It was late December, 1992 -almost 2 years to the day we had
lost our son, Stephen. My wife calls me:
“I’ve got this weird sensation like there’s a butterfly in
my stomach. No pain. Just weird.”, she says.
“Well, you’re going in for another ultrasound tomorrow- why
don’t you call the doc and see what he says?” I answered.
So she does. The doc’s
office says “it’s probably nothing, but why don’t you come in and we’ll check
it”, and she calls me back and I say I’ll meet her at St. Joseph’s Hospital in
downtown Orange, California.
My wife was about 22 weeks pregnant. Prior to this, we had lost our son, Stephen,
who was born alive but way too premature (at about 22 weeks), and had suffered
a subsequent miscarriage (at about 16 weeks) from another pregnancy- I almost
lost her on that one due to a horrific hemorrhage that followed. We were advised to not get pregnant
again. When we did get pregnant again in
the summer of ’92, our doctors suggested we abort because it just wasn’t probably
going to viable, but we couldn’t do that.
We enlisted a new OB who performed surgery, giving my wife a “cerclage”
which is stitches in her uterus to keep premature labor from happening- and, he
put her under a rigor of almost constant monitoring.
They begin the exam- my wife is no longer having that
sensation, and the nurses are joking with us as they start. As soon as the nurse gets the ultra-sound
scanner on my wife’s belly, the whole tone of the room changes. The nurse picks up the phone and says
something so quietly I can’t hear her.
The OB comes into the room in just a few seconds, and they start looking
at the scan. Then the doctor utters the
words we really didn’t want to hear.
“Debi. You are in
active labor, and the stitches have torn.”
And, just like that we start.
They kick the bed she’s laying on up, backwards so her feet are in the
air. They hang an IV of magnesium
sulfate and get that going. I looked at
the scan, and it says “4cm”- holy shit.
Here we go.
They admit my wife to St. Joseph’s, but the only bed that is
available with this amount of notice is in the Post-Partum ward- we’re about to
lose another baby and she gets checked into a room that holds women who have
just had a baby. So cruel. They’re telling us that it doesn’t look good-
there’s a ton of damage to her cervix from the cerclage and now she’s bleeding
pretty badly. Whatever happens, she’s
admitted and she’s not leaving the hospital until she delivers- whatever that
may mean.
In other words- alive or dead.
I won’t go into all the details that followed, but suffice
it to say that since I have a 5-year old son at home and a very busy work
schedule, I become very dependent upon friends and family to help me- and, oh
baby- did we have a support mechanism!
It functions like a well-oiled machine, and I get lots of time to get to
be at the hospital while my wife goes in and out of various stages of labor for
the next 2 MONTHS.
Yeah, you read that right.
Moms, take note: my wife was having labor pains for 2 months
straight. Let that sink in for a minute. And all in “Reverse Trendelenburg”
position. (She was basically standing on
her head for 2 months.)
On March 1, 1993, my wife came home, still pregnant. She’s put on 100% bed rest and has an intra-uterine
monitor implanted that connects to a telephone jack and regularly dials our OB’s
office to send monitoring strips in. (That was the weirdest freaking thing you
ever saw.) She’s home for 2 days,
and goes into labor again- so off we go to the hospital. My wife’s OB isn’t there, and the on-call
takes one look at my wife’s chart and says, “This is NOT happening on my watch.”,
and starts the magnesium sulfate/terbutaline all over again to stop the labor-
and it does. She comes back home the
next day.
In the evening of March 9, it happens again. We call the doctor, and her OB says, “This is
getting ridiculous. You’re about 30
weeks, which is early, but I don’t think we should keep putting you under
stress. Let’s do this.” Off we go again- we’re going to have a baby!
We get to the hospital around 10PM. We go into L&D and they are getting ready
for a “High Risk Delivery”, which means that the delivery room is right next to
an operating room. The OB is there, and
he is the absolute 5-star General of the “Not Screwing Around Crew”. Monitors go on. Sarah’s heart is doing well- a little high,
but not un-normal. Debi is prepped for
surgery to remove the cerclage. And, that’s when it happens- Sarah’s heart
monitor goes flat. Asystole.
The whole room stops.
Then it starts beating again after a few seconds.
OB: “If that f****ng happens again, we’re going to the OR.”
As soon as he finishes that statement, it happens again.
I’m immediately pushed out of the room, and a nurse
literally throws a gown and mask at me in the hallway- “Put those on right now!”,
she barks. As the door closes, I see the
crew start moving my wife to an adjoining operating room.
For those that don’t know, Caesarean’s come in 2 flavors:
the “nice” version where a cut about 6 inches is done just below the belly
button, resulting in not much scarring.
And, there’s the other kind, which is what they did to my wife: it’s
basically a gigantic cut to allow unfettered access to the issue at hand. One cut that goes through EVERYTHING- quick
and decisive.
I enter the OR. My
wife has been given a local (spinal block) and she’s draped just below her
chest. They guide me to the head of the
bed. My wife is crying- she’s scared (I
am, too) and she’s being rocked up and down on the table as the OB tries to
gain a foothold.
“I’d really like to know what they’re doing down there”, my
wife says.
I look on the other side of the drape, and reply, “No. You really don’t.” I saw parts of my wife I never knew were
there.
All of the sudden, at 12:10AM on March 10, 1993, Sarah is
there. But something is wrong. She’s dark blue and non-responsive. They suction her. Nothing.
No breath sounds, and a heartbeat that isn’t workable. They start working on her, and Deb and I
cannot hold her or touch her. Sarah is whisked
out of the room while the OB literally removes my wife’s uterus, holds it in
mid-air, turns it inside-out, pulls out what’s left of the cerclage from her
cervix and very unceremoniously shoves it back inside. Yes, I saw the whole thing. Yes, I almost fainted- and remember that I am
a former first-responder. That visual
really rocked me.
My wife is moved to the Post-Partum ward, but there will be
no baby visits. The doctors come in and
tell us that it doesn’t look good. Sarah
was much earlier along than previously thought (about 28 weeks) and while her
vitals are improving, she’s still non-responsive. She won’t wake up, and she
won’t eat. They’re pretty sure she was
oxygen deprived too long, and has suffered a potentially profound brain
injury. She is in the NICU and we should prepare for
the worst.
After all that. We’re
gonna lose. Again.
I begin making the phone calls to family and friends at 1AM.
I probably don’t need to tell you what’s going through our
minds. We’ve come so far; we’ve done
absolutely everything that can be done.
We’re thinking that our first OB was right- we should have aborted. Now, we’re going to have – at best – a brain
damaged child that is going to need constant care, or – at worst – another funeral. I’m not angry. I’m just numb, and I mean REALLY numb. It’s all clear to me, but I don’t pray or cry
out to God- I just can’t. There’s
nothing left to say or implore.
After the phone calls, I go back into my wife’s room, and
she’s asleep (“passed out” is more like
it) because of the stress. I left
the hospital and went home around 2AM and stayed up most of the night talking
with our then roommate (and drummer in my current band), Gary Zdenek. It’s weird- I’m partially relieved that this
chapter is closed and another is starting, but I’m scared to death about what’s
next. I don’t pray- I don’t want
to. God feels very far from me right
now. I think I got about an hour of “sleep”
and got back up to go back to the hospital.
I got to the hospital around 7AM and went to my wife’s
room. She’s not there. I go back to the nurse’s station and ask
where she is.
“Are you Debi Miller’s husband?” she asks with a stern look
on her face.
“Yes, I am.”, I reply dumbly.
“Listen. I don’t know
if you know this or not, but you’re married to Rambo. She woke up this morning and demanded that
her PAA (Patient Administered Anesthetic)
be removed and she be taken to the NICU.
I got the PAA out, but when I went to get her a wheelchair, she had
already gotten up and walked to the
elevator and went to the NICU by herself.”, she tells me. (This is a literal quote.)
Remember- my wife had had her abdominal muscles cut during
the procedure the night before. For her
to get and walk was next to impossible and almost certainly excruciatingly
painful. And, she has no painkillers
with her!
I get down to the NICU- and I cannot believe my eyes. My wife is breast-feeding my daughter! She is awake and looking at mom! The whole NICU is just completely dumbfounded,
as she apparently woke up as soon as my wife touched her, and she was
hungry. This shouldn’t be happening, and
more than one nurse comes to tell me things like “I have never seen something
like this happen before” or “This is a miracle”- and, I have to wholeheartedly agree.
Still, there is a road to hoe. We should be prepared for a substantially
brain-damaged child; she’s going to have developmental issues; she’s going to
have physical issues like lung and heart problems – I DON’T CARE!!! SHE’S ALIVE AND WE’LL JUST DEAL WITH IT!!!!
After 2 weeks in the NICU, we brought Sarah home. And, here’s the best part of all- she’s
fine. No brain damage. No developmental issues. No heart and lung problems- she’s a perfectly
normal, healthy girl who is the light of her daddy’s eye.
So, there you have it.
God provided again. Why should I
be surprised by that?