The Phone Call You Don’t Want: Premature Babies

This guest post was written by Rena McDaniel who blogs about being a Alzheimers caregiver for her mother and is a new grandmother of twins. Rena is a 24/7 Alzheimer Caregiver, RA patient, Writer, Blogger, Wife, Mom, Grandma, avid traveler and Social Media addict. She writes about being a caregiver while dealing with her own RA diagnosis, about Midlife and how it affects her beautiful, crazy family on a daily basis.

THE BEST, MOST SCARIEST DAY OF MY LIFE!

Part 1

The best, most scariest day of my life started like many other scary days do; with a dreaded 2 a.m. wake up call. The kind of phone call that chills your spine before you answer. We were especially nervous because our daughter was expecting twins. My husband picked up his cell phone because everyone in our immediate family knows that this is the “go-to” phone after 8 p.m. The theme song from Monday Night Football *dun, dun, ta, dun *over and over but we knew it wasn’t a touchdown or game-winning play.

My husband picked up his phone still groggy from hours of being sound asleep and mumbled “Hello?”. In the very next second, we were both wide awake. It was my son-in-law calling. I couldn’t tell you anything that he said because all I could hear was my only baby girl screaming bloody murder. She was in labor and while this would usually be call for celebration it shot fear into both of our hearts. My daughter was only 28 1/2 weeks pregnant and this meant the twins were going to be premature babies. The thought of what was happening sent us both into panic mode.

I had clothes on and was looking for my shoes in less than 5 minutes. I looked over at my husband and he is pacing back and forth from the bathroom back to the bed. I snapped my fingers together a couple of times, “Hey, hey get it together we have to go” as I am already calculating the hour drive from our house to the hospital. “I need some coffee,” he says. My head snapped around like something from the exorcist! “Coffee, you need coffee?!?” I ask incredulously. This is when I snatched this man up, this man that I love beyond reason, by his shirt collar looked him straight in the eye and say “You have 5 minutes buddy, if you’re not in the car in the next 4 1/2 minutes, now, I’m leaving without you.

He pulled it together as we flew down the highway going God only knows how fast. We knew exactly where to go because she had already been a patient in this hospital for the last 3 weeks. She had gone into preterm labor twice already, but the third time would not be a charm, there would be no stopping it this time. We made it to the hospital 10 minutes before they rolled her into surgery for the emergency c-section. They would only let one person go and we knew it would be her husband the logical choice.
Logical…then why did I want to stab him in the eye? Because she is my baby and I had no control and I don’t do well when I have no control. I only thought about it for a second, but then before I knew it they were gone and we were left in the quiet hospital room with only ourselves for company.

I paced and paced then paced some more. I counted the floor tiles, the ceiling tiles. Praying, counting, praying, counting an odd back in forth game I played in my mind. I couldn’t sit still I had to keep moving. My husband actually fell back asleep…men I will never understand them if I live to be 100. By this time, it was 4 am and all of a sudden I heard the song “Wagon Wheel” being sung by Darius Rucker. I thought, “Well old girl you’ve finally lost it”. I had lost the ability to think coherently. I couldn’t comprehend that it was my phone letting me know that I had received a text message. Once I realized what it was I figured it was other family members wanting an update but it wasn’t. It was fuzzy pictures that I could barely make out…one baby nurses working over top…second baby and even more nurses frantically moving about. Over and over pictures started arriving babies and babies but not the one I needed to see the most. Not at first, then it came, that picture of my own baby with red puffy eyes, and snotty nose looking more beautiful than I had ever seen her look.

I finally sat down, or maybe I fell down who knows. I cried and cried and thanked God over and over again…and then I remembered to wake my sleeping husband.

Read Part 2 here.