December 8, 2002

• Death.

  
  

  When I think of heaven
  Deliver me in a black-winged bird
  I think of flying
  down into a sea of pens and feathers
  and all other instruments of faith and sex and God
  In the belly of a black-winged bird
  Don't try to feed me
  cuz' I've been here before and I deserve a little more
  - Counting Crows - Rain King.

  
  

  I've been thinking quite a lot about dying lately. Dying as in 'happening to me' not as in some far-off existential loop of my brain.

  
  

  It's been a real shock.

  
  

  Let me explain. I am 7 months pregnant with what will be my second and last child. My first child was delivered via emergency c-section 2 weeks early, since my liver was about to rupture. This is due to an odd anomalous condition which seems to have no discernible cause, called HELLP syndrome. HELLP syndrome is a by-product of pregnancy for a rare group of women, unfortunately, if you got it with your first, you've a 25% chance of getting it again.

  
  

  HELLP syndrome can result in liver rupture, blindness, kidney damage, brain damage, fetal retardation and er... death.

  
  

  Death for me, death for the baby.

  
  

  And the scary thing is that it really comes on very suddenly, and in early stages, masquerades as a host of benign things - none of which would send you to a doctor. Most notably fluid retention.

  
  

  So now you know.

  
  

  My hands resemble sausages and my face is a moonpie and my feet no longer fit into the Birkenstocks my parents gave me the last time I was pregnant. I have mild heartburn, dots in front of my eyes when I bend over and generally feel like crap.

  
  

  And I am so scared.

  
  

  I am scared because THIS time, I know the risks to myself and my baby. The last time was a horrible unforeseen event and I was blissfully ignorant. This time, I am not so lucky.

  
  

  I look at my daughter as she busily whacks her dollies and sends them to the corner for time-out and hope that isn't what she has internalised of my mothering. I hope she'll remember more than just a vague blurry outline of a woman stroking her damp head after a nightmare, or kissing her tummy - but I doubt it, she's so young.

  
  

  What kind of a mother leaves her daughter behind before she's three? I am so angry at myself. Angry that I didn't do more research, listen to the doctors, that I was so selfish in my desire to have another a child that I blinded myself to the fact that with Lupus, a history of this and being over 35 - I was a prime candidate to get this again.

  
  

  What is the point of having another child if you aren't around to mother it? Or leaving the child you've already got, motherless? I'd like to kick myself.

  
  

  I am selfish. I want to be around to argue with my kids over their choice of clothing, or their stupid haircuts. I want to drag my underage daughters out of bars at 3am, and get narky with school principals who give them a hard time.

  
  

  I want healthy girls. I don't want my baby to suffer because I was stupid. I'd rather she wasn't here at all if she has to live her life impaired because her mother didn't think past her own selfish heart. How am I going to explain this?

  
  

  Of course, it may all turn out alright. And I hope fervently that it will. Because my life is certainly NOT in order, I am certainly not the person I wish to be, and certainly, I haven't done everything I want to do. But I may not get a choice in this. And the choice I made got me to this point - which is one of the most pointless and painful realisations I've made in the past couple of days. My choice, my fault.

  
  

  And all I can bring myself to do is... nothing. I go on as if life is normal, as if I feel fine, as if I am over reacting to it all so as not to alarm anyone. Nodding and smiling and surreptiously sitting down whenever possible. Hoping no one notices that I am not at all well. Because if THEY notice, you see - then it isn't all in my head. Then it's happening. And I then have to confront all the nightmares and dark thoughts that I hide in the back of my head.

  
  So I see the doctor tomorrow, and will get the verdict. Courage.
  

  So many things I haven't done. So many things I regret. And I still hide and smile, because the thought that I might die is so terrible and so awful that I can't get my head around it.

  • 11:15 pm
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