Gwen, Sept. 20-27, 1989
Gwendolyn Elizabeth Hommel was born quite unexpectedly one afternoon. Babies are supposed to come out head first, while some ornery types come out bottom or feet first. (I was a breech baby, btw.) But, they just can't come out sideways. |
| Gwen asleep |
The doctor tried coaxing Gwen head down, and she obliged. For about 10 minutes. And again, but the heart rate monitor started showing signs of distress. So, we went to the hospital, so hands and soft words could try and convince her while we watched under the ultrasound to stop being quite so transverse.
After another hour, the doctor shrugged, and told us that he wanted to perform an emergency C-section. Immediately. Babies don't come out sideways, leastways not while they are still alive, and the experience is none too good for the mother, either. He didn't want to send us home and risk labor progressing too far before we got back to the hospital. And, she was far enough along that she would not need to stay in a preemie box.
Our childbirth classes had talked about C-sections, in an intellectual sort of way. After all, according to most of the instructors, only pregos who were "failures" had C-sections. Worse, a transverse lie meant that the doctor would use the old-fashioned kind of incision - the sort that it is very difficult to have a VBAC afterward. But, everyone agreed that a live baby and unfulfilled principles was better than a dead baby and stubbornly-adhered-to principles.
The actual operation was very unnerving. I wore a complete set of blues, complete with hair net and shoe covers. There are a zillion people in the operating theatre, and everything is brightly lit, with glistening steel and stark white everywhere. Alana was tied down, and I held her right hand.
Three minutes after the doctor started cutting, I had a very unhappy, slippery baby girl in my hands. She was so small. Carl and Eileen both weighed in at over 10lbs, but Gwen was only 5.5lbs. I wrapped her up, and held her firmly next to my heart, until she settled down. Alana and I were both crying, and Gwen nursed for a short bit, as the doctor finished sewing Alana up.
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Mom holding Gwen, with Carl and Eileen mugging for the camera
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The three of us spent 4 wonderful days in the hospital. Carl and Eileen were staying with my parents, and came to visit every day. They loved holding their new sister.
Gwen was quite different from her older siblings. Some of it was those extra five pounds - tiny babies sleep more, nurse more, like snuggling more, and, in general, wiggle less. It was a great struggle to get her to nurse after the edge was off her hunger. But both Alana and I got the impression that something else was different - Gwen was just too perfect.
Gwen never cried, she cooed. Whenever we went to the nursery to pick her up after lunch or a nap, one of nurses was always holding her - which was very unusual behavior for them. "Oh, she's no trouble at all", they would say. "We just want to hold her."
We came home Sunday night. Everything was higgly-piggly, because we hadn't expected to go into the hospital, so none of the baby furniture (changing table, clothes, diaper pail, swing, bouncy chair) was set up where it was supposed to go. Fortunately, we had diapers. Ever since an extremely messy incident 3 years before, I have been paranoid about not having enough diapers. So, for the past 4 months, we had had a two day's supply of newborn diapers.
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| Daddy holding Gwen |
Was Gwen breathing differently? No. Running a fever? No. Was she lethargic? No, not more than usual. Was her muscle tone off? No, not really. Anything else you can describe? No, but something is wrong with my baby. Well, bring her in the morning, and the doctor will take a look.
Tuesday morning, Gwen was dead. So things were different from what we had planned. The events of that morning, and the next few weeks, are another story.
A few weeks later, I was walking in the cemetery, and visiting Gwen's grave. I kneeled down, started quietly sobbing, and leaned forward so my forehead was on the headstone.
"Why?", I cried. "Why did my baby have to die?"
And I discovered some words inside me, deep inside where usually, I'm the only one thinking words. I wasn't hearing them, the words were just there, in the same way and place that I think in words. They said, "Don't cry, Daddy. I'll be OK."
And in a place deep inside me, where I usually only have my feelings being felt, I discovered a feeling that I should go make sure that Alana and Carl and Eileen felt better. So I did.
About two years later, Llerendel was born. The C-section and the hospital stay gave both Alana and I flashbacks and nightmares. We took turns staying awake in the night that first week home, making sure that Llerendel kept breathing.
One night that week, I woke up with a start, and sat up in bed. Alana had dozed off, with her hand on Llerndel's head. I could hear her wuffling, so I didn't panic. Then, I noticed something on the end table on the other side of the room. I wasn't exactly seeing it, because it wasn't there. But it was there. As I gazed through the bright moonlight, I got the concept that there was a 2yr old girl with long brown hair sitting on the tabletop, swinging her legs through the drawers. She looked at me, and I 'heard' "Hello, Daddy. Go back to sleep.", and went back to staring at Llerendel and Alana.
I lay back down, and fell back asleep.
Alana's mother, Betty, was not particularly loved by anyone. But there was a strong Irish tradition of family solidarity, and Gwen's middle name was Elizabeth. After her husband Al died, she spent six summer months in New England with one daughter, and six winter months in Florida. We were exempted from this filial obligation, due to high numbers of children.
Betty, after 15 years of being in and out of hospitals, finally came down with a heart ailment. Until then, her strong heart had gotten her through liver cirrhosis, throat/lung cancer, hepatitis, and several strokes. The children gathered around her deathbed, and her last words, to the skinniest of the daughters, was: "You're too fat."
Yes, that was Betty, all right. At the wake, everyone was joking that she was too mean and ornery for the devil to admit into hell. Most of the family was in shock, but I started catching something out of the corner of my eye. It was bobbing up and down in the corner of the room, above an enormous wreath of roses, above the open casket.
I caught on, and sat down in a quiet corner, and closed my eyes. I started conceptualizing a woman around 25, wearing a nursing uniform. (I later described this to Alana, and she showed me an old picture of her mother from 1944, wearing the special outfit that only nurses working at St. Elizabeth's wore.) I got the impression that the figure was glaring down at the coffin.
Then, a tall, muscular fellow wearing dock worker's coveralls came in, holding a 4yr old girl by the hand. The 'conversation' went something like this:
Betty: "What are you doing here, you old coot? You're dead!"And the three of them sorta went away. They didn't go up, they didn't go sideways, they just did one of those 4th dimension things you see as a special effect on Star Trek.
Al: "And what do you think you are, you old bat!"
Gwen: "Come on, Grandma. Time to go."
My eyes were jolted open by a loud laugh. The 'friend of the family' priest, who had married Betty and Al, and baptized all their kids, was staring up in that corner, and roaring with laughter. He had a reputation for being pretty senile anyway, no one paid him any mind.
I checked around the room. Alana was looking quizzically up there, but didn't know quite what had gone on. Her older sister had turned white as a sheet, and was facing the other way, and was doing her rosary beads.
I gave Alana a brief summary, and she shook her head, saying, "Ma is gonna be a handful, even for the two of them."
Later on, I sidled over to the priest, and asked if Betty and Al had been like that when they first got married. His eyes twinkled, and he said in a thick brogue, "Now, I can't really answer now, can I, me young lad - but I will say that ye have a verrry fine lassie for a daughter up there."
When Llerendel was 2, her brother Francis was born. Carl was overjoyed at having another boy, if only as reinforcements against his two younger sisters. As with Llerendel's homecoming, the first week was a tense time for Alana and I. Alana arranged for an apnea monitor, and Francis wore fairly regularly for the first two months. After that, we figured that our family would survive with yet another live baby.
Then, one morning, Francis was dead. So things were different from what we had planned. The events of that morning, and the next few weeks, are still another story.
We didn't have the heart for a Irish Wake in the funeral home, with all the friends and relatives wandering by and not knowing what to say. (I tell my friends that 'I'm sorry your baby died.', with a handshake, or a hug, while looking the bereaved in the eye, is about the best you can do.) During the Funeral Mass, Gwen showed up, and took her baby brother in tow. He was still wearing his yellow sleeper.
For the past four years, I have visualized Gwen as being a four year old. I guess it is old enough to be mobile, to travel short distances away from your parents, but young enough that no one asks or expects much in the way of chores from you.
This morning, while cleaning the grave site of blown leaves and grass straw, I 'saw' a 6yr old following a grasshopper through the fog. I asked Gwen why she was growing up. She said, "Llerendel is 4! She's the little girl, not me!"
I looked on sadly at her running after the blown leaves for a while. They would come down out of the misty white fog, swirl around in the air, and land on the dew. She ran after one, ran back to me, and said, "You're still too sad. Be happy so your new baby will be happy, too."
Taran Nathaniel was born a week early, by C-section on November 26, 1995. He is on a heart/respiration monitor all the time, and is a lively and happy baby.
Last updated on Sunday, January 7, 1996
Carl Hommel
