The Plan
Type A. Perfectionist. Planner. Control freak. I am and have always been all of those things. From conception to delivery (and further), of all the things I had worried about, those that actually happened had never even occurred to me.
While it was a part of my long-term plan to become a mother, it was not something that consumed or overwhelmed me. After trying a few different avenues within my profession and doing a brief residency overseas, I decided to take a more conventional route and open a full-time private practice. About a month later, I went on a blind date with the man who was to become my husband. We got married, found a home and built a life together with the unspoken agreement that, when the time was right, we would have a baby. Nothing has ever made me feel less in control than trying to fall pregnant. After almost a year of using ovulation apps and counting days and weeks, we got the positive result. I had already stopped my statin and given up alcohol in the lead up to falling pregnant. The minute I knew I was pregnant, along came another app listing every possible food and medication that one should and should not consume. Like everything else in my life, I did pregnancy by the book and followed all the rules (big and small) to the utmost degree. If I was going to do this, I was going to do it right and I was not going to introduce any amount of risk into the equation. Every foetal test, every scan, every health precaution – we did it all. I exercised, took all my vitamins and supplements, sent back undercooked meat and looked longingly at sushi and soft cheeses from afar. We decided not to find out the gender of the baby and we grew in our excitement and anticipation of this miracle. I have to say here, that I am a totally irreligious person with little faith in anything other than facts and science. However, the fact that you can hear a heartbeat in a 9-week-old foetus the size of a cherry is nothing short of miraculous.
Many people commented on how ‘small’ I was carrying, but neither my husband nor I are big people, so I brushed them off as rude. I put on weight; the baby put on weight. Everything was on track and going as it should be. Until the day at our 34-week scan when our doctor asked me to get undressed again and get back on the examining table (just as we were about to leave the appointment). I think time and my heart stopped at that moment. I did what he asked and he started redoing all the foetal measurements he had just done, especially the one. I lost count of the number of times he repeated that one specific measurement. We all went back and sat in his office again and he showed us how the chart had plateaued, indicating that the baby’s growth had slowed down (if not stopped entirely). I was to go to the foetal monitoring unit to check the baby’s heartbeat and then we would proceed from there. “Don’t panic” said the doctor. “Are you f-ing kidding me?” I replied in my mind. I lay on the bed with the monitor strapped around my tummy, debating whether to call my mom then or wait until we knew more and trying not to cry. My husband had been sent to get me a fruit juice to make the baby active for the monitoring. I found out later that he had broken down crying in the lift with a total stranger. I remember looking out of the window and thinking that it was quite ironic I had been concerned about the safety of driving to this appointment in the rain, only to end up here.
I immediately stopped working and was trying to ‘take it easy’. I had no proper locum to take care of my practice, which had been my greatest priority until the minute I was told to get back on the examining table. I sat at home trying to patch plans together so that I would still have a practice to return to, while also trying to figure out the baby monitor, shop for premature-sized baby clothes and cram our ante-natal classes into 2 days. How did this happen? The doctor didn’t have a clear answer about this. I remember hearing them say something about “placental insufficiency” when they were stitching me up after delivery. I had done everything right. I had followed all the rules. Yet, I was still insufficient to grow and delivery a healthy baby.
For the next 2 weeks we were in and out of the doctor’s office and the foetal monitoring unit, with the date of delivery changing every few days. Not knowing the gender of the baby, I took note when the doctor said that preterm girls tended to do better than boys, as they fought harder. I was convinced I was carrying a girl, so this gave me some comfort. Eventually the doctor decided the baby would do better out than in, and the delivery was scheduled for 31/03/2016 with the paediatrician specifically requested who was the head of the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU). My husband and I had discussed and planned in detail exactly what would happen. He would be with me for the delivery. He would make sure the doctor had the cryogenics kit. He would then go with the baby no matter what. This was absolutely non-negotiable.
En route to theatre, my doctor put his arm around me and told me it was all going to be ok. It was an uncharacteristic display of warmth and affection and I wasn’t sure whether to feel reassured or even more terrified than I already was. I remember his commenting to the anaesthetist at one point that I looked a bit grey and the lovely anaesthetist (also photographer and videographer) saying I had looked that way the entire time and so he wasn’t worried. I was shaking so violently that they couldn’t secure the blood pressure cuff to my upper arm.
One minute my husband and our doctor were debating the merits of ostrich over red meat. The next minute I heard my husband shouting “head!’ and then the paediatrician telling me (in her heavy Serbian accent) that I had a very tiny baby boy. So, not the girl I had expected then. I heard her saying he was under the estimated 2kg mark and would be going straight to the NICU as anticipated. She asked us his name before remembering we are Jewish and he wouldn’t be named until his bris which, as it turns out, wouldn’t be for another 6 weeks. She announced she would call him Prince Cornelius from Thumbelina.