A Case of the Mondays

"Let's take the bus," my husband said.
"No.  I want to walk.  It's just a few blocks," and I began walking.  Swiftly, as if getting there faster could change something, I wobbled across the parking lot.  The pain was probably intense and acute, but my brain was buzzing and I didn't feel anything physical.  It was as if the logical part of my brain detached itself from the rest of things so that I could manage it all.  I took my phone out of my pocket and called my store.  It's a reflex, almost, with me, to call my job the minute something goes wrong in my life.  That's always been true.
Sara answered the phone and I updated her on the situation and asked to speak to our boss.
A few words about my boss...  He's so amazing.  On the day I'm narrating for you, I'd worked with this guy maybe three times.  We'd only just met.  He didn't know anything about me, really, other than I was very pregnant and not very productive.  He's a man's man, like Ernest Hemingway crossed with Clark Kent and Peter Steele.  On this day he was clinically supportive, like Johnny Bravo mixed with Angela Lansbury.
"I'm walking to the hospital right now.  Either we're delivering today or they'll send me home and put me on bedrest.  Anyway, I won't be back until February,"  I said.  And then, because I'm paranoid about putting people out, I said, "I'm really sorry."
Of course, he brushed it off and wasn't upset by it.  Then again, it was only Monday.  The start of a week can be filled with possibilities!
Then I called my Mom and told her to come right now (from six hours away).
We walked into the hospital lobby and I teetered over to the Guest Services Desk.
"Hi," I smiled (it probably looked ghastly, more like a grimace).  "Can you tell me--"
"Take the elevator to your left.  Go up to the third floor."  The woman behind the desk didn't let me finish.
"How do you--"
She cocked an eyebrow at me.
Oh.  Of course.

And all of a sudden I remembered the day my daughter was born.  As I hobbled to the elevators, gripping my husband's hand, my mind was slammed into the same moment three years before.  A different hospital, our own city, nothing alarming, a scheduled c-section for a baby girl two weeks overdue.  On that day, I strode confidantly to the registration desk and tossed my hair back.  I winked at the woman drinking her coffee and said, "I'm here to have a baby!"  My brother-in-law was filming the moment, my pregnant sister and her six year old daughter were jubilant.  My parents were excited, my grandmother was there, my husband was blushingly nervous.  It was everything a birth day should be.

But this day was not.  We were far from home, a week before Christmas, our daughter was 2 1/2 hours away in school and the rest of our family was in different states.  We had no idea what would happen next and we didn't know what was wrong with our son.
Our son!
Low on amniotic fluid with an uncertain chromosomal future, he waited.  Two heart defects detected and other problems pending, he waited.  Lifted up in prayer and worn down by a faulty umbilical cord, he waited.
I told the nurses at the admitting desk that there had been a mistake and those silly women didn't believe me.  They rang for the head nurse on the floor who came to speak with us.  And (this is the craziest thing I may have ever said), I told the head nurse that we couldn't deliver that day because my daughter was in school and I didn't have anything to read.  As I said that nutty bit, I remembered that my husband's car needed the brakes fixed.  We had taken my car for the trip because it had just been serviced, but my car wouldn't hold the car seats.  The car seats!!  We didn't have a car seat for our son yet!  My friend had only ordered it for me four days ago and two of those days fell on the weekend!  The weekend!!  We were supposed to go to the Penance Mass before the weekend!  The Penance Mass!!  It was tonight!  Tonight!!  We have to pick our daughter up from school!  Our daughter!!  I had to spank her this morning!  OHMYGODIHITMYKIDTODAY!
I began to panic.

***A span of time in which many things happened that I don't remember because my husband will take over and take charge and get everything done when I lose my mind.***

I may have blacked out, I'm not sure.  What I remember next is this:  I was sitting in the giant leather chair in my room in Labor & Delivery, wearing only a hospital gown.  My  husband was standing in front of me, stroking my hair. 
I sobbed.  I put my arms around his waist.
"I can't do this without you," I blubbed.
"Yes, you can."
"Don't leave."
"I have to.  I have to get our daughter.  You will want her."
"I know."
"If I don't leave soon, I'll get stuck in traffic. The sooner I leave the sooner I'll be back, and I'll have our daughter, and everything will be fine."
We kissed.
He left.
I crawled into the bed and pulled the sheets and blanket up.  I looked around.  I began to cry again.
Then I stopped and I reached for my phone, sitting on the rolling tray where my husband left it for me.  I sent one text message to three people.  Those three people would forward my message to friends and a chain of phone calls and text messages would weave all over the country until hundreds of people were praying for us (or even just sending positive thoughts our way, because you don't have to be a Christian to want a positive outcome for someone you care about).  I wasn't aware of all of that at the time, though.

I was sitting in a hospital room all by myself, waiting for a nurse.  Two and a half hours away from home, my husband was driving away from me to pick up our daughter.  My parents and my grandmother and my sister and her family were six hours away.
I was alone and scared, clutching an outdated cellphone with a dying battery, watching the breaking news of a school shooting in Connecticut.