Kim’s Birth Story, The Dawn of Our Autism Journey
We’ve shared about Autism Spectrum Disorder before, here, here and here, but we’ve never told Kim’s birth story, the dawn of our journey onto the spectrum. The first “chapter” of this story is in this post, if you wish to read it from the beginning, in chronological order.
This begins “Chapter 2”.
Kim’s Birth Story
“Dr. Deason wants us at the hospital at 5 a.m. on Monday. It’s only a week until due date, so she wants to get this baby born before the stress escalates.”
Our unborn baby girl’s heartbeat showed she was under stress, but the doctors had no idea why. The many sonograms didn’t show anything unusual. Her heartbeat was too fast, but steady, and had been for weeks. Her size was another concern. She was not growing per the typical last month schedule.
Therefore, the decision to pop me with Pitocin. (Which I so dreaded!)
My bag was packed.
I had my coming home clothes and baby’s new coming home outfit carefully folded and ready to go. In fact, suspecting she would likely be little, I made a second smaller outfit to take her home.
Outfit number 1 was a newborn size muslin dress and bonnet, with matching receiving blanket. The dress had rows and rows of pin tucks around the hem, and eyelet edging. The bonnet had pin tucks and eyelet. The blanket had a white flannel lining and eyelet edging. It was as sweet as can be.
Then I added a preemie muslin nightgown, also with pin tucks and eyelet, and so tiny it didn’t seem any baby could fit into it. I was wrong.
Pitocin and Natural Birth
That sounds like an oxymoron, right? I always felt that way, too.
But what can you do when the baby needs help getting into the world, or at least the doctors feel it does? Like I say, I was naïve and took them at their word. I took their word as the literal medical Biblical truth. And I don’t know if anything would be different today, because sometimes I don’t know the questions, never mind the answers.
They tucked me into one of the pretty dusty blue and mauve birthing rooms at the new Thunderbird Hospital Women’s Center. They hooked up the pit drip. Then, finally, about 3 hours later, labor began, slowly at first, then escalating.
I kept my thoughts harnessed to two things. Get “the job” done, practicing all the breathing tricks I ever learned. And second, the end result of my baby in my arms, taking her home to bond and love and nurture with the rest of my little family. I had the American dream and I knew it. A loving husband, almost 3 children, a nice DIY home and friends and family around me. And smiling down on all that: A benevolent God who gave me this dream.
Our dream life.
In fact, friends of ours believed we had an in with God, that He smiled especially on us, and everything went our way. They wondered why we were worthy of that status when nobody else was, and definitely not them. They had an American Dream, but the ride was bumpy. A new-build home with foundation issues. He didn’t know how to hang a picture, never mind deal with home repair. She didn’t know how to iron his shirts to meet his lawyer standards. Their first born got bit by a brown recluse spider, in his bassinet!, and spent weeks in hospital. Their second born had an extra chromosome, a type of downs syndrome. They didn’t realize these were all chances for the church family to show our love, another kind of status with God. (One we didn’t feel till much later.)
This is the birth story of our baby girl, not the story proving to old friends we also had our share of un-dreamy things, so we’ll pass on further argument to the above paragraph.
She’s A Ten!
“Aww, here she is!” and “Oh, she’s so little – but perfect!”
were the exclamations from the birthing team.
Yet we all held our breath a tiny bit.
What was that pre-natal stress the doctor worried about?
Then the nurse announced triumphantly, “She’s a ten!”
The Apgar test is given to a newborn one minute after birth, and again at five minutes. I don’t remember what the one minute test results were for our new baby girl, but the five minute test was perfect. She met all the criteria for perfection.
“In the test, five things are used to check a baby’s health. Each is scored on a scale of 0 to 2, with 2 being the best score:
-
- Appearance (skin color)
- Pulse (heart rate)
- Grimace response (reflexes)
- Activity (muscle tone)
- Respiration (breathing rate and effort)”
kidshealth.org
We relaxed, and began to enjoy this new journey.
They moved us to a post natal wing, and not long after a nurse wheeled the tiny bassinet into our room.
Where it stayed the entire 24 hours we did.
Big Brothers come to visit.
Our sons were lucky enough to have grandparents to keep them, whom they loved to stay with. And that evening they all came to see their little sister, and new first grand-daughter!
By that time we had decided on a name. It was so hard. We could not seem to find a name my husband and I both liked. He loved the name Kimberly; I wanted Kadie. Then I thought, “Kimberly Dawn shortened to K.D. would make us both happy.”
I knew exactly what a k.d. would be like as a teenager. I could picture it there in that hospital room, passing the hours with our precious tiny baby girl. Kimberly. Dawn. The dawn of a new journey.
I pictured a dream in that hospital room far removed from the actual life we lived. I can’t bring myself to tell you the nonsensical things that went through my mind. Which I don’t actually remember now, I only know I had a dream.
Every parent knows their child/children are the best, the most desirable, the smartest, the most popular. That never changes. Unless a parent grows up and begins to want reality instead of an out-of-touch bubble.
A bubble of denial.
And I have to admit, I spent many moments as a mom living a life only I imagined. Everyone else saw the reality, but I lived the dream.
Who’s to say whether that was good or bad?
Go here for
the Third Chapter of Kim’s Story,
the Dawn of Our Autism Journey
