The Life-Change Experience of Having Child at 41, Pt4

The hospital decided to release me on Halloween of that year, and because my son was still in the NICU I went back and forth from my apartment to the hospital for the last bit of his stay. When it was time for him to come home, Elizabeth and her boyfriend picked us up and brought us back to the apartment and helped me set up our mattress in the only bedroom as I didn’t have the time previously to set it up myself due to going back to work.

At that point my life as a new mother began again.

I put my son to sleep, and he slept the whole entire evening until he woke up in the middle of the night for me to feed him.

When I woke up the next day I had a sense of depression come over me. I felt so alone in that apartment. My son was still asleep, so I had time to process everything that had been happening to me. Again, my fiance is in Africa, so there was very little he could do to contribute to our son’s life. There was a song that was playing in my head, called “I Miss You” by Aaron Hall, which added to my depression because I missed my fiance so much. I decided to watch the video on my phone. Although that probably wasn’t the best idea.

The song is about a couple who either the girlfriend or wife become pregnant and while in her third trimester of the pregnancy, the girl begins having contractions. Her man rushes her to the hospital and finally gives birth to a baby boy, but she was not responding. Time goes by and apparently, her man gets a call from the hospital and rushes back with a friend. But when they got there it was too late. His girlfriend passed away from complications, so he ended up being a single father.

From that moment on, I tended to have sad songs playing in my head a lot. There were days that I felt good, but the pressure of finances and my baby’s father not being around made it very difficult to cope with everything. I dealt with it, but it seems as if I ended up with postpartum depression.

I couldn’t blame it on my son because he didn’t ask for this. I had to make it work for both of our well-being. I depended on government assistance for food stamps, as well as receiving Medicaid assistance for my son’s medical needs. But the most they awarded me was $241 a month! What can a mother with a newborn really do with $241 a month? But that wasn’t the worst of it…

I was supposed to go back to work on December 8, 2014. Shortly before that I got a call from the staffing agency that had placed me at Express Scripts. They told me that the company no longer needed me. Actually, I was on my way at the library with my son when the call came. I was so devastated that when I got to the library at first I didn’t even get out of the car. However, eventually I did and got to do what I had to do.

Somewhere around March 2015, I slowly began to get back on my feet. I went back to work at the job I had been working weekends for, which was the Hyatt Regency Orlando. I started working for them again in late January or early February. Also at that time I became a full-time employee because I needed the money.

So from the time I brought my son home in November 2014 until March 2015 I was financially unstable and only received little assistance from my church. They helped me with a few of my bills, but I was still behind on my car note and some other bills.

Becoming a mother again so late in life can be challenging, but I wouldn’t change it for anything!

 

 

The Life-Change Experience of Having Child at 41, Pt3

So there I was, at the Winnie Palmer Hospital all by myself feeling so lonely. I went through the whole labor procedure by myself with no one by my side. The father is all the way in West Africa, what could he have done from that far away?

My son was born on October 28, 2014 at approximately 12:30 AM and came out grunting and breathing heavily. When he was born, he had low blood sugar so they kept him in the Newborn Intensive Care Unit (NICU) the whole time until it was time to bring him home; which wasn’t until November 2, 2014.

I remember being in so much pain in the beginning because of the C-section that I had to be wheeled to the elevators to go down to where the NICU was so I could see my son.

I would sometimes go to where he was and breast-feed him, though half of the time he was fed formula. I remember constantly pumping milk using the breast pump kit one of the nurses provided for me while sitting up on the bed in the room. There was a picture of my son which was taken by the nurse who provided me the breast feeding kit and gave it to me to keep so that each time I would pump, it would give me something to think about and a good reason to give my new son my breast milk due to the fact that he has been in the NICU.

Fast forward, a coworker by the name of Elizabeth came to visit me in the hospital. She came the following Tuesday in the evening, and assisted me with my small suitcase and other things that I needed at my apartment, after I gave her the keys to go in and get them for me.

In fact, she was God-sent because she was the only middle person between me and the place we worked at (Express Scripts). Meaning that people from work provided some gifts for my son, but obviously since I was unable to go to work and needed to rest, Elizabeth bought everything to the house when he came home on November 2, 2014.

 

Please continue to part four!

The Life-Change Experience of Having Child at 41, Pt2

After speaking with the father all the way from Africa, that sense of peace flowed through

me and all of the negative things I had been about the pregnancy the whole time

subsided as if they were never there. I continued on to work. When I arrived there I

completed my work with the thought of the conversation and the peaceful feeling still

fresh in my mind.

Fast forward, somewhere around September I started having bad hiccups. They would

occur periodically and could last up to 20-30 minutes! When I would talk with people, I

would not be able to have a straight conversation without a case of the hiccups that were

so bad that they made me vomit every time. Even though I went to the emergency room

for it, and the doctors gave me some prescriptions, they did not work at all.

On the night of September 25, I was sitting in my bathtub in my apartment, going

through the hiccup phase, until all of a sudden they made me feel as if I was choking

along with them. After a moment the food that I had eaten that day came up in the

bathtub. I felt so much better afterwards and for the rest of the night. But unfortunately,

they returned the next day while I was in a business meeting.

They essentially lasted until I gave birth to my son.

On the evening of October 27, I was going for my normal NST (Non-Stress Test) check

up at the Winnie Palmer Children’s Hospital. But that day. It didn’t turn out to be so

normal…

As usual, I laid down on the bed and they wired me up to monitor the baby. After a few

hours went by one of the nurses came in to tell that they would have to keep me

because they saw a “dip” on the test while they were watching from their database

system. The nurse did not give me an option because of the fact that the baby would be

at risk if I took the chance and went home that night. I was so unprepared though. I had

a little traveling bag that I started packing so that when the time came I would have

everything ready.

Another reason I didn’t have an option was because during a previous visit there was a

dip in the test. That had been on a Sunday evening and the hospital wanted to keep me

there for at least 12 hours, However, I chose to stay for 6 hours and then go home.

But this particular day, I was debating whether or not I should take the chance and go

home anyway and at least get my things that I started packing up or have someone go

to my apartment to get my things and bring them to me at the hospital. Finally, I decided

that I had no other option but to stay and see if I could find somebody that could come to

the hospital so that I could give them the keys to my apartment so they could go and get

my things. That was the only thing I was worried about, other than letting my supervisor

know that I was admitted.

Since I did have my phone, all I needed to do was to charge it in the room they had

given me after I was admitted. I needed to see who could be of assistance to me, so I

could get through my stay more easily.

While my phone was charging, the nurse came in and checked me to see if I was

anywhere close to dilating, but unfortunately I wasn’t, and gave the doctors no choice

but to do a C-section on me (for the second time since I had to have one with my very

first son). I was then stripped down and drenched with some type of body chemical the

hospital uses before they perform a C-section. After that, they got me into a wheelchair

to wheel me away to the next floor up where I would be p prepped for surgery, and also

to have me sign somewhat of a death warrant, just in case I didn’t wake up after the

surgery.

*Please continue to part 3*

The Life-Change Experience of Having a Child at 41, Pt1

FROM EMOTIONS TO SOLUTIONS

Surprisedly and unexpectedly, I was pregnant with my second child at forty going on forty one in 2014. No, that was not what I wanted because I was not ready for it in fact, I was in a way living in denial after I came back to the united states from taking a long trip to the Gambia West Africa which is where I met my fiance for the first time face to face. I stayed in denial from March through July 21, 2014 until I got the nerve to go and take a pregnancy test at the clinic. Then I found out it was true, I was pregnant! I did not want to accept the fact that I was. I remember shedding tears and more tears at the family clinic. They sent me to go and draw some blood work, I cried, and cried and cried saying to myseld how I did not want to have the child because I was so not ready for it, again. But eventually, the truth would have to come out because there was a time or two around May/June 2014 while sitting in front of my computer in my small one bedroom apartment, I felt a very slight kick or a nudge in my stomach.

During those times before going to the doctor I was taking over-the-counter prescription drugs and several herbs and home remedies to get rid of the pregnancy. Trust me having an abortion was the last thing on my mind that I did not want to go that  route at all. There was one particular herb I was using and started my cycle back again. I got excited and felt relieved that I did not have to worry about if I was pregnant or not anymore. At least that’s what I thought but my cycle only lasted for a moment and did not see it again. I did not want to over do it by using these over-the-counter prescription drugs nor the herbs and remedies excessively because I did not want to harm myself. Honestly I was thinking more about myself then the baby.

On July 22, 2014 I went to First Life Pregnancy Center to do another test to verify if I’m truly pregnant, though I knew I was but also for my fiancé’ sake, I did it for him. As I went there they sat me down in a room to watch a video about adoption, since this was a Christian-base environment owned by one of the biggest churches in Florida-First Baptist Church of Orlando, they did not approve or accept any abortion ideas, but rather encourage adoption instead if the mother-to-be does not want their baby. So I watched the video on a few stories of women who gave their babies up for adoption and how relieved they felt. But as I was watching and listening to the stories, I’m saying to myself “how can I give this child up and allow to live with myself?” How can I go to bed at night and feeling comfortable that somebody else is raising my kid?” This child also have a father and he has the right to express how he would feel about all of this.

when the video finished the lady took me into the sonogram room to see how the baby is developing in me and what gender is he/she. Well, the baby was about 5 months old and it was a boy! I was talking with the ladies that were in the sonogram room expressing I was feeling about all of this and if it was too late to get an abortion. One of them said that it was already too late to get one because the baby was already fully developed and well alive and if I was to go and get an abortion anyway,  I would have to consider that as the abortion doctors performing the termination they would have to cut up the baby in parts and the baby already have feelings in his nerves. In other words he will be going through some tremendous pain and agony when undergoing being chopped up like the other unfortunate little ones that gone through the same thing.

I drove away on my way to work that day of July 22, 2015. I called the father and told him how I was feeling about all of this; and of course I must consider his feeling too on having this baby. I had to think about how would he feel about me making my own decisions whether it would have been an adoption or an abortion. He is all the way in Africa, as I am talking to myself. What can he do about it? But I called him and told that I went for a second sonogram and it is truly confirm that there is a baby inside of me. As I was telling him about those few moments at the pregnancy center, I remember telling him how I was so not ready at all for a child, but I don’t remember telling him word for word that I was considering abortion. However, at the sound of my voice he knew how I was feeling and that I a part of me did not want this child. All of a sudden as he was sharing how he felt, he made this statement saying: “baby, you are my wife to be, please do not hurt the child you should keep him, when I come to the United States we’re going to get married and I will be there with you and the baby”. Just when I said those words, it was as if the dark clouds were being lifted up from me and the way I was feeling about the pregnancy, my emotions about it started changing. I felt a sense of peace and acceptance for the baby after speaking with the father.

*Please continue to part 2*