After a looooong pregnancy we came to the last month. My regular ob/gyn was going out of town for 2 weeks and believed our little bluebird would come before she returned therefore she scheduled us with another nurse practitioner who would make sure Iolani's arrival into this world came without a glitch. I mean why wouldn't it, we had been told that we had had the "perfect pregnancy" and that our little girl was super healthy! How exciting...the anticipation grew every day, every moment for me as M.T. and I had planned to deliver our baby naturally....no drugs, hypno-birthing style. It was to be the most miraculous moment of my life. Birthing my little girl and feeling every sensation, every movement, every pain, every facet of life...I was ready and willing to climb that mountain peak and bring forth a beautiful creature to bless this Earth with her existence. We bought our birthing ball, we took classes, we learned the positions and massages that would help, we created an amazing play list of my favorite music to play as she came into this world. HALT!!! All that went out the window as we were brutally pushed into the realization (by a not-so-tactful hospital staff) that our little girl was in danger. We went in to get a version to turn our little breeched monkey and instead we were told she had hydrocephalus. As you might guess, we were not expecting this nor did we even have a clue what the doctors were talking about!! What the hell was hydrocephalus? They left the room to "give us a moment" and all M.T. and I could think was what are they talking about...so as we do (us lovers of jeopardy, conspiracy, wikipedia) we called the person that might have the closest access to the net and asked her to look it up. She explained to us that it was a condition where the ventricles close and the cerebral fluid builds up in the brain and expands the baby's head. But as she kept researching she found that it could be fixed with a shunt and the baby would go on to have a normal life. Yippeee!! Although it was scary it was curable and that's all we cared about! Moving on to post initial assesment, days later we were told that not only did she have hydrocephalus but she also had cysts on her brain that most likely were caused by a stroke and that she had severe brain damage. And "that they were sorry". This was all two weeks before she was due! A later call from that same doctor advised us that because she was so "damaged" we should consider terminating her life but that of course, she wouldn't ethically do it herself. Wow! What a big pill to swallow. I was numb. I didn't know how to react except to tell her that that was not an option. How could we after 9 months of growing our little seed give her up without any chance of life? I have failed to mention, by the way, my little girl was hyper active. She kicked me starting from 4 months on. And they weren't soft little nudges they were full blown karate kicks and punches. I knew she was there and she was willing to fight so therefore M.T. and I were too! We decided to go ahead and schedule an appointment with a neo-natologist in Oakland because the NICU was extremely well-equipped there for our little girl. I had cried my eyes out by this point so I thought whatever he said would slide off my back like water. I mean our decision was made. We just needed to figure out the birth plan. Once again, we were faced with a not-so-tactful medical professional who went on to tell us that hopefully our baby would pass away in utero so as not to have to deal with the severely damaged child we were about to birth. That our child would never play ball or go to school and would most likely die once cut from my body. I sat there staring and weeping while I just watched his lips move up and down. How could this be? How could they be so quick to give up on her? As we were rushed out of his office to meet with another doctor he said, "i hate my job sometimes"....and once again M.T. and I stood firm...we would have her no matter what. Our final appointment before scheduling the birth (as we had no option but to have her by c-section due to the massive size of her head not being able to fit through the birth canal without killing her) was to the pediatric neuro-surgeon who would perform Iolani's brain surgery to place the shunt in her head in order to drain the cerebral fluid. This one we were terrified of. We had been told that Dr. Pang had no bedside manner and that he would be the harshest doctor to date. As I held M.T.'s hand in the waiting room a part of me wanted to just run, run as fast I could away from all these doctors and hospitals, have my baby in nature, in solitude and pretend that all these things weren't real. BUT THEY WERE. And thus, I stayed. And as we were ushered into his office I became angry. I was determined to give him a piece of my mind before he even said a word. However, he was not the demon he was made out to be. He explained to us that nothing was guaranteed. No one knew anything until she was born. The extent of her damage looked severe but he wouldn't be able to fully tell until she came out. After getting to know us for a little while he felt confident that no matter how she came out, we would adore her and do everything in our power to help her so he got on board with us and planned Iolani's arrival.
