Here starts a project that we’ll see how long and well it goes, which will largely be based on your readership and feedback.
This post is going up on World Down Syndrome Day, March 21, which is fitting given the focus of the following posts. This is the first in a series of posts based off of chapters I have already written. It began as an effort to write a whole book, but as I approached Chapter 6, the writing ground to a halt due to the difficult subject it will address.
So, in an effort to kick start my writing again, I’ve decided to serialize the existing writing in the hope it will build momentum such that I finish Chapter 6, and Chapter 7, which should be the last chapter. Further, this is going up in the second weekend of when the world stopped due to the COVID-19 pandemic. I figure we all have more time to read and write, and I further figured these posts and writings may create something of a community feel amongst those readers who follow the posts.
Not surprisingly, the writing covers prenatal testing and Down syndrome–hence why I think it is relevant for this blog. But it is also a bit of a memoir, since a lot of my knowledge about those two subjects come by the way of my own lived experience parenting a daughter with Down syndrome. By posting the existing chapters in 1,000 word hunks or so, it will give me an opportunity to revise the first draft and, hopefully, take advantage of the hive mind of you, dear, readers.
Simply by reading these posts will be the positive feedback I need to keep at it. But if you are so moved, I hope you will offer your suggestions, since that can largely only improve the writing (trolls notwithstanding). You may leave a comment and instruct me whether you want it posted or not; all comments are moderated, so any tips you have that you don’t want shared, simply leave a comment with a note telling me not to share it.
I hope this works as I believe Chapters 6 and 7 need to be written and told and this content is needed to be shared in some format. It will begin being shared here. I appreciate your views of these posts and any comments/suggestions you may have.
And now onto the first post:
Chapter 1: Birth
It’s July 12, 2004, a Monday, at around a quarter to 10 a.m. I’m about to meet my daughter face to face for the first time.
Her mother and I had wanted to not know the sex of our first born child. Joey and Heather, friends of ours from Gulfport, Mississippi, who we had met at my first duty station in the Air Force, had had their first child before us. When I asked Joey why they had decided not to find out the sex of their child, he replied in his thick accent, “C’mon man – when are ya gonna be THAT surprised?!” I thought Joey made a lot of sense.
Our best laid plans were foiled by an ultrasound tech at the very last prenatal visit. April and I were in the room, watching the grainy ultrasound screen with great interest. While running the ultrasound wand over April’s midsection, the tech kept saying, “Oh, she’s developing nicely. Yes, you can see her little hand right there.” And on and on with the female pronoun. April mouthed to me “I think it’s a girl!” Startled, the tech asked, “Did you all not want to know the child’s sex? Oh, well, she/he, her/him, I use them interchangeably.” But she hadn’t, and her backpedaling was not convincing.
Fast forward a few weeks and there I was, in the delivery room, bleary-eyed, anxiously awaiting my daughter’s arrival. April had a false alarm just 48 hours earlier, where she thought contractions had begun. We had packed up the car, believing our child would be born late Saturday or early Sunday, only to be sent home from the hospital after sufficient monitoring had convinced the staff that labor had not begun. Twenty-four hours later, however, it had. So, we packed up the car again and headed back to the hospital.
We arrived and got settled into our hospital room around midnight. April labored consistently, dilating on the hour. Trying, like most husbands, to seem useful, I held her hand and said what I thought would be calming things and soothing sounds when the contractions would come, while also keeping one eye on the T.V., where ESPN Classic was re-broadcasting the Thrilla in Manilla, Ali v. Frazier III. April’s motherly instincts had already kicked in and she was focused on having a successful delivery – so much so that she barely winced when it took three attempts to administer the epidural. I, on the other hand, almost fainted and had to turn away as the nurse inserted the needle, could tell it wasn’t in the right place, withdrew it, re-inserted it, withdrew it, and re-inserted it, again.
Now we were near the end of the ordeal. Thirty-seven weeks had elapsed. For both of us, this was not just a wanted pregnancy, but a planned one.
April and I had met eight years prior, in 1996, when she moved in with me. Her friends, Jennifer and Matthew, en route to Matt’s duty station in Memphis with the Navy, drove April from Phoenix to New Orleans, where April would finish her undergraduate degree at Loyola University. I had told my landlord I needed to be out of my lease early, on June 1st, as I was finishing my first year of law school at Tulane and a classmate and I had found a better apartment. April showed up with a signed lease beginning May 1st. At least the landlord got the day of the date right.
We married four years later and waited another three until we decided it was time to start our family. Not that I looked to Joey for all things related to procreation, but he and Heather swore by a book that discussed ovulation, body temperature, and other factors. Following the book’s advice, they conceived their first child on their first attempt. We had similar success.
April’s first trimester was relatively easy. She did not suffer from terrible morning sickness. If anything, April seemed healthier. A smoker since I had ever known her, she quit smoking weeks before we began trying to get pregnant. She had also eliminated drinking alcohol, something that for both of us was a daily habit.
In the second trimester, she hit full-on nesting mode. We had bought a 1913 Arts and Crafts Bungalow in the Crescent Hill area of Louisville, Kentucky. The upstairs had two bedrooms. One was fairly ordinary, but the other covered the entire front third of the house and was very dynamic. It had an area to the left as you entered where a dormer window created a very cozy little nook; the saddle-tie rafters were exposed with the pitched roof creating almost a sanctuary-like pitched ceiling; the chimney’s brick was exposed; and, the area over the wide front porch created an interesting triangular loft area. It also, somewhat oddly, had a fully functioning sink in it. This had been our bedroom when we first moved in, but it was such a fun and weird room, we moved our bed down the hall to the comparably boring bedroom, and set about making it a welcoming nursery for our daughter.
It was also during this midway point of her pregnancy that April was diagnosed with gestational diabetes. Apparently, depriving the body of sugars from alcohol coupled with the cravings associated with pregnancy had ramped up April’s sweet tooth. But, as with the smoking and drinking, April diligently managed her gestational diabetes through her diet, never needing to go on insulin.
Due to the gestational diabetes, April was considered a high-risk pregnancy. To assist with the delivery, in addition to the usual cadre of an obstetrician and several nurses, there was also a high-risk nurse there, just in case any complications arose.
It now came time for April to push. It did not take much. With no more than three pushes, our little girl entered the world. I had been standing at April’s right side, assiduously making sure I never peaked over the curtain or caught any glimpse of what may be happening where the OB had stationed herself. When our girl was born, it seemed as though the light that had been positioned for the birth was now one shining down from above in an almost Lion King-like cinematic moment as the OB lifted our daughter up for us to see her for the first time.
She was beautiful.
Here ends Chapter 1, Part 1. Installments will be posted usually within seven days of each other.
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