August is a emotional month...

August is such an emotional month for me...I go from being happy to sad to depressed in such rapid succession that it scares some people. See, 3 years ago, I was pregnant with my youngest son. He wasn't due until September and I was living in North Carolina at the time. My family was in Virginia. I received word from my mother that my father's cancer had come back and it had progressed rapidly this time. The first week of August in 2011 my father was admitted into the ICU. I explained my father's situation to my OB/GYN at my following appointment on the 10th. My doctor and I decided that in order for me to be able to make the trip north to be with my dad I was going to have to have my baby a little early.

Since everything was looking good with my son we decided to go ahead and induce on the morning of the 15th. The 15th came around, I didn't sleep well that night due to nervousness and because it felt like the baby was continually twisting in my pelvis. I was supposed to check in at 6:00am at the hospital but I got lost trying to find admittance and then trying to find the labor/delivery ward. I wasn't in a bed until 7:00am. The nurses starting getting me set up for the IVs and strapping the fetal heart monitors to my belly when I suddenly felt very faint. I thought it was strange but could have been just the excitement and adrenaline...after all I was about to have another baby. But then I heard something strange on the fetal heart monitor...it was quiet.

The nurses looked worried and were pushing and adjusting the monitors on my belly trying to find my baby's heart beat...50bpm...nothing...73bpm...nothing...nothing ...nothing.

I looked at the nurse closest to me, "That's my baby, isn't it?" I knew what was happening... my baby was dying inside of me. The nurse just looked at me with this expression that said, "You're right but I can't say anything due to legal reasons." The next nurse ran to the phone and called for an OR for an emergency c-section. Not what my doctor and I had planned. Now I was scared; abdominal surgery with no IVs which meant I was going to have to be put under (my system does not react well to those kinds of anaesthetics, I remain semi-awake and able to hear everything, thankfully I cannot feel anything though) and my son was dying if not dead already.

Getting prepped for the surgery (gas mask on my face and feeling like I'm suffocating), I hear one man in the room ask where my doctor is. Another woman says that he is 30-45 minutes away and will not make it in time to do the surgery. So they decide to call in a 3rd year resident doctor who had never done a c-section before. Now I'm really scared. All the while, I'm crying, they're telling me to breathe and be calm, and I'm trying to breathe but they have yet to realize that they have not turned the gas/oxygen mixture on to the mask. My arms are strapped down at this point so I have no way of really motioning towards my mask that something is not right. Plus there's a nurse holding the mask over my nose and mouth so I cannot shake it off either.

All I can do is look at the Anaesthesiologist, trying to speak as loud as I could to tell him I could not breathe. I don't know if he finally heard me, read the expression of panic in my eyes, or realized that a redhead should not be turning that shade of plum, but he looked like he just got zapped with static and I suddenly heard a hiss from the mask and felt the cool air hit my mouth and nose. Air. Finally. Air. Deep breaths. The sooner I'm out the sooner they can open me up and save my baby. I felt cold hit my lower abdomin and it scared me. "Not yet! Wait! Please! I'm still awake!" Breathe...Breathe... the blue screen goes up in front of my face... "Oh God! Please don't cut me yet!"

Breathe...Breathe...Breathe...everything goes dark finally. I hear the Anaesthesiologist tell them I was out now. I hear plastic, and the clinking of metal objects nearby... I hear the whole surgery. The sound I wanted to hear the most...I never heard. My baby never cried. I felt when they pulled him out. The pressure. So much pressure. He was a big boy and his feet were in my ribs for the last two and a half months. I knew he was out but I never heard him cry. I heard doors open and close again after the squeeky wheels faded in the hallway behind my head. They pulled me out of the anaesthesia finally. Tears still flowing down my face. "Where's my baby?! Where's my baby?! Where is he? Please!" Those were my first words, my first concern. I could tell they were wheeling me towards the recovery ward during all this. The nurse looked shocked to see my eyes open. "She's awake?!" I just kept asking for my baby.

Some where in the middle of a hallway they finally gave in to my pleas. A nurse wheeled a clear bassinet up to my face as my own bed stopped rolling. Inside was this purple-pink baby boy with jet black hair. I stared...waiting...movement?...sound?...anything to let me know he was alive. I reached my hand over and touched his little cheek...his little hand swung upwards in a startle reflex. He was alive! That's all I needed to know...my eyes shut, I brought my hand back to my side, and everything I just went through finally pulled me into a true sleep. I woke up in the recovery room in immense pain about an hour later. I thought I had dreamed seeing my son alive. So I pressed the call button and asked for my son. Not medication, which the nurse brought me instead of bringing my baby to me. Two more hours later and they finally brought my baby to me. All wrapped up, warm, big-eyed, and no longer purple in color.

My doctor finally came in and told me that my son was born with his cord wrapped very tightly around his neck (the twisting in my pelvis the night before) and that he had no heart beat at all and was not breathing. They managed to resuscitate him and bring him back just as they were finishing up my staples and wheeling me out of the OR and into the hallway. Which is why when I saw him he was still purple.

I tell this story because it is still part of the larger story. Also, explains my conflicting emotions for this month. My son is the reason I smile in August.

However, on the 21st of August, I get a call from my father's doctor in Virginia. He tells me that if I am going to say goodbye to my dad that I need to come up to VA immediately; that same day. I told him that I had an appointment to get my staples out the next day. My father's doctor told me that it would not hurt for my staples to stay in for a few extra days and that he would personally take them out when I was ready, free of charge. I knew that if a doctor was foregoing monetary gain for a service that this was really it. My dad was really dying and I couldn't postpone this 4-hour drive north. I packed my bags. Crying, sobbing. Loaded everything including my brand new baby into my car. Settled myself as comfortably as I could into my driver's seat and headed for the interstate. I cried and prayed the whole way up. Stopping three times to wait out rain storms that were too heavy to continue through and change and feed my son.

The baby slept the whole way up except when I woke him to eat and change. Made the 4-hour drive (without stops) in 3 1/2 hours. I don't know how I cut the time down by 30 minutes since I did not break the speed limit and I stopped due to rain three times. As I pulled up to the hospital entrance, I was preparing myself for the long walk from the parking garage to the actual hospital when I noticed a small group of people standing on the sidewalk. I saw my oldest niece, my oldest nephew, my dad's best friend, and my dad's nurse. My dad's friend opened my door for me and helped me out of the car, while my niece and nephew got my son, with his carrier and his diaper bag out of the backseat for me. My dad's friend got in my car and took it to the parking garage for me. Dad's nurse looked at me after we got out of the road and asked me if I really just drove myself all the way to the hospital..."Alone?!" I said, "Yeah? It's just me...who else was going to drive me?" She then asked about my incision and staples. I was confused back then. I didn't understand the concern over me driving at that point.

I do now. Something could have gone wrong with my healing, a bloodclot, anything. I could have killed myself, my son, and anyone else on the road if I had blacked out. I was lucky. But no one told me that I shouldn't drive. Dad's doctor told me to come immediately and that's what I did. He didn't say anything about having someone drive me up. After the nurse was satisfied with my initial health assessment she helped me into the hospital, in the elevator, and up to my dad's room. Seeing my dad for the first time in about 5 months was shocking. The last I time I saw him he had some weight on him, color to his skin, and salt and pepper hair.

Dying had aged my father immensely in the last few months of his life. He was now frail, skin and bones, pale grey skin, and shock white hair. The cancer that my dad had was in his mouth and throat. Because of that his face was distorted with a huge lump where his right cheek used to be and he could not make facial expressions easily anymore. He also could not talk and had resorted to writing his needs and thoughts down on paper. He also could not breathe through his mouth or nose anymore and had to have a tracheostomy. It was heart crushing seeing him like that. I walked into the room and my mom stood up and gave me her chair at his side. She grabbed his hand and told me, "He's in and out a lot now but you can wake him up. Just shake his hand a little bit and call his name." She showed me. My daddy opened his eyes and saw me. He smiled, not much, but enough that I could see his mustache move at the corners of his mouth.

"Hi, Daddy." Dad mouthed, "Hey, Kiddo" to me. All I could think to do was take his hand and ask him if he was ready to go fishing. That's what Daddy and I did, we fished. If either one of us was having a bad week for whatever reason, we went fishing. Our "family vacations" consisted of just the two of us, until my oldest nephew was old enough to go, at a lake, river, pond, or on the boat fishing from the ocean. He would come home from work when I was a kid and ask me if I wanted to go fishing. I would ask him when and he would say, "Right now." I learned quick to always have a bag packed so all I had to do was run to my room and grab it and go. My nephew did too. Lying there on that hospital bed my daddy just squeezed my hand, shed one tear, and mouthed, "I'm ready, baby." I couldn't hold back anymore and I just started crying into his hand. My mom and sister had to help me up and out of the room so I could calm down.

After 10 minutes or so, I calmed down enough to go back into the room and sit at my dad's side again. My mom asked my dad if he wanted to meet his new grandson. Daddy weakly nodded yes. My niece and nephew were still coddling over my baby so I asked them to bring him to me. I held him up so my dad could see him. Daddy frowned at first but then he smiled at the baby. "Handsome," he mouthed. I handed my son back to my niece and nephew. I think he was surprised by all the dark hair. My oldest son has red hair like me. After about a minute my dad squeezed my hand again. I looked at him and said, "I love you." He smiled and mouthed, "I love you too, Kiddo." He closed his eyes then and fell asleep. That was the last moment my dad was awake.

Over the next couple of days, I was there at his side with my son, my nephew, my sister, and my mom as people came and went. I watched as my dad frowned and smiled in his sleep and as my newborn son held the same expressions on his own face at the same time. I still believe that they were "talking" to each other. One being so new to still be connected to that other world, and the other to be so close to death to have established that same connection with that world. On the 23rd, as the nurses were bathing my dad an earthquake struck. That earthquake shook the whole east coast, 7.9 on the Reichter scale. The epicenter was only 10 miles from the hospital. It scared everyone. That was the day the Devil lost him battle with God over my dad's soul. The next day, the 24th of August, at exactly 8:00pm my dad's heart stopped beating. My mom and sister saw the signs and had left to go to the cafeteria. They couldn't be there when it happened. Myself, my nephew, dad's nurse, and my son were the only ones left in the room with Daddy when he passed. The nurse held the stethoscope to his chest and confirmed time of death. When she left, I texted my mom and sister and told them. I guess on their way back up they made the phone calls to other family members and friends. I walked over to my dad and closed an eye lid that had fluttered open during that last breath, straighted his hair and his hospital gown, and kissed his forehead and said goodbye  for the last time. My nephew came over, tears streaming down his face as well, and he said goodbye to his grandpa for the last time too. My son was asleep in his carrier. My nephew and I just stood there with our arms around each other at my dad's bedside, crying, grieving, wishing we could've had just one more fishing trip with him.

So now you see why August is such an emotionally taxing time for me. Other times of the year are difficult for me too, like February (mine and my dad's birthdays), Father's Day (I still buy my dad a card every year), and other holidays. I don't think it has gotten any easier to deal with. I still miss him just as much as I did the day he passed three years ago. I still think about him everyday and wish he was still here. He would have been 60 years old this past February. But I have found it helpful to talk about it from time to time. Since today is the anniversary of his death, I am really feeling the need to talk. Thank you for taking the time to listen.