Patient/Visitor

At the hospital there are about fifty spots right out front, the prime spots. I'm learning the times to avoid, when there's no chance of snagging one of those spots and you end up driving to the 6th floor of the parking garage with the neon signs flashing SLOW DOWN at you with exclamation points if you drive faster than 10 miles per hour.

The parking spots in front of the hospital say Patient/Visitor in each one. On one of the few times we went together my husband said "I AM a patient visitor" as we parked. Now that's how I read the words each time. I'm not a patient visitor.

Our girls were born ten days ago at 33 weeks, 3 days. They're in the NICU and I really hate that.

I started that week feeling low. Drained and sad, lonely, looking ahead at the seven weeks that remained of my pregnancy and wondering how in the hell I was going to make it. I was itchy almost all the time, scratching my arms, legs, hands, feet, belly, back obsessively. I was exhausted. Picking up my kids to carry them to the next room took it out of me. Picking myself up off the floor was a several step process. It still took a while to sink in that I really did not have the energy to do anything. Not grocery shopping. Not cooking. Not bathing my children. Not working on a project. I essentially abdicated care of my kids to our baby-sitter and spent a lot of time sitting on the couch or napping. Or going to doctor's appointments, trying to figure out why I was feeling so crappy. Cholestasis, when the liver doesn't clear the bile your body makes and it makes your body itchier than all get out. Maybe pre-eclampsia but not definitely because I only had some signs, not others. Whatever was going on I finally had their attention. One of my doctors called me on my cell phone to chat and said "I read through your ENTIRE chart and I can't get you out of my mind."

Finally! I'd been waiting my whole pregnancy for someone to read my chart and actually open their eyes to me and the fact that I have a lot going on in the health arena. Despite feeling so bad, I also felt relieved. Like someone was finally taking care of me. I also rallied the troops as my mother said. My family took turns coming out to help me in the mornings before our baby-sitter got there. A friend brought us dinner.

I went to the hospital on Tuesday and Wednesday nights to get steroid shots to mature the babies' lungs, just in case they needed to be delivered early. Both cholestasis and pre-eclampsia would dictate delivery by 37 weeks "Though to be honest I don't see you making it that long," said the newly-attentive doctor. That's not fair to her. They have a group practice and she was the only one I'd actually felt seen by over the previous several months. She was good.

I drove myself into the hospital on Tuesday night, expecting to get a quick shot and a blood draw for some labs and then to be sent home. Instead, I was given a gown and a nurse who hooked my belly up to monitors and took my vitals. The weird thing about me is that I find being in the hospital somewhat soothing. Stepping out of my clothes, tying the strings of a gown and climbing under the starched sheet on the adjustable bed feels comforting. I know how to be a patient. Four hours later I drove myself home, having been told to return the following night at 10:30 pm to get my second shot. On Wednesday after another longer-than-expected visit, my nurse waved me off with a cheerful "Hope to not see you for a few weeks!"

I went to bed on Thursday night feeling like the drama was coming to an end. The doctors were on the case, I was starting a final test for pre-eclampsia (the kind of test that has you peeing in a plastic hat and collecting your urine for 24 hours--awesome). I felt calmer and like I'd gotten a second wind to see this pregnancy through a few more weeks.

When I woke up at 2 am to go pee, I stepped full force on our dog, pressing down with all my considerable pregnant weight. She yelped and I fell over, catching myself on my hands and knees and hitting a loud, plastic toy with my belly. The music started and my husband woke up. "Are you ok?"

"Yes, I fell. I'm ok," and I continued on to the bathroom. I sat down and my water broke like a torrent into the pee hat.

"Oh shit," said I. And we put the wheels in motion. I called our baby-sitter to ask if she'd come watch the kids. I called the doctor who sounded less than thrilled and asked if I was sure my water had broken. We drove the quiet 15 minutes to the hospital, remembering a similar ride the year before and feeling wide-eyed and wide-awake waiting to see how this would play out.

They called the c-section team in but then discovered that my surprising girls had flipped around since that morning and were now in position to be pushed out, if I wanted to try that. That's what I'd wanted the entire pregnancy, only recently coming to terms with the fact that it most likely wouldn't happen and actually feeling a sense of relief at how easy it would be to get a spinal and have them pull the babies out. My husband and I talked about it for a few minutes and decided to go for it. I felt. . .mostly so goddamn itchy that I couldn't focus on much else. But excited. And afraid.

About eight hours after my water broke our girls were born. I heard each one of them cry almost right away and it was such a relief after the silence of our son's birth that I almost didn't care about anything else. I got to see them both before they were taken away and then we got to hold them several hours later. All of that was so different than the last time. They were so much healthier, so much stronger.

And now they are swaddled in their isolettes in a different NICU than we lived in last time. Now we're the patient visitors. But I am not patient. And I don't want to be a visitor to my daughters. I feel like a wolf who walked the world pregnant for months only to have her pups taken away immediately after birthing them. Frantic, pacing, incomplete. Where are they? Why aren't they with me? I'm not someone who looks frantic. I get medical updates without much expression on my face. I lift the blankets that cover the plastic boxes they sleep in and peer in at their little faces and then go home to sit on my couch where I wonder why I can't really remember what they look like. I ache for them. I hate, hate, hate having them there. Hate having to drive to see them. Hate having to re-learn the rules and get to know all the different nurses and doctors and continually readjust expectations. I hate being asked when they'll get home. We haven't even asked that question this time because we know how all of this works. Getting discharged from the NICU relies entirely on tiny, premature infants learning how to do things like breathe and eat and the days move glacially, then speed up, then go backwards. No one could tell us anyway because it all depends on them. So we must wait. Impatient visitors.