to race. "Mein Herz! Mein Herz! Es rasst!" I shouted.
"Das ist gegen die wehen," the doctor explained, as I was being transported to the Operating Room with a gurney. "Wir mussen eine Notoperation machen, das Baby ist in Gefahr."

"Kann ich nichts dagegen tun? Kann ich nichts etwas machen?" I pleaded, but my questions fell on deaf ears as they lifted me on the the table with a 3, 2, 1. I started shaking involuntarily. "Warum zittere ich?! Warum zittere ich?! Agh, ich hab einen Krampfader in meinem rechten Fuß!"

In the midst of all this, all I could think of was thank God I spoke German. A man in a green operating face mask appeared above me and asked me for my weight and height. Then another person in a mask put a breathing apparatus over my face and asked me to breathe deeply. Then again.

The next thing I remember is another face, this time a woman, above me. Two hours have passed, said the clock. She told me I was in a recovery room because I just had an operation. I remember swimming in light. Do you want to see your son? I was pretty out of it and I think I was speaking slowly, like a drunk. They showed me Antonio and put him over my chest. I remember asking why does he have a cut above his eye. My throat hurt and I felt numb everywhere. I remember Thomas talking to me but I don't really remember what he said. Later he would tell me that I must have been on pretty serious drugs because I asked a question he said he already answered in the recovery room.

I was later wheeled into another room for observation. I was more lucid by then, but my throat was itching like crazy. I kept asking for water, but all they gave me were lemon flavored cotton buds to suck on. They said it was from being intubated during the operation, a breathing apparatus since the anaesthesia meant that my involuntary reflexes stopped functioning for a while. The doctor came in and explained to me that my placenta separated itself from the uterine wall too early, robbing the baby of oxygen, and sending his heart rate plummeting. The stress was too much for him because his amniotic fluid had turned green when they pulled him out of me. After that my uterus didn't contract to the rate it needed to, and they had to inject something to prevent massive hemorrhaging. Despite this, he was born healthy, with an APGAR rate of 8, then 9.

They stressed I was very lucky to be in this hospital, which specializes in gynecology and pediatrics, and to where all the worst cases in Austria are flown. I shudder to think what would have happened if I had stayed in Erfurt and had given birth at the hospital where I was registered at. They're good, but I know that they don't have the capacity to take care of the baby in such an emergency, and would have needed to drive him to another hospital 20 minutes away. These were 20 minutes we didn't have.

My MIL is convinced that the trip was the reason for my emergency ceasarian. I had no history to indicate that I was under risk of placenta abruptio before this. However, I am convinced otherwise. It happened in our hotel room, not during the trip. It would have happened anyway if I had stayed in Erfurt. I am glad that my husband was with me, that a team of experts are around me to take care of us, in a hospital capable of dealing with the situation. The care here is top notch, and my mother is convinced that God led us here. Believe what you want to belive, I say.

All the things that I worried about during my pregnancy seem so trivial now. I gladly deal with the indignities foisted around me. I would silently endure all the enemas, the catheters, the infusions, the shots, and my painfully rock-hard San Fernando valley porn star tits again, just to know that my baby and I are safe.