On Being A 26 Year Old Mother

I told y'all my stepdaughter ("Am") just made me a grandma. Only 2 weeks before, her best-friend since 1st grade, "Em", also had a daughter named Madeline.

In a way it was kind of sick - these two babies having babies. On the other hand, they acted like the ol' Hillary Clinton novel "It Takes A Village". You know what I mean. One taking a nap, the other caring for two newborns. My stepdaughter running out to go get more diapers, and best friend Em rocking a little baby in each arm. It kind of gave us comfort knowing that two heads were better than one. Decisions would most likely have a sounding board there and ready to help. It made us feel better - like our stepdaughter wouldn't be so alone, and perhaps she wouldn't make any major mistakes?

You know, when you leave the hospital, unless you have a really incredible nursing staff, they won't go into a lot of in-depth talking about :

A. Which way to lay your newborn to sleep -on the belly or on the back?
B. What to do when your baby acts like it has a tapeworm and won't stop drinking, and screams when you won't give it anymore?
C. The proper way to fit a diaper, so it doesn't chafe against their little leg rolls and etc.

Yesterday we went to visit the grandbaby, which is becoming our usual Saturday routine. For the past couple Saturdays we have gone, and it is really quite wonderful. I'm always glad that when someone else is hogging the baby (THAT'S MY GRANDBABY. MINE. I WANT TO HOLD HER.) I have another very beautiful baby waiting in the bassinet who also likes my little stories about walking through the forest and fishing in the streams.

We called my stepdaughter on our way down, and told her we were coming. She told us we better re-think our plans.

Em was napping with Madeline yesterday, and when she woke up, Madeline was unconscious/unbreathing/un-heartbeating. She tried infant CPR, and waited for the EMT. They arrived, and after 45 minutes they were able to get a pulse back. Not good.

They sent her to Atlanta by helicopter, and put her in ICU. The prognosis wasn't good. From Z's accident 5 years ago, I know that anything over about 4+ minutes of non-pulse non-breathing means brain damage, usually life-support vegetative state brain damage. I can only imagine how vulnerable a 3-week-old would be to this kind of oxygen deprivation.

Last night, Z bought some movies for us to watch, hoping to kind of keep my mind off of the whole thing. In the middle of one, I made him take a bathroom break and I called stepdaughter. Stepdaughter was in the room with Em and Madeline, so I spoke with Em's momma. They were all going in there to kiss the baby goodbye, and that she wasn't going to make it.

I cried some, and watched the end of "Click" - which was really disappointing, by the way, except for the fact that for the first time ever, Adam Sandler was married to a chick who is hotter than him.

At the end of the movie, Am called me back, and just cried and cried - she couldn't tell me but I knew. I told her what my momma always told me about death:

Momma wishes that when she dies, it's in her sleep. No pain, just like ending a long dream that you never wake up from. She seems pretty sure that the dream you would have right before death would be a good one, thinking about your favorite memory or people.

So I told Am that it was a good way. A newborn dreaming away....nothing hurting her, nothing scaring her, just thinking about something wonderful that you can tell babies are dreaming about by the pinched up eyes they get with that wonderful, soft open-mouth.

It was after this phone call that I felt old. Really old. I was just talking to someone yesterday, before we took off to go see the babies, about how it is in my so-called plans to wait another four years before I have another. I have too much school to get through, you see. Z doesn't feel great about that - he'll be 40 this year. But he loves me, and says he'll do whatever he has to, baby-make or not, in order to be with me.

And here I am trying to make my adult stepdaughter feel better about the death of her god-daughter. The girl that was supposed to grow up with her own daughter, like two peas in a pod. It's a very weird feeling when people begin to rely upon you, when you know you certainly aren't that reliable. But they do. And having to come up with words that matter touches your own heart and makes you realize how hard it is to be a teacher. You have to craft what you say, carefully, and hope you don't misinform or mis-spell the things your heart is saying.

I liked what Z's mom told me last night. She said that if Madeline was really meant to be here, she will.

I hope it was a lovely dream, and I would've been honored if it was my story to her about the bunnies and the deer and the squirrels who let you pat them as you walk through the forest and eat apples.



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