Country in the City; Book One

Prologue ~ Part 2

My procedure was done on May 15th and then I was just left to wait for the answer to my question...

It's now July; the sixth to be exact. My mom and I went in to see doctor Marie. By now if any stuck I'd be almost two months. I could have taken a pregnancy test, but I was just too nervous to even try. So at doctor Marie's we got an ultra sound done.

Doctor Marie saw three heads. I'm pregnant! And not only am I pregnant, but I'm pregnant with triplets!! We are all so excited. Even though there are three tiny bodies in there I'm still not showing at all. I'm seven weeks and three days.

There is still a question repeating in the back of my mind: What if the pregnancy doesn't work?

***TWO MONTHS LATER***

It's now September, I'm five months pregnant. On the twenty-fourth, I start bleeding a lot. We rush to the emergency room to find out I had a miscarriage. This is heart-wrenching; I can hardly breathe. I feel like someone just stole a part of me they had no right to take.

How is one supposed to deal with this... this hurt?

Since I am five months in, the baby's tiny fingers have already grown. The little toes and adorable ears are in place. The nose and lips are formed. Just about everything has been formed at this point. All that was left are the organs. The doctors had to carefully, surgically remove the stillborn baby with out disturbing the other two. In this set of triplets, two are in one sack and one was in the other. The one that is still born is one of the two that are sharing a sac. This procedure is very dangerous to the other baby in the sac. The doctors were thankfully able to safely remove the one without any other complications.

This one who is still born is a boy. I had a photo shoot done to remember him by. I asked doctor Marie if she could pull some strings and figure out the sperm donors' middle name and sperm donors' fathers' middle name for me. That way it wouldn't be hurting the anonymous system at all and then I could have a piece of my baby's father for him. I don't know why I wanted to name him after his sperm donor father, but I just felt like it was right. I knew that the sperm donor wasn't ever going to have any part of any of my children's life's, but quite frankly that's how I wanted it. Either way though, I wanted this boy to have a piece of his sperm donor father. From all of this happening I was on an emotional roller coaster... again.

Doctor Marie was able to pull some strings and got the middle name of the sperm donor and the sperm donors' father. I ended up naming this little guy, Patrick James. Patrick after my father, and James after his sperm donor grandfather.

A week later we buried Patrick and got him a special tombstone, because although he is a still born baby, he is still a human being, he is still a baby, he is still my baby.

***TWO MONTHS LATER***

Now with November here I am seven and a half months pregnant. My senior year of high school has started and it's already not going as planned. I've been getting some pretty nasty looks from some people. Things like this really show you who your real friends are. No one understands the actual story. It's been rough but I'm learning to cope with it. Just taking every step with God and taking each school week one day at a time.

Since I'm only seventeen I still live with my parents. But I'm the youngest so everyone else has already moved out. My parents were going on a special weekend get away vacation but they didn't want me alone while I am so close to my due date. I'm still far out enough that nothing should happen, but better safe than sorry. So they told me I could have a friend over for the weekend. Naturally, I invited Syrene.

She decided that I needed to enjoy my last few weeks as a free, non-responsible, non-parent person.

I am still only seventeen and I am still pregnant, very pregnant for that matter, so there were some things we can't do but we don't want to do those things anyways. We went out to lunch and got our nails professionally done and then, to finish our outing, we got a coffee. With Syrene, you'll always get a coffee. Since I am pregnant though, I didn't get a coffee because I don't want to hurt the little people inside of me. Instead, I order a hot chocolate.

Back at my house on a Saturday afternoon I am starting to feel a little nauseated from all of the excitement. As we are walking into my house, my water breaks. I tell Syrene that there is no way that I am going to the doctor this early. They'll make me do all these things that I don't want to and I'll feel uncomfortable. They can just forget it. She agrees and helps me inside. She keeps a close eye on me as she quickly cleans the kitchen, putting everything she can into the freezer so it doesn't expire, packs a few last minute things into my hospital bag (including some snacks), and braids my hair back in a French braid for me.

Meanwhile, I call parents, my sisters: Ella and Amalya, my grandparents, and Syrene's parents who are practically my second parents. I also text my brother. Syrene starts packing her car with my hospital bag and yoga ball pump while I bounce on the yoga ball. I sent a few texts to some of my close friends.

After two hours of bouncing and rolling on the yoga ball, walking around and trying to get comfortable we were starting to be able to see the head of one. So then we decided that now was a good time to get to the hospital. I had already called doctor Marie two hours ago, so she is expecting us.

While Syrene is deflating and packing my yoga ball, I waddled out to her car. Once I finally made it out to her car, got in it, and buckled, I got a message from Ella saying that she was almost there. Thankfully, our hospital is local, so even though we haven't left yet, we are almost there too.

Syrene comes running out with the deflated yoga ball in hand. She jumps in the car and we're off. I could feel the baby coming more and more. We got to the train tracks and of course there is a train. We are stuck, waiting for the train for eight minutes! I am progressing more rapidly than most women and we aren't even at the hospital yet! I am starting to think that waiting wasn't the best idea after all. The whole head of the baby was almost out by the time we walked through the doors of the hospital.

Once they got me to my room, the baby's entire head is out and they immediately have me pushing. Three pushes and my beautiful little girl is out. She takes in a big breath and screams a healthy scream. Ella and Syrene are by my side the whole time and my mom runs in just in time to see my beautiful little girl take her first breath.

Eight minutes later my darling little boy is born. But he is silent.

No cry. No scream. No breath.

The doctor and some nurses immediately cut the umbilical cord and rush out of the room. I cannot loose two of my babies. I already lost Patrick, I can't loose this little guy too.

While my little boy has been rushed out, the other nurses weigh, measure, and bathe my little girl. They let me have the honors of putting her first outfit on her.

I figure 'what better time than now to announce the names?'

So I tell my family and friends who are in the room at that time, "I am proud to announce that today, November twenty-second, 2017, at 4:04pm Kayleigh Abigail was born, and at 4:12pm today, her little brother Kyle Jay was born."

Just then a nurse walks in, "Abigail, I'm sorry to say but your son is... uhm... in the... NICU at this time." She stutters out. "But we got him breathing!" She adds with a slight smile.

I am overwhelmed with happiness that they got Kyle breathing but worry washes over my faces when I realize that she had also said he is in the NICU. I've always wanted to be a NICU, Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, doctor so I know a few things about there. One of which being that only thirty percent survive, meaning that seventy percent die.

Turns out he has really weak lunges since he was born early.

More waiting... I guess God really wants me to work on my patience.

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"Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for Him... those who wait for the LORD shall inherit the land."
~ Psalm 37:7-9