thoughts, words, deeds

complication

Sometimes, life overflows with complication. Maybe that should be always. I guess I'm fortunate that my recent complications have more to do with happiness than otherwise.

A few months ago, my sister and her husband announced they were pregnant. This is Rachel, my sister who lost a baby at five days, who got an infection behind her eye which resulted in a detached retina and loss of vision in her left eye. They have five babies, four living. Hayley, the oldest, was twelve in January. Danny is eight. Caleb, who died, was born third. Eddie was eighteen months old when Rachel went half blind turned six last month. The youngest, Charles, is about to turn three and never knew his mother when she had full vision. Charles was a breech birth delivered in a rush at home (in fact, all but Hayley were born at home)--no major trauma except to her husband's nerves which were shot when he had to catch. So, a big family already. With a lot of trouble in their past.

A few weeks ago, they called again to say that they were expecting twins. Both girls. And we were excited, of course. And nervous. There are twins all over a bunch of branches of the family tree. Ed's (Rachel's husband) mother is a twin, my mother's grandmother was a twin, my father's grandfather had twin sisters. So, we know that twins can come with health complications. Major ones.

And then, a few days ago, Rachel called. They'd gone in for another ultrasound and determined that while one of the girls was a normal weight and appeared healthy, the other was small and was displaying signs of several potential complications. Signs of the potential for spina bifida. Signs of underdevelopment in kidneys and bladder, signs of lack of movement in legs. They were able to see her brain, but signs of potential fluid on the brain. Of course, there's the chance that the baby will be born healthy, but a greater chance that she will have some developmental issues that will make life difficult for her.

And I know that my sister is capable of anything. I know that she is a wonderful parent and would be able to provide a loving environment for any child. And I definitely hope the little girl is born alive because losing Caleb was hard. On everyone in the family but especially Rachel and Ed. I feel sick with worry about her and about my sister and brother-in-law and niece and nephews.

And I feel so angry that this is happening. It feels--you know, when you are starting to write a story and you start feeling sadistic because in order for things to work, you have to throw things at your characters until they break? You push them to the edge and give them sorrow and joy and trouble until they ache with it because only then will the story function correctly? Well, I have to tell you, I hate living in a story. It infuriates me that we might lose her even though, in some ways, she's not even real to me, yet. I hate it that there's nothing I can do. I probably won't even be able to go down and help when the twins are born because something about birth makes Rachel hole up in her cave, not letting anyone in to hold the new baby until she's good and ready to put her down.

I'm lost. And this is something I can't talk about with my family because I need to be one of the ones who remind Mama that she shouldn't talk about the little one as though she's already dead (Mama is a worrier and she automatically goes to worst case scenario) because she might be fine and the twins are only at about 24 weeks so we have four more months of waiting on the precipice, wondering what is going to happen and if we're all going to fall again and wondering how painful the landing will be.

And so I brought this here. sorry. I guess I should really get some sleep because that might stop the insane spirals in my head.