The Crazy Chronicles, Part 14: The Miracle of Love

“Birth is the sudden opening of a window, through which you look out upon a stupendous prospect. For what has happened? A miracle. You have exchanged nothing for the possibility of everything.” - William MacNeile Dixon


Thursday, 3 p.m.

"He was late. All my children were late. I turned fifteen two months before he was born."

"Tell me."

I began.


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I was scheduled for an induction to begin at 8 a.m. I didn't care what an induction was, I only knew that this, all of this, was finally going to be over. I could leave this horrible dorm and the girls who found great sport in the game of making me cry and I could go home.

Vicki, my counselor, picked me up at 5 a.m. We left for the hospital and she left me to my thoughts. I wasn't scared. I had been at the dorm long enough to go through two Lamaze series and I knew the anatomy of the act in great detail. I knew there would be pain. I knew that my decision to keep the baby with me for my stay in the hospital was one that was extremely confusing to those around me. "Why torture yourself, Crystal?" I knew, without a doubt, that I had to hold him and tell him in my own words why I chose to do what I was doing.

We checked in and I was immediately given an enema. The process was swift and impersonal and I felt my face burn with embarrassment as I held my gown together and hobbled to the bathroom.

When I emerged, pale and slightly nauseated, my Mother was in the room. I crawled onto the bed and held her hand as my pubic hair was shaved away. An IV was inserted to begin the pitocin drip which would cause my uterus to contract, thereby encouraging my very comfortable, unborn son to begin his descent into the world. My doctor made an appearance to perform a cursory pelvic exam, spoke briefly to the nurse and said she would see me when I was ready to deliver. I took a deep breath and closed my eyes.

I was relaxed and calm, lulled into a state of easy daydreams by the murmurings of conversation between my Mother and Vicki. My Mom was never comfortable with silence, so she made small talk about the crappy weather and her drive to San Antonio. Vicki obliged her by sharing a recipe for salsa. I felt the first twinges of discomfort and changed position on the bed. My Mother used this as an opportunity to turn away from the conversation (they were now talking about poodles. Holy shit, I thought, just SHUT UP) and gently stroke my hair. I leaned into her cool hand and the comforting smell of her Oil of Olay.

Within twenty minutes, I was sitting up, bug-eyed and panicked. "Mom, this hurts."

"I know, sweetheart. Take slow, deep breaths."

I looked at her and grimaced. "How about a slow, deep shot of morphine?"

"You can't have anything, yet," the nurse growled.

"I believe that was rhetorical," Vicki snapped back. There were so many times in my knowing her that she voiced something I was simply unable to. I loved her ferociously for that.

Within half an hour, I was panting in pain. I was watching the contraction monitor and when one would end, I would lay limp and exhausted. It seemed like mere seconds before one began, again. I started pleading and bargaining with anyone who would listen when I saw that needle start to escalate. "Please, please, please. Make it stop, stop, it has to stop, I can't do this!"

The nurse finally brought me a shot of Demerol and I felt very light-headed before the vomiting began. In between contractions so intense I was writhing on the bed and howling, I would wretch. I wanted to die.

"You need to shut up!" My nurse barked. "You're going to scare other patients!"

I screamed into my pillow while Vicki took the nurse by the arm and dragged her into the hallway. When they returned, I heard the nurse muttering about being an Army nurse and how she had never seen someone so hysterical while giving birth. Vicki rounded on her and hissed, "She's barely fifteen. If you're unable to display any compassion, I'm sure another nurse can take your place, here."

I would turn all of this over and over in my head, later, but right now, I didn't care. All I wanted was for this indescribable pain to stop. I was dying, one scream at a time and someone had the power to make this STOP.

My Mother took my hand in both of hers. "Do you want some ice chips, babe?"

I bit the meaty part of her hand, instead. I bit hard. She never even flinched.

When the contraction had finished and I was able to breathe, I knew something was different.

"Something's wrong," I said. No one seemed to hear me. "Something's wrong," I said, again.

The nurse looked at the clock on the wall.

"You have some time, yet," she said. "First baby's take a while."

"No, something is happening. Something...I need to go to the bathroom. Now."

She clucked her tongue and slipped on an exam glove. "I have to check you before you can go to the bathroom." She lifted the sheet, lifted my gown and gasped. "Do not push!" The white phone was used, urgency was transmitted and a flurry of activity distracted me from my pain, momentarily. My doctor barged into the midst of this and began issuing orders. My bed's brakes were disengaged and people were wheeling me away from my labor room. I held onto my Mom's hand until we were forcibly separated.

"You can't be in the delivery room!" a new nurse told my Mom.

"She's my daughter! I have to be with her!"

"I'm sorry, ma'am, you can't go in. You can see her in recovery."

My feeble protests went unheard as we slipped through shiny, metal doors and the world disappeared behind me. Everything here was clean and cold.

"Push when I tell you, stop when I stay stop. Clear?"

"Yes!" I cried.

"Ok, on my count. One, two, three, PUSH!"

My head was going to burst. My body was ripping in half.

"Stop! Stop, Crystal! Stop, dammit!"

"NNNNNNNNHHHHHHH!" I was primal and beyond following instructions of listening to my elders and authority figures. I was fucking dying.

"She's going to tear if I don't..."

I felt a stinging sensation and then felt and heard my son's head being born. The relief was so incredible that I began laughing uncontrollably.

"Crystal, one more big push for his shoulders!"

I pushed. His body slid out of mine, still connected by that magical cord and he was laid on my belly. My God, the weight of him! He's heavy! I looked down into his face and everything I had ever known until that moment became insignificant. I was looking at the first thing I had ever done that was beautiful and perfect and the magnitude of it was enough to shelter us from the noises and sterility around us. We gazed at each other and in that brief second, someone needed me. And then my son began to turn blue.

"Bag!" a nurse screamed. My baby was roughly torn away from me and placed in the warmer. They started running out of the room while I begged someone to help me understand.

"What's wrong with my baby?" I pleaded.

A nurse turned and patted my hand. "You're giving him away, so don't worry about it right now."

I felt like I had been slapped. Is this why I was being treated in such a dismissive manner? Because I was placing my baby for adoption?

I didn't feel the stitches. I didn't feel the warm saline or the doctor's hand as she checked for remnants of my placenta. I felt nothing but a burning desire to kill every fucking person in the room.

When I was moved to recovery, I turned my head toward the wall and refused to answer questions. It was my one small rebellion against a hostile environment.

"You have to pee before we can move you to your room, Crystal."

A bed pan was placed under me. The simple process of peeing made me hiss. When that was over, I was moved to my room. My Mother was on the phone with one of my Aunts. She was fighting with herself and two of her sister's who couldn't have babies. "It's her choice. We can't...she's too young. She wants a better life for him."

I waited for what seemed an eternity before a doctor finally came in.

"Crystal? I'm Dr. Lipscomb, NICU. The baby is fine. His lung deflated because he aspirated some fluid, but he's doing great, now."

"Thank you. Thank you so much."

It was seven o'clock in the evening. I slept for awhile.


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"You kept him in the room with you?" The therapist brought me out of my reverie.

"Yes. It didn't take long for me to truly grasp how much work a baby is. And my God, when he passed the meconium, I think I shit my pants."

"How long did you stay?"

"Two days. The day I left, a really sweet nurse brought me a car seat. She started explaining how to use it and gushing about the baby before she noticed the guppy face I was making. When I told her I was a Buckner girl, she fell to pieces apologizing. I felt bad for her."

"Did the adoptive parents pick him up at the hospital?"

"No. The ice came and they couldn't fly in. He was in foster care for seven days while I sat in the dorm and...then they came."

She looked at her watch. "Go ahead. I don't have anyone after you."

I knew Chris was probably already here, but I needed to finish this.

"I picked them from a folder. That's weird, you know? Looking at these pictures of people and deciding whether or not you're going to change their life and make their dreams come true. It's hard to put one aside, knowing they aren't the ones. But I knew when I saw them and read about them that they were his parents. I put him in their arms. We all cried and they thanked me, over and over. When I left..." I paused and took a shuddering breath. "When I had to leave, they were standing as a family, praying. I'll never forget that."

"Who was there with you?"

"No one. Not upstairs, where we finalized everything. My Mom waited for me. When we left, she turned the radio on. I had the pillow from the hospital that I fed him on and I put it to my face to smell him. The song, "I'll Be There For You", came on and I started sobbing when I heard the line, "When you breathe, I wanna be the air for you", because of what happened when he was born. That's still my song to him."

We sat in silence for a moment. "How was your homecoming?"

"My brother had put up balloons for me to welcome me home. My Dad was drunk. I had a couple of weeks to recover before I had to go back to school. And then, when I did, it got so bad that I couldn't be at home, anymore. So, I left."

"We'll pick up there."

And so we will.

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"And I wasn't there when you were happy
I wasn't there when you were down
I didn't mean to miss your birthday, baby
I wish I'd seen you blow those candles out
I'll be there for you
These five words I swear to you
When you breathe I want to be the air for you
I'll be there for you
I'd live and I'd die for you
Steal the sun from the sky for you
Words can't say what a love can do
I'll be there for you"