I was in the hospital for a total of four days. It had felt like weeks. I woke up on the fourth day with excitement, only to find the clock was ticking so slowly. It was only three o’clock in the morning. I could hear each click of the minute hand. I had decided to lay mine and Peyton’s clothes out on the bench in the room. I lied back down in bed with caution. The pain from the surgery was radiating through my spine and stomach. It had felt like a huge semi truck had run over my entire body. Depending on the nurses for help, I felt like a baby myself. I was trying to relax my mind from the rambling thoughts of finally going home. I finally submitted to my body and fell asleep. About five hours later, I awoke. I had to use the bathroom and it takes some effort to get out of bed and walk to the bathroom after a cesarean section. I heard a baby screaming down the hallway like a piercing sound of a jet. I knew it was my baby being delivered to my room. I was right. The anxious nurse shoved his bed on wheels through the door, yanks my bathroom door open and says to me, “We need to talk.” Here I am peeing, with the nurse talking to me such as my three year old son would do at home.
I couldn’t possibly imagine what she was going to talk to me about. I was afraid I changed Peyton’s diaper wrong or something of that sort. She had told me my baby had somehow picked up a serious infection. Luckily we were there the four days for it to be found. The infection was Clostridium Difficile. An intestinal disease, that if untreated would result in death. My heart immediately dropped to the floor. She said the nursery was evacuated and my baby needed to be in my room. We were being quarantined. No one was allowed in or out without the thin, blue, paper like gowns and masks. My baby was screaming his head off. It reminded me of a siren on a police car. The nurse said she didn’t know what was wrong with him. At that point I was stunned in place and had no words to vomit out. I immediately picked him up in my arms and the crying was gone. It was as silent as standing beneath the stars at night. It was me, him, and the fearful thoughts running through my chaotic mind. They had to transport Peyton to Johnson City Medical Center; there he would be living in the Newborn Intensive Care Unit until his infection was cleared. When I saw the infant incubator come to my room, the fear traveled through my mind to my heart. I was silently asking myself, how could this be? Tears were flowing down my face like Niagara Falls. We were supposed to be going home with him that day. Instead I was so numb with fear for my baby’s life that the tremendous pain from the surgery was absent and out of mind.
The weather and outside environment was invisible to me as we followed him to the new hospital. Nothing else existed. Upon arrival, he was so large compared to all the other babies. I didn’t want to leave him. There I studied him head to toe. He was eight pounds 6 ounces, and twenty two inches long, with a strong bold personality. He had little hair, with a tiny chute on top of his head like the Gerber baby. His eyes were large, slightly oval, and glittered with love. They were blue like the day’s sky. His cheeks were so round that I couldn’t help to kiss them every second. He was a warm ball of cuteness that was hard to put down. He would look up at us, as if he was asking us with his baby glare, is everything going to be alright? When we did leave him, he would grip his daddy’s finger in his pudgy hand covered with dimples, as if he was telling us not to leave. It broke my heart into more pieces than a shattered vase. When I was imprisoned at home, due to the fact I was not allowed to drive, I was longing to be at the hospital with my tiny ball of love. I felt as though I was missing a part of me each night without him. I would close my eyes and see his loving face wanting us to stay with him. He looked like an abandoned puppy in the window of a pet shop.
After 7 days of fear and lost without my baby, I finally got a phone call. It was a woman with an angelic voice, “Mrs. Falkenstein, I am calling to let you know that you can come take Peyton home now.” I then noticed the warmth and glow of the day. It was like a black and white movie to a colorful cartoon type of day. The dreadful shadow that lingered over me was immediately lifted. My lonely heart was overfilled with excitement and joy. My husband walked through the door and flashed a horrid, fearful face when I started to cry with the phone in my hand. He looked like he was in front of a fun house mirror. He had thought something was wrong. He was highly mistaken. They were tears of joy and excitement that my baby was well, and ready to come home. I will never forget the day the angelic voice made me whole again.
Reading my story, one would think that I am the traditional 30 year old mother. I am definitely not. While pregnant, many people would stare at me as though the child was damned for life. I even had a few people with enough courage to come up to me and say, “Are you putting your child up for adoption? It’d be for the best.” I can remember standing in the line at Wal-mart purchasing my weekly craving of chocolate when the woman said this to me. Everyone around starred at me in anticipation for an answer of “yes”. I told the woman that I could never do that and how much I loved my baby from the start. Of course she rolled her eyes.
Now, I am 23 years old with two beautiful boys, and a loving husband. I see them as no burden, but an adventure and encouragement. I know I have to set good examples for my children. By completing high school and college, I am showing them that they can do anything, no matter what happens to them in their life. I skipped a huge part of my life and never look back. I knew what I was in for. Excited to say the least. Being a young mother is not all fun and games, it is tough and completely possible.
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