Ula, who danced in the womb

MAY, 1989

I had been working in the infant room of a daycare all day and was tired. I was almost 6 months pregnant and I was tired a lot of the time. I had also promised to come into work early the next morning to hang a teddy bear print wallpaper border around my classroom, even though it was Saturday, so I needed my sleep.The baby was not tired, though. I could feel it moving.

We didn't know yet if the baby was a boy or a girl, because during the ultrasound its feet had been up near its forhead and it had refused to unfold.

I laid down on the waterbed and was about to drift off to sleep when I felt the kick. Then I felt damp. I grumbled about the baby kicking my blatter and got up to change my night gown. My husband was busy studying in the livingroom and he kept right on working, concidering this as unimportant as I did. I got cleaned up and went back to bed, only to feel an even larger gush of water. "My water broke!" I yelled.

Within minutes I was dressed in a shapeless red dress (which I would never see again after that night) and we were both in the car driving to the nearest hospital in a panic. I walked into the emergency room and told the attendant what was going on and was told that my doctor would not come to that hospital, so I would have to go to the hospital he worked at, a half hour drive away, in another town. They gave me a blue pad to sit on in the car and sent us on our way.

Again I walked into an emergency room and told the attendent what had happened, but that time I had a very different response. "What are you doing standing up!" Demanded the attendent. A gurney appeared almost instantly and I was told to lay down. The panic I felt from the medical staff became my panic and the stress caused contractions to start.

The doctor arrived and busied himself finding out what he could about the condition of the baby and myself. He discovered that I had "strep" and a nurse came into the room with an I.V. bag full of antibiotics on a rolling stand. She inserted the needle into my left arm near the wrist, taped it down and left the room. She had not been gone long, though, when I noticed that rather than going into my vane, the clear sticky liquid was running down the outside of my arm.

As the nurse stuck me with the needle again, the doctor explained that I could not have such a small baby in their hospital. They didn't have the equipment necessary to take care of such a small premie, so, they were going to have me taken by ambulence to a much larger hospital in one of the Chicago subburbs. The nurse stuck me with another needle, this one containing something that would stop the contractions and again I was put on a gurney.

As they wheeled me out of the little brick hospital building, I could hear a woman screaming from the top floor. The nurse walking alongside me looked down at her watch as we heard the woman scream for the second time. "Contractions, five minutes apart," she said smiling.

I must have finally drifted off to sleep, because I remember very little about my first ambulence ride, but as we appoached Luthern General Hospital, I woke up. One of the E.M.T.s pointed out the massive building we were going to and told me that the hospital where they had picked me up could fit in just one wing of this hospital. The driver and nurse discussed the large group of anti-abortion protesters blocking the front entrance as we pulled around to the door where I would be unloaded.

I was taken to a ward that was only for problem pregnancies and told that I would have to stay in bed at all times. This would be my home for most of the next 5 weeks. That first day, I had no roommate, but I would go through 10 all together before I was released.



June 9, 1989

I had been in a room at Lutheran General Hospital, in Park Ridge, Il. for four weeks. Several women had shared my room with me for a day or more, but they had all gone into labor and been taken away. Only one came back to visit me and let me know that things had gone well for her and her new son.
Every day the doctor would peek in the door and ask the same questions about my condition, so I no longer even let him ask. He would just stick his head through the door and I would say "no, no ,and no." He would smile or say "good" and go on to the next room.
The idea was to keep the baby inside of me as long as possible so she could continue developing. I had spent the first two weeks of my stay on my back. It was only after I was allowed to get up to use the bathroom, that it was explained that the umbilical cord was so small when I was first admitted, that it could have slipped out causing both the baby and me to bleed. The bed rest had worked so far and the baby looked fine on the ultrasounds and, except for very loud hick-ups almost constantly, sounded good on the heart monitor.
Almost a month to the day from the time I arrived at the hospital, water started pouring down the wall behind my head and I had to be moved to the room next door, while workmen tore into the wall to repair a broken pipe.
I had spent much of my hospital stay watching the updates on television of the pro-democracy protests at Tienamen Square in China and the subsequent slaughter of the students by the Chinese army. That particular evening, however, I did not have control of the television and was not interested in what my new roommate was watching, so I had turned off the sound box that hung from my bed rail and stared reading Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency and eating Reeses Peanutbutter Cups ( the latter had been a gift from Jasper's mom, who had given me a bag with 6 packs of Reeses after I had begged Jasper to get me some for almost the whole month, but he had refused saying "I don't want my baby being made of junk food").
After finishing all 6 packs, I was still reading when I felt a really big and somewhat painful movement in my abdomen. "I think the baby finally turned!" I announced to my roommate, "I just felt it!" For my entire hospital stay, the doctors, nurses and I had watched for a change in the baby's position, so I could give birth without a C-section, but the chances of her turning had been pretty slim, because I was leaking amniotic fluid just as fast as my body could produce it.
My roommate congradulated me and I went back to reading. Fifteen minutes later, I had the same feeling again. That time I called the nurse. I described the feeling and asked, "Is the baby turning or am I having contractions?" She placed her hand on my abdomen just intime for the next movement.
"You're having contractions," she announced and quickly left to make arrangements for the delivery.
There was a sudden burst of activity around me. Nurses ran in and out of the room. They hooked me up to an I.V., checked the position of the baby (still feet first), and found the doctor. I called my husband just before they wheeled me off to another room.
In the pre-op room, I was given an epidural (a shot near my spine to numb my lower body) and left by myself. The door had been closed, so for the first time in a long time I was truely alone.The pain killer crept through my body, making each part it affected feel icy cold. I began to shake. "The World at War" blared from the television set for awhile and then PBS went off the air and a test panel accompanied by a shrill noise came on. I had no remote control for the television and could not get out of bed.
A nurse finally peeked in the door and upon hearing the noise, turned off the t.v. before departing again.
I was still shaking and now was being driven crazy be piped in easy listening music ( I had only had two cassettes from home to listen to during my hospital stay, neither was Neil Diamond, which was what I was now being forced to listen to. One was the Kinks and the other was the Cure.)
Another nurse came into the room and poked me in various places with a pin to see if I could feel anything. She told me they were ready for me now.
Jasper arrived just as I was being carted down the hall and he was quickly given a set of green scrubs and sent into a room to dress.
I was taken to a room full of equipment and medical personel. The people were all introduced to me, but if I had never seen them before , I just ignored the introduction. A sheet was put up so that I couldn't see past my middle and the doctors went to work.
My husband entered the room after I had been cut open and they placed him on a stool next to my head, so he could talk to me and hold my hand, which was still shaking violently. " Well, now I know you inside and out." He tried to joke.
About the same time as they removed Ula from me, I threw up all the peanutbutter cups and Jasper had to hold the bed pan for me.
As the doctor lifted the baby from my body, the tiny Ula straightened her leg and a piece of my tissue that had wrapped around the leg cut into it just below the knee. She was only 4 pounds, 3 ounces when she was born and it was still 2 months too soon, but she had strong lungs and could breath on her own.
The piece of tissue that had cut her leg was called Amniotic Band and the doctor told us what a blessing it had been that she was born when she was, because it had saved her leg. If her leg had continued to grow with the band around it, by the time she was full term it would have amputated her lower leg.