Genetic Defects, pt. 1 (542 hits)
Category: NoneRating: 1.35 on 16 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by SmalltownSally (View user info) at 2009-03-15 17:17:51 EDT
September 21, 2008
"It's a girl!" I heard the doctor say. I smiled and looked at her. She was blue.
"Don't worry, lots of babies are born that color," Nurse Donna said to me. I believed her, because she had sat there with me all through labor because she knew I was all alone. No family to call. Usually something you see in teenage mothers, not 28 year olds welcoming their second child.
"I hear a murmur!" another nurse said. I could tell from her tone that lots of babies may have been born blue, but with a murmur... would she make it?
"I'm going to give you something to help you sleep," Nurse Donna said as she helped pull my epidural-numbed legs from the stirrups. I'd pushed that drug-button every 5 minutes during active labor to dull the paid of contractions, knowing the chilly liquid I could feel entering my spine would stop the aching. But would the same chill I felt going into the IV in my hand stop the ache I felt spreading in my heart?
"Your daughter has a condition called Epstein's Anomaly, as well as Pulmonary Atresia," Dr. Holt said at my bedside at 4 am. He drew a crude heart and explained that her valves were horribly misshapen and there was no blood flow to the lungs when she was born.
"We'd rate the leakage as a 4+" he said, gesturing to a color-coded, numbered chart. 4+. Deadly. "We have some forms for you to sign."
I looked at them groggily, drugged. Not a death certificate. Not a waiver of responsibility for the hospital. Her birth certificate. A consent to give blood products. A "just in case" consent to place on life support. Deadly didn't mean dead.
Deadly. But not dead.
I signed everything. And then I named her Emma.
User Reviews
Submitted by scourge (user info) at 2009-03-16 11:53:16 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
the post
plus this: http://www.ubersite.com/m/121432#2870534
is good enough for a +2 from me.
Submitted by F.J.Bell (user info) at 2009-03-16 11:24:38 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Jesus, Sally.
:o(
Submitted by kaos-king (user info) at 2009-03-16 11:20:49 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Um, Uber is the place were we make fun of this kinda stuff....
Submitted by SmalltownSally (user info) at 2009-03-16 11:17:38 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Maybe I want to be judged on my writing, not pitied. Maybe I want people to feel the right to speak their mind without having to worry about whether or not they might be driving the mother of a dead baby crazy. Maybe I'm going to just tell my story as I tell my story, and not on anyone else's schedule. Maybe I'll host the Q&A when I'm done. Maybe I won't every come back here when I'm done writing this, so I don't really care.
You're the guy who skips to the last page of a novel to try and find out if it's worth reading instead of just letting the story unfold.
Submitted by rubbermaid (user info) at 2009-03-16 10:39:13 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
I'm siding with DTII and X54. Also, you haven't answered whether this is fiction or non-fiction and methinks everyone is giving the preemptive sympathy as is common on uber.
In other words, -2DIE, NOOB FUCKING SKIN DICK!
Just kidding. A solid worth reading. Welcome to uber.
Submitted by FALLEN (user info) at 2009-03-16 09:20:03 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
It's not "save everyone because we can"
it's
save everyone we can save.
science has allowed us to heal people that would have dropped dead if they were born 50years earlier.
hope you and Emma are doing well.
Submitted by SgtHartman (user info) at 2009-03-16 09:16:34 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
mannnna mannnna mannnna mannnna
beaming good feelings and thoughts from my forehead and double chin....
mannnna mannnna mannnna mannnna
Submitted by sage104 (user info) at 2009-03-16 09:10:57 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by Lib (user info) at 2009-03-15 18:35:57 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Good thoughts sent your way.
Submitted by X54 (user info) at 2009-03-16 00:20:41 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Nothing personal against you or your daughter here, but it's exactly that "save everyone because we can" attitude that's bankrupting our health care system. I'm with DTII on this one. Compassion is a vestigial bitch.
Submitted by RoadSong (user info) at 2009-03-15 22:29:51 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Many Blessings to you and Emma.
How is she doing now? How are YOU doing?
Post partum depression strikes women with special needs babies often...
I will be uplifting you in spirit and in health.
Submitted by SilentRenegade (user info) at 2009-03-15 20:57:41 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I fellow soldier I know had a courtesy reassignment from South Korea because his baby had a heart defect. I didn't like him to much but, I wouldn't wish that on anyone.
Submitted by Wildman (user info) at 2009-03-15 20:02:07 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Emma gonna make it?
Submitted by Lib (user info) at 2009-03-15 18:35:57 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Good thoughts sent your way.
Submitted by DTII (user info) at 2009-03-15 17:32:34 EDT (#)
Ranking: -1
I'm an asshole?
*shrugs*
At least I am honest with myself and the way I feel about things.
Submitted by billrhine (user info) at 2009-03-15 17:25:34 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Asshole below. If this is all true, I hope your baby makes it. If not, fuck you.
Submitted by DTII (user info) at 2009-03-15 17:23:29 EDT (#)
Ranking: -1
I know you're going for the heart strings here, but I don't care. Not that I don't care for human life (I generally don't), it's just that I feel death at infancy is the best way to go. She doesn't know pain, or heartache, or loneliness,, or sadness.
I don't care because she has it better than most people.