January 2, 1984
To continue my end of the year saga: we had agreed to consider a tubal ligation this time. Relying on Dr. Bhatt’s expertise to determine how necessary it was based on the condition of my uterus. Well, between the twins and their size, and the bicorneal uterus, and the placenta abruptio, I was in really bad shape. He said after surgery that when he first opened me up there was no doubt in his mind. No way could I have survived another pregnancy. So no more babies for us. I think that I’ve been too busy to be depressed over that idea. No post partum blues yet - and probably won’t. Just too dang busy!
(Editing again...February 9, 1999)
It’s funny, things that I should have considered important or interesting, that aren’t even mentioned in the book. And since I still have the memories and still consider them important enough to share - I edit. To say I was busy at the time is such a gross understatement as to be laughable! Picture if you will...from my hospital bed, getting polaroids of the girls after they’d been settled at PVCH - probably a 45 minute drive from where I was recovering from the C-section. Getting a call at the hospital in the middle of the night (unheard of unless it’s bad new) and hearing that Martha had collapsed her lungs and was having tubes inserted into her chest. Granted the doctors did everything they could to keep me informed and in the loop, but I wasn’t THERE. Dr. Bhatt knew I was fretting and told me, If you’ll just have one good bowel movement I’ll release you!...sheesh! being released so that I could see my babies....and touch them...all predicated on taking a shit! So I did, and four days after having the section, they let me go. Four days isn’t long enough to recuperate and go into the kind of schedule I was walking into. Not in retrospect. But I wouldn’t change a thing. There was Shelley and Margaret who needed Mom in Fontana. There were two babies who needed Mom in Pomona. So I did a lot of driving. The days were something like this. wake up.....attend to Michelle and Margaret. after traffic died down a little, drive in to PVCH. at lunch time, home to Fontana, naps, dinner preparation and when Wayne came home, eat, and he and I drove back to PVCH ...hospital scrubbed (oh those brushes and iodine soap!) and gowned and we got to visit with Martha and Ruth. About midnight heading back to Fontana, usually making a stop in Ontario at Lyon’s restaurant for a hot fudge sundae and some needed decompressing. It got more complicated when they decided to move Martha to Los Angeles. I would go to Pomona and then home...when Wayne got home, we would go to Pomona, then head into LA, then stop on the way back in Pomona...and head back to Fontana. When Dr. Bhatt saw me for my two week checkup, he said, if he’d had any idea what was going to happen to my schedule he never would have let me go so soon. Ah well! I reached my breaking point the day they told me that Martha was going to be transported to Children’s LA. I had arrived at Pomona at my usual time, scrubbed up and headed into the ACN (Acute Care Nursery) To this day I couldn’t tell you if the room was darkened or if I was so instantly focused on Martha’s table that everything else around me just faded out. They were clustered around her, with machines and bright lights. A nurse hustled over, spun me around and walked me out. And I waited. The news was so bad, the dr. thought Martha had a hole in her heart that might require immediate open-heart surgery...it was overwhelming. I tried to reach Wayne, and he was unavailable...I talked to Mom, but she was 400 miles away. I tried to reach Liz and she was shopping, talked to Phil instead. And in a way that will make him forever dear to my heart, he found a sitter for his girls, and showed up at the hospital just when I was falling apart. (Phil, whatever else happens in your life, God has got to give you major brownie points for that corporal work of mercy!) Well, they transported Martha to CHLA, and about that same time, Liz came to the Hospital with a scroll. So many people, from Church and from ME had signed up for a prayer vigil. At any given time over those next forty hours, someone was awake and praying for our Martha. Coincidentally (are there any coincidences where God is concerned?) the vigil started at 8pm and the ambulance left PVCH with Martha inside at 8:15pm. Wayne took me home and I paced and stewed. Finally waiting for the shift change and allowing for driving time, I called the hospital. The nurse I spoke with said, well we don’t know exactly why, but she seems to be doing better! I told her about the prayer vigil and in all seriousness she replied. ‘Sometimes we see that prayer is the only thing that does work! ‘ I keep thinking of things that should be recorded here. *sigh* But, when we brought Ruthy home from the Hospital she settled right in. The link with her twin was strong though (sounds like something from Star Wars doesn’t it? The Force is with you Ruth!) It’s true though. For no reason she would start fussing and really get agitated. I’d call the hospital and hear that Martha had been bottoming out, or had just had a procedure done. It was eerie! The first night we put them in bed together in their bedroom, shut off the lights and pulled the door closed (but not shut) they freaked. It was too dark and it was too quiet! Having spent the first few weeks of life in the ACN with buzzers and lights and rushing to and fro.....well......I ended up sleeping on the sofa in the living room, with the two of them end to end in the porta crib...with the TV on and the lights blazing. It took nearly two weeks of gradually lowering the volume on the TV and throwing more and more towels over that one lamp....but it was worth it! Those two could sleep through ANY commotion their sisters could conjure!
