Hawaii
THIRTY-FIVE
“What did your doctor say?” Wlad asked, knowing I was far into my third trimester.
“He okayed it,” I answered. “Believe it or not, this possible issue with Kaya doesn’t make me high risk, and I’m not thirty-six weeks along yet. He just advised me to leave soon.”
Wlad was training and couldn’t join me for a few weeks.
Mom and I had been distant lately, so I didn’t invite her.
After I’d told her I just wanted her to be my mom (not my stage mom), I’d felt the need to draw some difficult boundaries between us.
So Lanie and I packed our bags as soon as we returned to Nashville.
I couldn’t stand to spend another day of my pregnancy alone, and I was relieved she could be by my side.
As soon as we landed in Kauai, we met up with my friend Luana and settled into a house for what we expected would be about six weeks before Kaya’s birth.
Our days would be full of doctors’ appointments, rest, and relaxation, and—if the paparazzi didn’t find us—some sand and sun.
Desperate to prove that I looked like a whale, I knew they’d stake me out near the beach. (Spoiler alert: they did.)
Within the first few days, Lanie escorted me to the radiologist so I could find out if my baby’s bones had grown.
I tried to put on a brave face, but I was terrified.
If Kaya’s arms and legs didn’t match up to the rest of her body, I didn’t know what kinds of hurdles she might face in life.
Wlad and I didn’t care what our baby looked like; we just wanted her to be healthy.
But for two parents who faced challenges as kids, we also hoped she could travel an easy road.
Life is complicated enough without physical struggles.
The news that met me at the radiologist was good and bad.
Babies grow fast in the third trimester, sometimes catching up to lags in development or sorting out issues that have kept their parents up at night, and that was fortunately the case with Kaya.
In the time it had taken me to celebrate my shower and fly to Hawaii, Kaya’s arms and legs had sprung into action caught up with the rest of her body.
It was her head that was now an issue. The radiologist said—in no uncertain terms—that it now wasn’t growing as fast as it should be. Kaya had a condition called microcephaly, and she might be born cognitively impaired.
“The hospitals here are good, but you need the best,” the doctor said. “I recommend you see a doctor in Oahu.”
Lanie and I didn’t waste a minute. We packed up once again, rented a new house, and booked a flight to Honolulu. It didn’t matter if I was ready to raise a child with a disability. We only had a few weeks, and fate had dictated that Oahu was the place where I’d meet my baby girl.
“I don’t want you to think I’m crazy,” Wlad said on the phone, “but in Ukraine, there’s something we do for good luck.”
It was the night before my first follow-up radiology appointment in Oahu, and Wlad was still in Europe training for a fight.
He expected he’d be able to fly to my side in the next few days, but it wasn’t soon enough for me.
With every passing moment, the hurt I felt without him became more acute.
Hearing his voice was comforting, but it wasn’t enough to stop me from wanting to crawl in a hole and stay there forever.
“I’m scared,” I said. “And not about whatever you’re about to say. Though that scares me, too.”
Wlad cleared his throat. “Just listen. This is an old Russian tradition, and I need you to do it before you see the doctor. What you have to do is find a tree, get down on your knees, and hold it with both of your hands while you bow your head. Then, thank God for everything he has given you and pray for what you need.”
“Ooookay,” I said more than a little skeptically. “You’re telling me I need to hold on to a tree because it will give me good luck?”
“Yes,” Wlad answered. “Don’t laugh. Just find a tree and pray.”
The next day, I walked slowly through the glass doors of the doctor’s office, checked myself in, and found a seat.
As I looked around me at the other pregnant women in the waiting room—all of them a thousand times happier and more relaxed than I felt—a feeling of terror washed over me.
It wasn’t about Kaya, either. It was because I’d forgotten to find a tree to pray over.
I’d been so nervous getting ready for this appointment and so distracted as Lanie drove me through to the hospital that Wlad’s superstitious ritual had flown directly out of my brain.
Now it was too late. If Kaya had microcephaly, I had to accept it because it was just the way it was going to be.
No amount of good luck or strange Ukrainian plant ceremony was going to fix her fate.
I looked up and saw something. In the far corner of the waiting room, tucked near a few empty chairs, was a tiny, shriveled potted tree. It was barely upright and probably half dead, but it didn’t matter. It was a tree, and it was all I had.
Screw it, I said to myself as I held my back with one hand and hoisted my body off the chair with the other. I don’t care how many people are looking, that’s my tree.
I waddled over to the tree, then lowered myself down to the floor and onto my knees.
I placed both of my hands on the skinny trunk, then leaned my forehead against it.
I can’t imagine what the other people in the waiting room were thinking, but I didn’t care.
This was life or death, and this pint-sized half-dead tree was vital for my sanity and our baby’s survival.
“Dear God,” I said quietly, “thank you for my parents, my brother, Wlad, and my grandparents. And thank you for all the animals I ever loved in my life. Now, please God, please let my baby be okay. Amen.”
“She’s just not coming out!” I screamed a few weeks later as I lay in a hospital bed with Wlad at my side.
I was on hour fourteen of labor with Kaya, who the radiologist in Honolulu had determined—in no uncertain terms—didn’t have microcephaly and was 100 person fine.
(Thank you, itty-bitty tree!) I’d just spiked a fever, and sweat was pouring down my face as I waited for the antibiotics in my IV drip to lower my temperature.
“We’re going to need you to push a little more,” a delivery nurse said. “Just keep trying.”
“I’m too small,” I protested. “You’re going to have to break my hips, I swear to God.”
The doctor who was standing next to the delivery nurse cleared her throat. “Just one more push. If that doesn’t work, let’s talk about a Cesarean section.”
I knew childbirth wouldn’t be a walk in the park, but it was without a doubt the hardest thing I’d ever done.
No amount of bearing down, breathing, or pushing was making Kaya come closer to leaving my body.
I also felt like someone was sticking a knife in my lower back, which I later learned meant she was pushing into the bundle of nerves at the base of my spine.
I was exhausted, with no strength to keep pushing.
A C-section felt inevitable, and I didn’t care one bit.
“I’ll sign the consent forms now, please,” I said. “I just can’t do this anymore.”
A few minutes later, the hospital staff placed me on a stretcher and wheeled me into an operating room. With an IV in my arm and an epidural in my back, I looked up at Wlad. He was wearing a surgical mask, but I could see his eyes.
“You’re doing resting bitch face,” I said.
“Well, just keep looking at my RBF,” he answered. “It will keep you distracted while they’re getting our daughter.”
The doctor prepped me while an anesthesiologist stood next to me. Within minutes, I could sense that I was in surgery, and not long after, I heard cries. It was Kaya, finally. The doctor lifted her up and carried her over to me, and I started to tear up.
“Oh my God, she looks like my Poppa,” I said to Wlad. What I didn’t say was that she didn’t resemble the young, stunningly handsome version I’d seen in pictures. She looked like the Poppa I knew and loved, who was in his eighties and had seen some tussles.
The pediatrician handed Kaya to Wlad, and he lowered her down to me so I could look closer at her.
“She has your mom’s dimples,” he said, putting his finger on her tiny chin.
“She does,” I answered. “And look at those blue eyes…” I stopped short, struggling to get the words out and suddenly too tired to keep talking.
“Now, I know you want to hold her,” Wlad said, oblivious to the fact that I was fading fast. “Can I place her on your…”
The doctor interrupted. “Code crimson! Everyone step back.”
A nurse came between me and Wlad, taking Kaya in her arms. “I’m so sorry, Dad,” she said. “But we’re going to need you out of the room immediately.”
I remember everything that happened on that table.
Even though a sheet hung between my upper and lower body, I saw nurses moving frantically, picking up objects and moving them to the side.
I saw Wlad hustle out of the room, looking back at me with terror, and I heard the door click shut, sealing me into the sterile operating room.
I felt the pressure of something being stuffed inside me, and I heard vacuuming, but with liquid, like you’d hear at a car wash or the dentist’s office.
I later learned it was the sound of nurses sucking blood out of my body cavity, then using rags to mop up what had spilled out.
I closed my eyes and started to pray. Please, God, please let my daughter be okay. Don’t worry about me. If it’s my time, just take me.
I don’t know if it was the drugs I’d been given or divine intervention, but suddenly, a sense of calm flooded my body, and I was no longer afraid of dying.
I knew everything that would transpire after I’d bled out was going to be fine.
I’d done my job having the baby. I’d lived a good life, and I’d tried hard to be a good person.
My family loved me, and I’d loved them. Wlad was going to be a great dad, even if he had to do it without me.
I’d miss being a mom, but it was okay. Wlad could handle this.
Now, I thought, just let go and surrender…
I turned my head toward the anesthesiologist, who was next to me holding a giant shot.
“What the hell is that?” I asked.
“It’s the good stuff,” he answered. “Now, you’ve got about two minutes before you start feeling what’s going to happen to you. Trust me, you do not want to feel that.”
Then he stuck the needle into my IV line, and I passed out cold.