I remember it felt like an eternity waiting for Tatiana to come out of that first surgery.  

It was April 23, 2009.

There we were, my husband and I, waiting in the hospital room of the mother and baby unit, not even a full day after Tatiana's birth. I remember feeling angry that I had to be surrounded by all these mothers with their crying babies.  It was torture.  It was a constant reminder that things weren’t as they should be – at least that’s what I felt back then.

We had to sit and wait.  

I’ll admit, I can be a little impatient and neurotic at times, and I can let my imagination run wild with a list of situations gone wrong.  I think it has something to do with watching way too many hospital dramas and reading far too many tragedies.  It might also have a bit to do with my personality: even though I always hope for the best, I tend to prepare for the worst.  I can’t help it.  I like being prepared.  These quirks combined with the level of frustration, helplessness, and impatience I was feeling could have probably driven me insane. I tried to keep my mind preoccupied so that I wouldn’t drive myself crazy with all the what-ifs of this situation.  I still wonder how it is that I found the strength to hold it together.  

So, there we were, my husband and I.  Waiting.

We talked about how and when we were going to share all of this with the world – and by the world, I mean our extended family and close friends.  Up until that point, the only people that knew of Tatiana’s birth and her complications were our immediate family members, and even then, not all of our siblings had been completely informed.  I guess we relied on our parents to share the news.  It never occurred to me that they were experiencing some of the same pain and confusion that we were feeling.  We wanted to give ourselves the time to absorb and process everything.  We knew people would have questions, but we didn’t have answers.  We were still trying to understand everything, and more importantly, we didn’t have the energy to relive the much too recent trauma of the experience.  We needed the time to be “alone” with everything.

The phone rang.  It was the family pediatrician, the same kind and caring pediatrician our family has been entrusting with our care since I was ten years old.  Here we were, nearly two decades later.  I don’t know if she realized how important her call was to me.  Her concern helped me come to terms with the idea that Tatiana was in good hands –not only because she had an excellent surgeon, but because she had people involved in her care who cared enough to provide that personal touch.

I don’t remember her exact words, but they were something like, “Tatiana has an excellent surgeon.  People fly their kids in to have him work on them, and if I had to have my kids on the table, he would be my first choice.”   I’m pretty sure she also mentioned that he had been featured on Oprah and the Discovery Channel.   Her confidence in his abilities provided some relief and the fun facts made me laugh as I thought, Wow.  This little girl is going to be special.  She came into this world screaming, demanding to be noticed, rebelling against the ‘natural’ way of doing things, and now, she’s got a claim on a world-class surgeon. Pretty hefty bragging rights when you add all of that to the broader context of the conditions she was born with.   

Her words made the time more bearable somehow.  

I don’t remember how many hours later it was that the phone rang again.  “The procedure went well.  We’re just waiting for Tatiana to recover for a bit.  We’ll call you as soon as you can see her.”

I remember the pain in that moment, but I also remember the hope, and I realized that even though I had been telling myself to breathe, it wasn’t until then that I truly exhaled.

Please tell me I’m dreaming.  Please tell me I’m dreaming.  I thought to myself as I lay there with my eyes closed.  The smell of hospital starched linens told me otherwise.  Slowly I opened my eyes.  My body felt like it had been hit by a truck – at least that is how I imagined it would feel, because of course, I’ve never been hit by a truck.  I looked over at my husband – judging from how he looked that morning,  I was definitely not dreaming. 

Okay, I’m not dreaming.  Silent prayer – Dear God, please tell me I just got “punked.”  This is all a cruel twisted joke and they are going to bring the baby in any minute.  And everything is fine. 

Maybe they made a mistake.  Maybe, this was all a misunderstanding.  Maybe, I imagined it all. 

How could it be that after months of taking care of myself, trying to be totally by the book . . . what?! . . . how?! How could this have happened?  And, when in the world were they going to let me see my baby?

“They said they would let us know more this morning.”  I want to see my baby.  I’ve carried her for so long, reading to her, singing to her, explaining to her sister that mommy and daddy would only be gone a short while so that we could bring her baby sister home.  Now, I get to sit in limbo.  Not easy for a control freak. 

All the education in the world could not have prepared me for this moment.  I wanted to scream, I wanted to shrivel up and disappear, I wanted to be anywhere but there – trapped, silenced, without my miniature feisty me’s.

The social worker comes in. “Hi, I’m a social worker.  The hospital wanted me to come check in on you.  It’s standard.”  She was very nice.  I wanted to scream and shout – “I want my baby” – I felt like we had no idea what was going on, but of course, I stayed composed.  Maybe it was the shear exhaustion of trying to process everything that helped me stay composed.  Maybe it was a lifetime of training in staying calm under pressure.  I still don’t know.

The social worker was very nice, and she tried her best to help us get answers.  She made arrangements to take us down the hall to the hospital’s Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU).  There she was.  I remember being so overwhelmed with the flood of emotions. You see, in my mind, this was the first time I was seeing her.  I was so out of it the night before that I didn’t remember I had been wheeled down to see her while I was recovering from the anesthesia.  There we were for our second visit together.  I sat there in my wheelchair.  I clung to her tiny hand. 

The most major surgery I had ever had was the night before when I underwent a cesarean, and here they were telling me they were going to cut open my precious baby girl.  We can do this.  Just breathe, keep it together. Breathe. Be strong.  If I had been standing, I’m sure my legs would have failed me.  I know if I had fallen, my husband would have been there to catch me.   You see, I’ve always been the strong one in my family – the eldest of eight, composed, responsible, etc.  The only person I allowed myself to lean on was my husband, and I was grateful that he was there.  I was grateful that even though he was tired and going through as much emotional turmoil as I was, he was willing to be that soft rock during this difficult time.

“Would you like to hold her?” 

“Yes.”  Finally.  They let me hold her for a short while, and as I held her for the first time, I wondered how she was making sense of everything going on around her.  She seemed to find comfort in my arms, and I was grateful for that. 

I made sure my husband had a chance to hold her before putting her back in the incubator.  We couldn't hold her for very long because they had to begin preparations for her surgery. 

I remember thinking, She’s a strong one.  

And, I remember calling on the strength of my ancestors, the women who walked this earth before me.  Please watch over her and give her the strength to recover from this.  Please help me to be strong.  

I knew in my heart that I had to allow myself to feel the pain so that I could begin to heal.

I just gave birth to my second daughter.  She doesn't quite have a name yet.  Although, I'm pretty set on Tatiana.  We'll see.  It's Earth Day, so the pressure is on to give her a name with meaning that conjures up beauty, strength, and resilience. 

Of course, nothing went as planned.  We were scheduled for an induction.  I wasn't too keen on the idea of having my labor induced, but I cut my losses and took yet another blow to my birthing ego. The doctor was a bit concerned at the amount of fluid I had accumulated - better to be safe than sorry and avoid having her gush out, yanking the cord with her in the process.  Seriously, I had about enough fluid to hold twins.  My three year old would have had enough space to swim around in there!  The doctor thought it was associated with my gestational diabetes.  I thought I was going to give birth to a 10lb baby.  Turns out we were both wrong, but I'll get to that later.

After having my water bag "popped" and experiencing several hours of the worst cramps I've ever had in my life, I still was not dilating.  To top it off, the baby wasn't looking like she would be ready to make her way on out anytime soon.  In the end, I was urged to have a caesarean.  I cried the entire time - mad at myself and my body for betraying me during this critical moment. 

On the one hand, it felt like an eternity before it was all over; yet, on the other hand, it also felt like it was over in a heartbeat.  There she was, ripped out from me, crying, a beautiful baby girl.  The trauma was overshadowed by this beautiful being that was created out of love.  I remember her piercing eyes and that first scream that told me she would be a force to be reckoned with.  I remember thinking to myself, "Thank goodness.  She's got all her parts in the right place."  I remember the doctor's words, "See.  A healthy baby girl."  Turns out we were both wrong, but I'll get to that later. 

The doctors explained that she would be taken to another room for a short while.  We would both be cleaned up, suctioned out, and whatever else it is that I'd rather stay hazy about.  My husband would go with the baby and they would return in a few minutes so that I could hold her and feed her.  I was anxious to hold her, but I waited patiently.  After some time, I couldn't tell if I had entered a bizarre time warp where the minutes felt like hours, or if in fact hours had gone by.  I still can't say for sure. 

What I can say is that the look on my husband's face when he returned without our baby was a moment I would rather forget: it was one of sorrow, pain, and grief combined. He seemed to have aged a decade in that moment.  I'm sure my face must have mirrored the same right on back when his words failed him and the doctors had to explain why I couldn't hold my daughter in my arms, not even for a moment, after having held her in my belly for over nine months. "When we were suctioning your baby, we discovered that there was a blind pouch in her esophagus.  She has Esophageal Atresia and Tracheoesophageal Fistula, which means she'll need surgery.  . . ."  It turns out she also had a few other problems.  There were so many confusing medical terms.  It felt as if someone was praying over me in another language as I lay there recovering from the anesthesia.  I remember repeating "Esophageal Atresia" . . . "Esophageal Atresia" . . . "Esophageal Atresia" over and over in my head.  I had to remember so that I could run a search on my laptop as soon as I could, to make sense of it all in my own way.  

About half an hour to an hour later, they wheeled me over to her.  There we both lay, her in a snow-white-looking-shell of a bed in the NICU, and I in an unpleasant medical bed with wheels.  I couldn't hold her in my arms just yet.  I don't quite remember why, but then again, I'm still trying to recover the memory of this first visit.  There are pictures and witnesses to prove that I was there and that I was able to touch her and hold her little hand in mine for the first time, but my memory fails me.  I remember crying myself to sleep and going over every little detail in my mind trying to figure out what I did wrong during my pregnancy to affect her this way.  I remember being sad, hurt, and angry that after months of being attached to this little being, we were forced into an unnatural separation from each other.  I remember it was the memory of her eyes and her perfectly round face that finally gave me the solace to give in to the exhaustion and finally sleep.