Annette Hines - Butterflies and Second Chances: A Moms Memoir of Love and Loss

Why isnt she crying?

At first, no one answered me. It didnt help that I couldnt see what was going on; they had put up a curtain for the C - section . I knew my daughter was somewhere in the other corner of the room, but I couldnt see what the doctors were doing with her. And I wasnt hearing any noises or baby sounds. But having never given birth before, I didnt know how unusual that was.

Finally, somebody told me they were putting in a breathing tube. Thats why there hadnt been any crying: apparently, she couldnt breathe. I was also told her Apgar score was four. The number meant nothing to me. Four out of what? Out of four? Out of ten? A hundred? Ive always liked numbers, but had no idea what this one represented in the scheme of things, what it was measuring.

Well, this is kind of absurd, I thought. But before I had a chance to ask for an explanation, there she wasmy baby, being wheeled out of the delivery room. I barely saw her as she rolled by.

I didnt get to see or hold her for another eight hours.

Elizabeth was born eleven weeks early. I didnt think it was a good idea for her to be delivered so early. But the doctors said it was imperative. I had been going in every week for stress tests, and at twenty weeks, theyd put me on bed rest because she wasnt growing. From then on, theyd monitored her closely, and when Id come in for this most recent appointment, theyd decided they needed to deliver her right then and there. She was in distress. Something was wrong with her heart rate, and there had been very little movement in my belly over the past couple days. Things hadnt felt right, I told them. It was too quiet in there. That made them nervous.

We always trust a mothers instincts, they reassured me. I wanted to yell at them that I wasnt a mom yet and I didnt know anything. They shouldnt trust my instincts! What did they want to do?

Turns out, one thing they wanted to do was have a C - section , which admittedly upset me. I asked why I couldnt be induced, and they said it would take too long and put even more stress on the baby. With induction, the contractions are stronger, and it would have been too hard on her.

Okay, well let me call my husband, I said, So we can talk this over with him.

They told me there was no time to wait or discuss. I could go ahead and call him and tell him to come, but this was happening now . I couldnt reach Wayne anyway; he was out looking at some property somewhere. I left a message on the voicemail in the family business officethis was back in 1996, before we had cell phonestelling them they needed to find Wayne and let him know that I was about to have the baby and he needed to come to the hospital.

I did manage to reach Waynes dad, my father - in - law , who was so calming and sweet to me, always with such a soothing voice. I needed it. I was panicked, desperate for somebody to come and be with me. I cant do this by myself , I thought. I was so unprepared for it all. I hadnt even taken my birthing classes yet. I was actually all signed - up for them, ready to go. Geared up to excel like usualacing my classes is what I do . But then, I never got the chance. The baby came early. Very early.

Wayne made it to the birth just in time, but it didnt matter because they took Elizabeth away immediately. It had all been rush, rush, rush a whirlwind of signing papers, being swept down the hall, my clothes stripped off, strangers pouring into the room, and then a whole team of twenty or more attending to the baby. All the commotion made me even more panicked. Then, minutes later, they were whisking Elizabeth away. Wayne wanted to go and check on her, but they told him they were doing procedures, and we wouldnt be able to see her for a while, so he should just stay with me.

None of my family could get there in time from Massachusetts; no one was expecting the baby to come so soon. We didnt have a crib yet. I wanted Wayne to handle things and take charge of the situationto tell me what was going on and what I needed to do. I wanted him to calm me down and say everything was going to be okay. But he did none of that. He was just very, very quiet. He didnt step up in the way I expected him to, the way I always pictured my husband doing.

Wed only been married nine months at that point, and maybe I didnt know him very well yet. It was certainly a foreshadowing of what the next few years of parenting with him would be like; he just didnt know what to do. It had started off well. Wayne had been great in many ways. First, he was so excited when I got pregnant, just looking forward to being a dad. Then, when the doctors had put me on bed rest, and I was forced to quit my job, he worked a second job to take up the slack. He was taking care of things, and I appreciated him for that. Work was something he knew he could do, a way he could help, a language he was familiar with, his comfort zone.

But then, the day of Elizabeths birth, I started to see this different side of him. He turned quiet. It was like he just went dark on me. It marked the beginning of my seeing how fragile my husband really was, of losing faith in him. It all started the day of her birthbut it wasnt until many hours later, in the middle of the night, that I was finally allowed to see Elizabeth. The nurses wheeled me to the NICU (Neonatal Intensive Care Unit). Until that point, I had had no idea what was going on. Nobody had given me any information. All I knew was that my daughter was on a ventilator, and she was really smallonly two pounds.

Also, she had hair all over herlanugo, they called it. She looked like a little monkey. I was horrified, to be honest. I kept waiting for the motherly instinct to flood over me, but it never came. I definitely didnt look at Elizabeth and say, Oh, my baby, I love you so much.

It wasnt like in the TV commercialsyou know, the ones where the baby gets wrapped in a blanket and placed on the moms chest and Mom just falls instantly in love with her new child. Thats how I thought childbirth would be. I had all these false expectations that I would get my own beautiful Hallmark moment, like on TV.

In reality, I had none of that. All I could think to myself was, Im not feeling this, Im just numb. Elizabeth looked like a monkey, and not a cute one either. She had tubes and needles all over. When were the doctors going to remove that stuff? I had no idea. The whole situation was just like what Id been experiencing the past few weeks coming in for stress tests: I constantly felt in the dark. Nobody had told me that my baby might be premature, that she might be born at only twenty - nine weeks, that I might have to have a C - section , that there were all these risks, that she might not be doing well. I certainly didnt expect not to be able to see her and hold her after they took her out of me. I just wasnt prepared for any of it. I didnt know the half of it.

How could this happen to me? I was twenty - eight years old. I had made all the right choices. Having grown up in poverty, Id always had a plan in lifedetermined from a very early age to make myself a success and create the kind of future that I wanted. Suddenly, I was at a loss. All my intentions had gone out the window. I didnt know what to do. But I was still hopeful. I still thought I was going to get my Hallmark moment, my bonding moment with my baby. It will be OK, I told myself. It would all pass at some point and then I would be able to take her home. Then my real life would start. Not this crazy thing that had happened to me in the hospital, but my real life that was promised me, the one I had always dreamed about.