A New Life

Late Spring/Summer 1999
It was time to pack up my dorm, quit my Mexican fast food restaurant job, and find a summer job back in South Florida. The past 3 years, I had worked at summer camps, but the pay was minimal and the hours were long. I was ready for something new and exciting. I applied for a job as a server in a local restaurant, had an interview that day, and was hired. Working as a server is an experience like no other. It put me in close contact with a very diverse group of people. As a 19-year old, I never really had any jobs that allowed me to interact with people of all ages on a daily basis. Most of my jobs involved kids, and working in a college town, you really only deal with people your age.

I think this was the summer when I determined that I could have a life. A real life. Prior to this, I still tried to follow my parents’ wishes and live somewhat conservatively, despite my passion for rock music and dyed black hair. But these new people energized me, with stories of Hungary and life in a band, living in public housing and baby daddies in jail, broken engagements and private affairs…Oh, and lots of bowling and beer drinking. I guess you can say I found my adult freedom this summer, and embraced every sleepless, wild moment of it. Life was about trying new things, making new (temporary) friends, and lots of partying! I guess that’s probably why, for the first time in my life, I failed a class – Anatomy & Physiology at FAU. Clearly I was not in the right frame of mind to study for that. Although I did manage to get a B in statistics!

Although some of my choices at that time may not have been the best ones for a relationship… my relationship with my boyfriend of one year somehow became more serious, and as the summer died down, we packed our belongings, loaded up two cars, and drove back to Gainesville to begin our apartment life together.

Late Spring/Summer 1999
The first seven days of Abigail’s life were perfect. Her parents loved bringing her into their home, holding her in their arms, and welcoming her to the family. Her seventh night at home was different, though. Abigail began to fuss in her sleep, so her mother put her to her breast. She began to tremble rhythmically, briefly, and then fell asleep again. Her mother, trying not to worry too much, went back to bed and called the doctor in the morning. She told the doctor that she thought it may have been a seizure, but he did not agree. He told her not to worry and that it was probably just a startle reflex. But there’s just something about a mother’s intuition that would not allow her to believe that it was normal. Something just didn’t feel right.

A few days later (and several occurrences of this supposed ‘startle reflex’ later), they went to the emergency room, where Abi’s doctor performed a spinal tap. One of the nurses observed what they had seen many times over – and their brief ER visit became a two-week trip to the neonatal intensive care unit. As they went through Abi’s medical records together, she came across something alarming – unbeknownst to her parents, Abi had been diagnosed with intrauterine growth retardation. Additionally, her APGAR score was low due to “poor coloring, blue limbs.” So the little baby girl they had given birth to, the one who left the hospital just days after being born, was not a healthy, typical child as they were initially told. Why was the doctor so dishonest? How did this happen?

In the NICU, they ran every test imaginable to try to find out what was going on with Abi’s little body. She was given medication to control her seizures… but she was awake every night, throwing up, suffering from dehydration, and had to go to the ER every few weeks to rehydrate her. Unable to nurse, this beautiful little baby tried every formula on the market to try to reduce the vomiting. At just a few months old, she was already taking three different medications, but still doctors could not figure out why any of this was happening. Life as parents was not at all what they had expected.

The Beginning

I’ve learned that sometimes, when you can’t organize your thoughts well enough to begin writing, you can just start in the middle somewhere and write. I’ve always enjoyed writing. I don’t think I was ever particularly good at it until I started working on my doctorate. In high school and college, I wrote angst-filled, woe-is-me teen poetry. Thoughts like daggers, cutting new wounds…that sorta thing. I found it to be very cathartic, and in that moment of creation, I almost convinced myself that what I had written was special and unique. Turn on any early 90s grunge song, and I’d learn differently. But I think what I’m about to write is different. What I hope to accomplish is to discover a sense of purpose for my life through the retelling of others’ stories (accompanied by my own).

If who we are is defined by what we are, I can safely say that parenting has changed my ‘who’ to the core. So while my experiences differ greatly from those of the families I will illustrate to my readers, my journey has brought me here, too – as an educator and now as a mother.

Fall 1998

I was walking down 13^th street after class one day. Time for my afternoon splurge. The creamy guacamole with a sprinkle of cheddar cheese, accompanied by crispy corn chips. I saw the sign outside that said  “Now Hiring.” I did not leave Broward Hall that morning thinking I’d be applying for a job that afternoon, but here I stood, filling out an application. I handed it off to someone who I can guarantee was either covered in tattoos, piercings, or wore those black-framed glasses. And so there I worked that entire school year, usually three nine-hour shifts a week. I was able to put down like one taco, one massive burrito, a bag of chips, and several cups of lemonade each shift, and I weighed in at about 110 pounds. Ah, how easy it was being 19 years old.

Fall 1998

The news of a baby girl arriving was beyond exciting, especially since they weren’t even sure they could get pregnant after her various procedures and a miscarriage. But to their surprise, it happened without any medical interventions or fertility treatments. She announced the news that it was a girl to her husband by purchasing a little girl’s outfit and sticking it in their closet. Together, they shed tears of joy to celebrate how genuinely happy they were.