Life's Twists and Turns

Life’s Twists and Turns

We are a self-absorbed society. I am willing to admit I am part of it and spend a great deal of time, I am sure, being focused on ME. My health issues, my family, even working on improving myself emotionally and spiritually is being self absorbed at some level, even to be a better person.

I try to see things that other people are going through and be aware of their tragedies and pain as well as their triumphs and joy. I know I sometimes fail. We are all human.

An old friend’s daughter (we were best friends in high school and were each other’s maid/matron honor) was married this week with the entire wedding blitz of bachelorette party, rehearsal dinner, and big wedding. We are not close enough anymore for my husband and I to have been invited to the wedding but I am friends with her on Facebook so have read all the pre and now post wedding stories.

The friend stated she is going to be depressed now that the wedding is over and her kids from out of town are heading home.

Her daughter who got married is 25. This friend and I were pregnant at the same time. I had placenta previa, hemorrhaged for twelve weeks (13 blood transfusions) and spent six weeks in the hospital. The rest of the time, I was in a hospital bed in our living room using a bedpan because I could not get out of bed. Our two-year-old was home with me all day alone except for the short time period when a home health nurse came by to check on the baby and me. My husband (who is a saint) left snacks, juice, water, books and diapers on a table next to my bed for the day. Our two-year-old was so great during that time. I hate to think about what would have happened had she gone down the hall, not come back and I would have had to go find her. She was wonderful about staying by me, playing and reading books laying next to me on the bed. We watched a lot of TV and movies!
We also had two older girls ages 8 and 6 that took the bus to school every morning and the bus home. They were both very responsible and helpful during that stressful time in our family.
We made many scary trips to the ER, running red lights all the way across town, I would poke Lindsey in my belly to make sure she was still alive. Every jump or move she made was a miracle to me. When we’d get to the hospital and I’d see her heart blip across the monitor, I felt such gratitude.
At 26 weeks gestation though, I was losing more blood than they could get back into me. So my obstetrician (my friend and I also had the same doctor) had no choice but to perform an emergency casearean. Our daughter Lindsey Kate was born at 5 a.m. on December 6th, our wedding anniversary! She weighed one pound 7 and a half ounces and at first had an APGAR of 9. I was unable to hold her when I came out of general anesthesia due to her very fragile condition. She was so very tiny but so beautiful. She had very fine blonde hair, just like two of her sisters. I then had an allergic reaction to one of the blood transfusions after her birth and was confined to bed. The girls had just had the stomach flu so were unable to go into the NICU to see their baby sister. Her dad was lucky enough to be able to spend time next to her incubator in the NICU.
The third morning after Lindsey was born she began failing. All her organs began shutting down. The neonatologist performed a total blood transfusion trying to give her the best chance but back in 1984, babies born that prematurely rarely were able to survive. Their tiny blood vessels in their brains are so fragile and burst easily at the slightest variation in oxygen level from the ventilator. So at 5 a.m. on Dec. 8th my husband and I were allowed to hold our beautiful daughter for the first and last time as she took her final breaths. Later, I was moved to the end of the hall to a private room and two days later convinced my doctor I needed to heal at home. I could not take another night n the maternity ward, listening to babies cry for their mothers.
Lindsey’ funeral was exactly a week after she as born.

This December 6th, 2009 our Lindsey Kate would be turning twenty-six years old if she had lived. We never got to see her take her first steps, say her first words, enjoy her first day of school, share family holidays and vacations, or watch her graduate from high school or college. My daughter Sam, who was two when Lindsey was born has held a strange position in our family. She is the youngest and the baby of our family but she also is not. She is very intuitive and has a strong sense of this. She thinks of her baby sister often, has Lindsey’s pink lamb that lay beside Lindsey in her incubator on her dresser and wonders what it would have been like to grow up being a big sister.

We will never see Lindsey get married. I wondered as I read my friend’s words on Facebook about her being depressed now that the wedding is over, if she remembers our youngest daughter would be the same age as her youngest daughter.? We lost touch after Lindsey died and have only kept up a somewhat superficial friendship since. I think we are uncomfortable with each other. I would never deny her the joy of her daughter’s life and wonderful wedding. I am happy for her and her family.
But I hope she has some thought/feeling for the baby girl of ours who now resides in Heaven. And maybe will not feel so depressed that the wedding is over.