Saturday, June 2, 2012

june 2nd. mama's rantings... the first of many.

Our sweet baby was 870 grams yesterday, but I don't know if I trust that weight, as the incubator scale was off last week, as I mentioned in earlier posts.  And after weighing in at 886 grams, and then the next day, the reality was 815.... I am less focused on weight, these days, as long as it continues to go up...  Valentina is no longer using a catheter/ central line (did I already mention this too?), and generally speaking, everything is pretty good.  The last two days though, I have sat by her incubator, tears running down my face trying not to scream.  I don't feel strong.  I don't feel brave.  I feel like a hysterical storm is swelling inside of me and no one understands.  The language barrier at the hospital is the hardest pill for me to swallow.  I know my baby is safe, she is being watched every minute of the day, but it still doesn't feel like enough.  I have a enough time choking down tears sometimes, concentrating on speaking in Portuguese is sometimes beyond my capacity.  Even when someone does speak to me in English (though I can get by in Portuguese, when necessary... they don't teach you medical emergency vocabulary in Portuguese class...), it is still just too much somedays.  I think I can understand general medical information.  I am a pretty intelligent individual, I come from large family with many doctors and nurses... I know the lingo...  But I feel like screaming and crying and throwing something when alarms go off that are keeping my baby alive.  Example... Yesterday, Vivi's oxygen monitor pump thing started ringing.  Not the yellow light, the red light.  Her oxygen concentration levels are ideal when they are at about 24- 26 (at last this is what I gather...).  The levels were turned up to 60 when I arrived (panic) and when I asked about it, the nurse made it seems like, "Oh, it's fine" and turned the dial down to 30.  WHY was it up at 60, if my baby is FINE?  And then, the alarms start to go off..  Not immediately... Just shortly after everyone clears the room, or is occupied with other babies.  I want to know exactly why the alarms are going off.  Even if it is scary.  IT'S NOT FINE.  

5 minutes later Valentina's monitors are adjusted, nurses stick their hands in her incubator, give her a little shake, readjust her position, etc.  20 minutes later her blood oxygen monitor drops, same thing...  A nurse comes over, adjusts the monitors, gives her a little repositioning, walks away.  (Probably goes on lunch break, just before the hour long shift change.)   Then her heart rate drops, I am reeling, no one does anything until one of the nurses sees the panic on my face.  Slight adjustment, mute the alarm, etc.  I keep asking why the alarms are going off, and my only answers are, "She is so little, it is normal,"  and "It's fine, it's normal.  Baby is small, she is ok."  Even when Victor is there, unless he purposefully isn't translating scary information to me, we are not receiving straight-forward answers.  The whole thing seems like bullsh*t to me.  I know baby isn't the smallest, isn't the weakest, isn't the worst off, and I cry and I pray and I thank the heavens that Vivi is progressing every day.  And I feel so horrible every time I hear an alarm go off and my heart skips when I check all of her monitors, and it isn't her, she is safe, she is fine, she is calmly sleeping, my baby is breathing, her heart rate is normal, there are no alarms right now... I feel like half the time I am in the hospital, I am on the verge of a breakdown.  I am pretty ok, most of the time, and even most days when I am sitting with my tiny beauty, I read to her, I talk to her, I just watch her sleep.  I hold my hand over her chest to feel my skin against hers, I pat her diaper butt, I let her tiny hand hold my finger.  I love to feel her push her feet and stretch her toes against my palm.  Sometimes I indulge my aching heart and run my fingertip along her blonde, blonde eyebrows.  (Baby, when you are a teenager, I promise you there is brow pencil that will help, Mama apologizes...)  

I was having baby dreams two nights ago.  I don't sleep much, two to four hours here and there...  Waking up to pump milk for a baby you cannot hold or feed yourself (yet... I am being positive...) is just gut wrenching and feels sometimes so defeating.  I keep waking up after my 5 am pump with milk spilled on me as I fall asleep and the pump slips... I told Vivi yesterday about my dreams, though I don't really remember too much.  But I can clearly remember holding her against my chest.  I have this overwhelming urge to just feel her sleeping against my skin, it brings tears to my eyes just thinking about it.  

I don't think I have ever had a good, hard cry through this whole ordeal.  Oh oh oh I have cried, a few seconds, maybe a few minutes here and there.  Every day I was in the hospital, yes I cried at some point.  But I definitely never once had a good, hard cry.  I think that may be my problem.  I get weepy  because I have tears stored up and they need to come out.  I haven't let myself cry the way I want to because...  I don't know why.  I haven't been allowed to?  Because sometimes I feel more angry than sad?  It feels like all of the other parents walking around the NICU are just "fine fine fine" just like the alarms ringing, red light flashing, "fine fine fine" why am I the only one who isn't fucking FINE with this?  I know this isn't postpartum depression.  This isn't post- pregnancy hormones.  This is feels like a rage of injustice and I cannot accept it.  I feel this conflict... I see that Valentina is being cared for and taking care of me isn't anyone's job, but I feel like I am being treated not like I am stupid, per se, but that I won't understand the medical reasons as to why my child's heart rate is dropping, why she needs more oxygen concentration today than she did yesterday.  I am so proud of her, that she is stronger than I am.  I tell her this every day, I tell her I am scared, that I need her, that as soon as we are big enough and strong enough to get out of the hospital, that we are never going back... That as soon as I can hold her, I am never gonna put her down, never gonna let her go.

I think about how one of my intentions in starting this blog was because I had a lot of emotions about pregnancy that I didn't know how and where to place.  I felt a sort of disconnect with being adopted and being pregnant.  I don't have adoption issues, I swear.  What I think I had was just lack of experience with pregnancy (duh) and the disconnect was more about how the experience of pregnancy would physically and emotionally feel.  The "disconnect" I think was more of an emotional - lack of knowledge, if that makes any sense.  I think about how while I wanted to share my journey towards motherhood publicly for family and friends (and to avoid a thousand email updates a day), I also thought about creating a separate blog just for myself, an online journal to allow myself to explore the emotional response to the baby growing inside of me.  The strange roller coaster of emotions creeping inside. I was worried that I wouldn't feel emotionally attached.  And I know I sort of kept my heart and my head in denial about being pregnant for awhile.  I just took care of myself because I know it was the right thing to do, but I don't think I was emotionally prepared, so I let myself sort of emotionally block it out, and let it creep in slowly, the way I do with all things new experiences.  I keep it at a distance and take small bites.  The only thing I didn't do that with, was falling in love with Victor.  My first complete sentence to the man was, "I'm gonna marry you and make Portuguese babies with you."  (True story.)  Maybe I should have been more specific and said, "big fat healthy Portuguese babies."

Maybe Valentina's premature birth was the emotional blast I was looking for...  I was feeling less than I should, so now here it is, Mama.  ALL the emotional range of pregnancy and birth x 1 million trillion times over, stretched out over the next few months, until Vivi's official due date.  (July 29th, 3 days after my 3 year anniversary with Vic...)  I keep praying that her due date will be the day she comes home from the hospital, a perfect healthy baby.  At this point, the doctors say that she will hopefully come home around then, from when she was born, they said 3-4 months.  August, September.  I feel it in my heart that we will be home by early August, at the latest.  

OK... 10:30 am... Have to shower and get to the hospital.  I keep thinking about how soft Vivi's skin is, and how after I touch her and remove my hand from her incubator, how my fingers feel softer for a few seconds after.  I am addicted to her!  My apologies if this post seems like a schizophrenic emotional blowout full of disorganized tangents...  I just haven't had two hands to type (thank you hour long  breast pumping, every 2 hours) and I just have so much in my head and I had to emotionally vomit out a huge ranting, raving, cry-fest post...  I am ok, I promise.  Mom, don't cry, I'm fine.  

And I swear, photos coming tonight/ tomorrow.  Victor has some beautiful photos on his phone and he is back late tonight.  

oh oh oh she is so beautiful...  and her cheeks are filling out... tiny, tiny baby has these tiny chubby cheeks. <3 <3 <3                  

* grow baby grow *       

3 comments:

  1. i wish i could be there with you and hug you and support you. ever since you've started this blog and facebook updates i feel as if we've been having these emotional, candid, completely one way conversations and there are so many things i want to say back to you.
    i can really empathize with the language barrier issues. after five years in israel i still go through those emotions that you are describing. it's like because you understand the language less people talk to you like you're a child, as if understanding less of the language means you understand less in general... like it's equated with your intelligence level. i've often wanted to say to people "i'm not STUPID, i just don't know what those WORDS MEAN." it can certainly turn some people into belittling and condescending, or at least they can be interpreted in that way even if they don't mean it.
    is there any way you could figure out if there is an English speaking doctor at the hospital, even if they don't work in that specific ward you could possibly meet with them and maybe it would ease what you're feeling? sometimes hospital staff can grow insensitive to the feelings of people because what they feel is routine, they lose track of the fact that it's effecting someone's life at that very moment.
    well i just wrote a book. stay strong, i'm thinking about you all the time!

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  2. by the way, above, it's giliah! <3

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  3. hi gilly!! <3 i thought i would take the opportunity to respond while i have a pump attached to me and i cannot leave for the hospital for another ... 35 minutes ...

    the hospital staff has been relatively sensitive with me, speaking slowly when i ask for a repeat of our conversation, they rephrase things pretty well so i can generally figure out what is happening and nurses always ask "is mom ok?" when i am teary ... and a lot of the staff does speak english. what gets to me is the "its ok, everything is fine" like i won't understand the medical stuff... i try not to lose my cool, something i am not very good at, i cannot hide what i am feeling, it is always written all over my face... for the most part, they are ok... doctors included, though they aren't around after 2 pm anyway... it is VERY good to be a doctor here, even the resident doctors still in training.... i definitely feel like it is routine for the staff. and i get it: it IS! some of them can use a refresher course in sensitivity training for parents... though there are a few nurses and doctors that i really like who make me feel much more secure about everything, but unfortunately they can't work 24 hours a day...

    sometimes i feel like i am in the twilight zone when the oxygen or heart rate alarms are going off and (what seems like) the entire nursing staff is in the next room eating lunch for 45 minutes, right before the hour long shift change. (no parents can be in the room during the "changing of the guard.") i can see through the window that they are eating lunch, so they close the shades and close the door. i thought my head was going to explode one day when i was talking to one valentina's doctors (in english) and a nurse interrupted us to say that we had to leave the room for the shift change. it was 3:00 on the dot. they take two things VERY seriously here in portugal... their lunch/ dinner breaks and the "hours of operation." if you are two SECONDS past shift change/ closing time of a store, etc... you are sh*t out of luck... they are GONE!

    ps. i think i will have to write along rant about specifically the staff and hospital. i have a kinda funny story about a 5 day ordeal involving a breast pump kit, that was inadvertently taken from the hospital and how NO ONE would help me return it. so in the end, i kept the damn thing....

    thank you for yr love and prayers. i MISS you giliah!!

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