NewDayNews Recovery Forum

Fair Verona (part 3) Having the baby

Posted By: Jane
Date: Saturday, 20 May 2006, at 4:27 p.m.

The next morning, August 2 1978, I sat reading my Bible, the proverbs for the day. It began with the words 'My son,....' but I saw it as 'MY SON!!!'. Up until that moment I for some reason thought that I was going to have a girl, but now knew that I was going to have a boy. I was certain of it. It was a sign from God. So now I knew that I was going to meet Christian later that day.

The staff people came to get me ready for surgery. I had no fear or anxiety. Anything had to be better than what I had overheard the day before. I felt at peace. When they rolled me on the gurney into the operating room I was ready for whatever was to come. The nurses (nuns) rolled my nightgown up to my chest. I found it funny that they never took it off. I was hooked up to IV's. The big round operating lights were hovering over the table and people were running around doing medical stuff. Pretty much nobody was talking to me but at that time and space I wouldn't have understood very much anyway. My Italian was still quite poor. I remember looking at the clock to see what time it was before they were going to put me out. If I was to die, I wanted to know what time I was dying. (It was a habit I had with each of my childrens births.)

Then they indicated that they were going to put me to sleep. I indicated I understood and quietly waited for it to happen. I think I blanked out for a moment but then came back to consciousness. My body was paralysed and my eyes were closed, but I was fully conscious and aware of everything being done in that room. I could feel them pouring the wet solution on my stomach and wiping it off. I could feel the tugging of the scalpel across my skin and fear arose in me. I didn't feel pain but I could definitely feel sensations. I began to panic but couldn't tell them that I was still awake. I couldn't move but had to just lay there as they began the operation. In my head I began to desperately pray to Jesus. I didn't want to be awake during this thing and I knew that he was the only one who could save me now. As I was praying I felt and saw someone lift my eyelid, and after that I was mercifully gone.

Sometime later I awoke in a strange room. It was a room with four beds, but a different configuration from the previous hospital room. I was next to the window, laying in bed. I was in a great deal of pain and when I felt my stomach it was covered with a massive bandage. The bed felt wet and when I glanced under the covers I saw that it was covered with blood. I was laying in a pool of blood.

The bed by the door had someone in it. She had a visitor, a young gentleman sitting by her bed. I weakly called out to him. He came over to me and I was able to tell him the word for blood. He went to go get a nurse. I had no idea of what time it was, if it was day or night, or anything at all about the baby. I was however fighting for survival and wasn't feeling real strong about it at the moment. Everything was extremely quiet.

The nurse came in, cleaned me up, cleaned up the bed and put on new sheets. She put towels between my legs and then left me. I went to sleep. I woke up numerous times during what I thought was night time. I saw that Meshach was there by my side. Everytime I woke he was sitting next to me. I couldn't talk but gained strength and comfort from his presense. He stayed faithfully by my side and I will always be grateful to him forever for his kindness.

When the second day dawned, and I'm not sure if it was actually the second day, but for me it was when I began to recover, Meshach had to go back to the home. By now I was able to communicate and to move around a bit. The nurse explained that in Italy in that hospital they didn't use kotex but instead they just had the mothers hold towels between their legs for the bleeding. I remember being astonished that there was blood. I ignorantly thought that when they did a caesarean that they would take everything out when they took out the baby. I really didn't have any idea of the whole physiology of the process of having a baby. I thought I did, but I didn't. I was about as ignorant as they come.

The nuns came to get me ready to get out of bed. They told me I needed a girdle to wear around my stomach to help hold everything together. I didn't have a girdle so they brought me the smallest one they could find. It was still enormously large on me so the nuns took a folded tea towel and placed inside the girdle. Then was the girdle was tight enough that I had some support.

At this hospital all of the mothers were encouraged to walk around and visit each other. They would help the newer mothers to deal with each step of the recovery process. I found it quite touching and encouraging for all of the mothers to be so involved with each other. We all walked around in our nightgowns, with our slippers on (though I don't remember how I got slippers), clutching our towels between our legs and visiting each of the rooms.

At some point during this day the nurses said they were going to bring our babies into us. I had been wondering where the baby was and what the baby was. I didn't know. I saw in the hallway outside our room the nurse rolling a long high table. It was covered with little white cloth rolls which turned out to be our babies. A whole table top full of babies, all bundled up into little tiny tootie rolls. Some crying. Some not.

They had brought the other girls baby to her earlier in the day and I had laid there jealously in my bed. But at that point I hadn't been ready physically to have my baby. So now it was my turn to have my baby too. I can't explain the feelings I was having. I was about to meet my child for the first time and my emotions were on high. The nurse carried in my little bundle. I watched her walk across the room, heart in my throat. She handed me my son. My darling little Christian. We stared into each others eyes in silence. The nurse asked if I wanted to nurse him but I told her I couldn't just yet. I wanted to just look at him. Because he was the exact image of my father. I was in shock. My daddy's face was staring up at me from my baby. I slowly unwrapped this rolled up baby mummy to find his hands and arms, to uncover his legs and feet. I really did count everything. Then I held him and hugged him until they came to take him away. I knew that it had all been worth it. I fell in love with my baby.

There was one girl who wasn't so lucky as me. She had a little baby boy who died within hours of being born. She was left with all of the pain and physicalness of having had a baby but without the reward of the baby himself. I began to go in a visit with her to comfort her. Her name was RoseAnn. Her baby's name was Igor. She had a little picture of him that someone had taken for her. It was very sad to see her gaze at the picture of her dead baby. We became friends in our visits. I would have the nurse bring Christian into RoseAnns room so that she could hold him and play with him. I let her hold him as much as she needed to. RoseAnn felt comfort in being able to have a baby to hold, even if it wasn't her baby. We made plans to see each other after the hospital. Which we did. RoseAnn gave me a glimpse of what an Italian home life was really like. I just loved her. Before she left the hospital she brought me the clothes that had been meant for her son. She dressed Christian up in the going home clothes that she had originally wanted to take her son home in. It was a bittersweet moment. These clothes were beautiful, All frilly white lacy dressy types of things.

After RoseAnn left the hospital a gypsy girl came into our ward. Her whole family came with her. The staff put them in a room down at the end of the hall far away from everyone else. There was the whole family, which of course being a gypsy of the Lord, I was very pleased with the situation. When the gypsy girl had her baby the nuns came around asking everyone if they had any clothes to give to the new mother(a young teen actually) for her little baby. She had nothing for the baby at all. We all gathered our things together to donate some clothes for the baby. I took several bags of clothes down to her and apologized that many of the clothes were too big for the tiny baby. The gypsy girl seemed very sweet but the staff was still cautious of the other members of her family.

The days passed by. I learned the routines and was healing up. Christian and I came to know each other. I finally got over the fact that he looked like my father and was able to begin nursing him. One time the nurse brought him in and he had giant crocodile tears in his eyes. I could tell he had been crying his eyes out a few moments before. I smilingly scolded him for crying, telling him that he was a very brave little man and didn't ever need to worry about anything. He never did cry when he was with me.

The day came that the doctor was going to take off the bandage from my stomach. I had a great deal of apprehension about it. The nurse was helping him peel off the adhesive until the operated area was exposed. I don't know what I expected to see but it wasn't what I saw. They had cut me from the bellybutton clear down to...well, you know...the private area. The incision was still very raw and was stapled together with these big shiny staples. Hey! What ever happened to thread suttures? The doctor prepared to begin taking the staples out. I asked the him if it was going to hurt. He said no, but the nurse looked at me and said yes. I asked her to hold my hand which she was glad to do. And I have to say that the nurse was being honest. It was searing sharp burning pain as each of those staples were taken out of me. I was grateful for her honesty and her hand. (For each of my other babies I insisted that they use the thread sutures to close me up. I was really afraid of those staples and the sharp pain that they caused.)

Finally it was time for us to go home. I had been in the hospital close to three weeks. We had a new Pope, a new President and a new baby. Two of the boys from the home brought a taxi to take us home.