Three

My two boys were born four months prematurely. Every one calls them twins, but secretly I wince at the word, because they are really triplets. Their oldest brother did not live long enough to even make it to the intensive care unit. It is such a long and complicated story that when a stranger approaches cooing, “what beautiful twins” it is easier if I respond with the appropriate niceties. However, I wince as the wound rips open once again. People ask which boy was born first and I want to shout, “neither!” but I lie and point at the second eldest.

Before things went wrong I had mapped out scenes from our future. I think every parent does. Whether it is your baby’s first smile, how you will look walking down the street as a Mom, or where your child will go to school. I suspect the image is different for everyone. I had an image of what it would be like to be wheeled to the front doors of the hospital clutching three boys. How everyone would turn their heads and say “Triplets!” I have always liked to watch this scene unfold. I am an OB/GYN so I see it a lot. The father or partner nervously sprints to the car and as the mother passes by cradling her precious bundle, almost everyone smiles and many remark on the baby. It is hard not to get caught up in the excitement of a newborn. The mothers are like beauty pageant winners, clutching a baby instead of roses, their faces beaming with excitement as they glide through the hallways as if they were taking their first turn on the stage before an adoring crowd. I really wanted that wheelchair ride. But no one looks at the mother without a baby; we are invisible.

I had come to hospital pregnant with three boys and I now had two, with a tenuous grasp on life at best. Even as a doctor I do not think that I grasped the gravity of the situation until I actually left the building. The sound of the car door closing was like punctuation for all that pent up emotion and I began to sob; I have never felt so utterly devastated. I was crying for my son who died, for my boys who might not live, and for all the dreams that had vanished seemingly overnight.

A mother should never have to leave the hospital without her baby.

I still come and go from a hospital every day, just as I done for more than 20 years. To this day I have to turn away when I see those smiling mothers as they glide towards the hospital doors as it reminds me of how I felt getting into our car so many years before. I can never escape it. It is a visceral reminder of all that was lost and there are some wounds that never heal. I know it is not their fault that my pregnancy did not go as planned, that after months of intensive care I left the hospital with two critically ill boys instead of three healthy ones, but I cannot help it. It is a reminder of all those original dreams long discarded but not forgotten.

What's In a Name?

My son Victor loves to give nicknames and they usually stick. He is Fishy, his twin brother, Oliver, is “O-leach”, my husband is Lollipop, and I sadly enough am Momma Jumbo.

I know.

When he first heard it my husband smartly stifled the laugh when he saw the fierce look in my eyes. “Shut up, you’re Lollipop,” I snarled.

Why Momma Jumbo? We watch every Disney movie and while female characters are less common there are still plenty to pick from. I do not fit the traditional princess mold in appearance or attitude so I understand why I didn’t get Cinderella or Snow White (even though I do have dark hair!). If he was stuck on a cartoon character there was Jessie from Toy Story 2, or heck I’d even take Dory. My son just shook his head. “No” he said, they were not right.

My four-year-old son does not know about my life long pre-occupation with my weight and my crazy body image issues. He does not know that I have always felt fat even when I was not so I am fairly sensitive to the whole Jumbo moniker regardless of my actual physical size. He doesn’t see the look of panic on my face when I step on the scale or the facial contortions when I try on a pair of pants hoping that the size 12 will fit and then the utter look of devastation when I realize I need the 14’s instead. He doesn’t know that even when I am thin, as I am so tall, I feel large. He does not know that I have secretly longed to be petite like a Disney Princess, to be the type of woman who is easily swept into the arms of her lover. When I (semi)jokingly ask my husband to pick me up I see the momentary look of panic on his face

So Momma Jumbo is just hitting a bit too close to home. Whether we are tall or small, athletic or not, petite or otherwise most women do not want to be analogous to an elephant, especially one called jumbo.

I sigh and ask him why Momma Jumbo?

He looks me straight in the eye and simply says, “Because Momma Jumbo loves her baby more than anything in the world and that’s how you love me”.

Oh. Momma Jumbo. I am speechless.

Who wants to be a princess when you can be a mother?!

Right then. Momma Jumbo it is and I am proud of it!

Breathing

I love to watch my boys breathe at night. I sometimes sit for an hour transfixed by the rythmic rise and fall of their four-year-old chests. My husband does not know that I do this, my sons do not know, it is my secret. I know that most mothers do this when they first bring their baby home, afraid that they will somehow stop this most reflexive of acts, but I suspect after a month or so of sleep deprivation this need succumbs to practicality and free moments are not spent watching but sleeping.

I have never lost the drive to watch my boys breathe, and I suspect itis because it has been a hard won battle. BOrn at 26 weeks, almost 4 months early, and weighing just over 1 1/2 lbs their very tiny lungs had not developed all the apparatus needed to get oxygen from the air and their nervous sytem could not coordinate the effort. For many days they had air pumped in and out of their lungs, and so I watched their chests rise and fall, more staccato that babies not needing machines.

Time and medicine allowed them to graduate to oxygen tubing, but left their lungs severely scarred; it is ironic that the very oxygen and equipemnt that they needed to survive has further damaged their fragile lungs, but here was no option and I di not dwell, it is what it is. For a year our house was littered with oxygen cannisters, pack and plays filled with oxygen equipment not toys, like some surreal scuba shack for toddlers.

Their nervous systems could not be relied upon to be the metronome and so they needed monitors when I wasn't watching, so if breathing stopped I could be alerted and intervene. The monitors were loud and often falsely sounded the alarm, so it became easier to watch them sleep, and what I found was the more I watched, the better they breathed, so I watched more.

A year passed, lungs healed and nervous systems developed like winter turning into sping, and oxygen and monitors were dispensed, however at my age adaptation is more difficult. And so after years of watching, I now findthat I have trouble sleeping, but that is OK because i can watch them breathe.