The battle of Saint Patrick and Damien
A single small stone representing birth after a tunnel of darkness leading up to it in the Path of Life Garden in Windsor, VT / Photo by Deborah Lynch
I’m not following my usual news theme, but since today officially kicks off the Memorial Day weekend and summer, I think this is newsworthy. Plus, I found another blog seeking admissions of Birth Stories, so you have to suffer through mine here and give me your feedback before I submit it to the other blog. Happy Memorial Day!My husband’s birthday and Memorial Day usually fall around the same time, and it is always the kickoff to summer and summer birthdays for our entire family, but his comes first. May, the month of greening, planting, blooming, cleaning, and outdoor activities has to be among the most glorious months of the year. That I married a crazy Gemini May baby makes it even more glorious.Decidedly, we did not plan as well for our firstborn, who arrived on Sept. 13, 1991. Anyone in her right mind would not plan the late terms of pregnancy for the hottest months of the year. Not only that, but from the first ultrasound when we were given a due date, it was Sept. 13, which in 1991 fell on a Friday. A Friday the 13th due date? It frightened me. My husband, meanwhile, joked that we should name our baby boy Jason (of Friday the 13th movie fame) or Damien, which urban legend thanks to the movie The Omen led us to believe meant son of the devil, but which further research shows is the Patron Saint of Physicians, or one who tames or subdues. I didn’t know that then, however, and quickly vetoed his sarcastic suggestions.Always active, I was relieved when my doctor said I could continue working out, but that I shouldn’t try things I hadn’t done before being pregnant. I took that to mean that skiing would be OK since I had done that before. I did that in the early months, with caution of course, but that didn’t prevent at least one rough landing on the hip and thigh. I went to my OB visit the next day expecting to be scolded about the black and blue on my thigh, but all was fine. So, I continued to run, play tennis, ski, and keep fit.At my six-month checkup, the obstetrician saw what appeared to be an anomaly in my baby’s brain. He said it could be an indicator of a trisomy – the wonder of memory has protected me from remembering exactly which one – that could lead to death before birth or tragic birth defects followed by a premature death. He said I would need to schedule an echocardiogram at seven months, which would give us the answer because if it were the trisomy, the chambers of the heart would not be properly formed and we would see it.This was the early stages of ultrasound. Sometimes physicians saw things they couldn’t explain. They wanted to prepare us for the worst-case scenario, but that meant I had to wait another month with fear before I would know for sure whether my baby would be born healthy. It was an excruciating four weeks. In the midst of it, we moved from Pittsburgh, PA, to Burlington, VT. I made an appointment for soon after our arrival there. I had never felt such relief as when the echo showed a healthy heart beating in my baby’s chest and the white marks on the ultrasound of the brain were also gone. We had every reason to believe we were going to have a healthy baby. Now, I just had to sweat out the final two months of pregnancy – but at least those months were in Vermont, which while still humid was maybe not quite as hot as Pennsylvania.I continued to jog through the seventh month of pregnancy, and one of my first introductions to Vermonters was to have a pickup truck of men honk their horn at me and whistle out the window as they drove past my jogging, waddling figure. What?! I turned and gave them the full frontal, yelling out, “Are you blind?” How’s that for a hot mama, Patrick?That might have been my last jog – surprising, right? – before I turned to the swimming pool to keep cool while exercising. Have you ever swum while pregnant? It is bliss. The cool water laps against overstretched skin and the belly provides buoyancy to make floating and swimming much easier. Summers spent lifeguarding paid off for a sweet end to pregnancy.The end came on a day when my husband had decided to take my car to work because his was completely splattered in mud including the front and rear windows. As I always did, I started the early morning when he left with a long walk. The air was pleasant, it was slightly overcast, and I felt great. Then, I felt it. Something like a small gush. I was alone, it was my first baby – I decided it was nothing and walked home. I settled in to read. That’s when I started to feel the funny muscle movements that had to be contractions. After about five hours, I called the OB and described what had been going on. They told me to come in for a checkup. That meant driving my husband’s filthy car. It was even worse than I had expected. I could barely see out the windshield to drive the quarter-mile to the car wash, where I wielded the self-serve high pressure hose, feeling my stomach pull taut as I sprayed. I drove the seven miles to my doctor’s office, where my favorite doctor checked things out, and sent me packing – literally. He said I had better hurry because that baby was about to be born. I hurried home to call my husband -- this was pre-cell phone days, remember – and to pack my bag before driving my now clean car to the hospital, a half-mile away.My husband, who was a first-year surgery resident, came over to meet me as I checked in. The maternity ward was full, so we were sent to the high-risk center for a tiny room with an uncomfortably hard exam table for a bed. The OB on duty for my practice popped in, checked things out, and said she didn’t think there was any rush, so she was going to dinner. I asked about an epidural before she left because I was not about pain. She said it was too early. My husband thought the same thing, and since he had had a long day and foresaw a long night in the hospital, he decided to go home to shower and change. They left me. Just like that.The contractions started to get more painful while my husband was gone, and almost as soon as he had returned -- which felt like hours later, but was probably less than a half hour – the pace picked up. The resident on call was called in. A high-risk doctor was called because mine hadn’t returned from dinner. I begged for an epidural. They told me it was too late for one; I was going to have to go au natural. Minutes later, Patrick came screaming into the world, a perfect, healthy baby. I didn’t have to push even once. He was that anxious to break into the world.From his perfectly timed arrival on Friday the 13th of September, we have held that to be a lucky day in the Lynch household. We own a black cat, walk under ladders, and throw superstition to the wind. Patrick has continued to push his way into and out of things his entire life, a strong personality characteristic to match his prebirth troublemaking. How has it affected me? Although I don’t harbor typical superstitions, I do believe in “signs” or omens. I believe that things happen for a reason, and that belief has helped me to move past many things to look for other prospects and solutions, and to retain optimism. Maybe he should have been named Damien, but perhaps then we would have missed out on the Luck of the Irish delivered by our own Patron Saint Patrick. The glass is always half full.