Simply Saskia! From the Beginning—What is Her Name?

Saskia

I discovered I was pregnant with my second child in February, 1993…  I was scared…  Our son Ian had just turned one, but was less than 6 months out of the hospital…  My time with him in the NICU had shown me what a true miracle it is to have a healthy, normal baby!

Ian’s birth wasn’t a delivery, it was an event!  I chose to have the AFP test, a test that should be mandatory for all pregnant women.  We found out, when I was 3 months pregnant with him, that he had a condition called gastroscheses.  Usually a small defect (opening) next to the umbilical cord, Ian had no skin or muscle covering his entire abdominal area.  I continued his pregnancy with a specialist, who monitored his development through ultra-sound 3 times a week. Gastroscheses is a rare condition, and babies with a defect as large as his never survive.  Ian was born at a teaching hospital, delivered in an amphitheatre, with 54 doctors and nurses on the delivery floor, and a few hundred watching from the observation rooms above…

After having gone through all that with Ian, I held my breath until that day in March, that day we went in for the amnio and ultrasound for this new baby.  That day I finally got to experience the thrill of ‘being pregnant’, that day I found out our second baby was normal.  And yet, a new fear set in for me, as I learned I was having a girl…

But then, I got Saskia!  From the first day I met her, she was her own unique little person…  Her due date was October 1st.  She was born November 6th…  I had severe pregnancy sickness carrying her- I literally never kept anything down!  It wasn’t until she was delivered, the doctor discovered my stomach (which had been moved up under my ribcage during Ian’s C-section) was in the wrong place, explaining “why” I had been unable to keep food down.  Because I had steadily lost weight throughout this pregnancy, on her original due date, she had been too small to be born, not yet 5 lbs, so the doctor chose to monitor her and wait.  It took her 5 more weeks to gain half a pound, and decide she was ready to come out…

It was on a Friday afternoon, when I began having contractions.  I had been in the hospital almost every other day for the last month, being fed through an IV, and being monitored.  I had lost over 30 lbs, and my arms had so many IV holes in them, I looked more like a drug addict!   For those first few hours, my contractions were scattered.  I was determined to wait until they were regular, until I was more advanced in my labor, so when I got to the hospital – they just wouldn’t have time to stick me again with another needle!  It wasn’t until after 9pm, my contractions came 6 minutes apart with some regularity.  At about 2:45 am I went into the bathroom to pack the rest of my things in my bag – my contractions were now steady at 4 minutes apart.  I was brushing out my hair, when an overwhelming sense that something was wrong washed over me…  The hairs at the base of my neck felt like they were full of static…  I got Paul up from his nap, and rushed him to get dressed.  He wanted to call our folks, let them know we were on our way, but I told him there wasn’t time!  I was frantic to get to the car, demanding of Paul as he drove, not to stop at each stop sign, or red light or slow down for the train tracks– pushing him to hurry and get us to the hospital!  Paul wasn’t sure where to go, upon arriving at the hospital, so I instructed him to pull into the emergency ambulance bay…

My urgency caused Paul to feel frantic, he yelled for someone to bring a wheelchair, and as he opened my door, it started…  I had a hard contraction, and then it felt as if someone had laid a hot curling iron across my abdomen…  With a frenetic sense of urgency now, I implored the attendant who was placing me in the wheelchair to HURRY!  I needed to see a doctor, NOW!  I don’t have time to check in at the desk…  The attendant rushed me upstairs, and the nurse placed the fetal monitor on my stomach to listen to the baby’s heartbeat.  It was exactly 3:30am.  The monitor beeped twice – registering 96, 54 – and then flat lined!  The nursed grabbed the stopwatch around her neck and clicked it, yelled at a second nurse to start an IV, and ran from the room.  This second nurse poked in vain at my collapsed veins, trying to insert the needle, becoming hysterical when she couldn’t…  A moment later, two doctors burst through the door, followed by that nurse…  The monitor was still flat lined.  The doctor asked how long, “51 seconds”… 

I was careened down the hall and into a small room, not a delivery room for there was no time, and the lead doctor told the other one to ‘go get’ the anesthesia and bring it back…  He then looked at me, and asked the nurse “how long?”  “1 minute, 32 seconds!”  The doctor grabbed a scalpel off the shelf, and poked me with it, as he was saying “If I don’t get this baby out in the next minute, we’ll lose it”…  I looked into his eyes, and said, “Do what you have to!  Don’t worry about me, just do what you have to do to save my baby!”  And so he did.  He cut me open, but there was no pain…  It was 3:32am.  He pulled the baby out, and laid her on the bed beside me.  She was a purplish-blue color, and so tiny laying limp there by my side…  The doctor and the nurse began CPR, and my baby finally took a breath…  It was then, the second doctor burst through the doorway, tanks strapped onto his back and the mask in his hand, looking like a Ghostbuster…  I could smell the anesthesia from the doorway…  He looked in horror, from me to the baby, and asked, “What should I do?”  The lead doctor said, “you should probably put the mask on this woman now, so she can go to sleep”, and smiled at me…  And as that doctor approached me with that stinky mask, my world went black…

Until I found myself in a darkness, floating in a warm fog…  This fog closed in and blanketed me, soothing me with its warmth, comforting me with its softness…  I felt an immense peace here, a joy that made me feel giddy with laughter.  I could hear others, just beyond the fog…  I could feel myself floating towards them.  They were taking about me, and there was so much love emanating from them…  The darkness started to become light, and the fog began to lower…

And suddenly, a little blonde boy approached me from this fog, reaching out to me with his little hand, saying something I couldn’t quite hear…  Until he stood before me, as if in a spotlight, his shiny blonde curls glimmering…  His sweet little voice, imploring me “Wake up, wake up – Saskia needs you.  Wake up, wake up, Saskia needs you now!  Wake up, wake up – Saskia is yours, you need to be her mommy!  WAKE UP!” He took my hand, but his touch felt more as if he had put his arm around my shoulders.  He was turning me around, pulling me away, sweetly imploring me to “Wake up, wake up – Saskia needs you.”

I didn’t want to go…  I could feel it getting colder, and as he led me further away it was getting darker.  He stopped, and turned his face up to me and smiled.  “Saskia is yours…  We have given her to you.  You must wake up now, Saskia needs you!”  The darkness closed in, and I felt as if I was falling…  And with a heaviness, I could feel myself inside my body.  I could feel the pain in my arms, from the needles once more…  It was hard to push through the darkness, to try to open my eyelids, for they were much too heavy…

“WHO?”  I said this out loud, as I awoke.  “Who needs me?” I asked, as the last trace of this curly haired little boy receded into the darkness from whence he came…  “I need you” I heard Paul’s all too familiar voice say, from somewhere far beyond the darkness, and as I opened my eyes, “I need you!” he said, as he leaned over and smiled at me…

During my 10-day slumber, my baby girl had been sent home from the hospital, and was in the care of Paul’s mom.  Ian, who had been with my parents for over a week prior to my daughters’ birth, now had a cold, and we had to wait another week for his return, so he would not infect the baby or me, in my weakened condition.  Against the advice of my doctor, I was going home to be with my daughter, and for the first month I had around the clock care…  Before they would release me from the hospital, we had to fill out the birth certificate, some silly state law…

We had spent months, pouring through every baby names book we could find, searching for her name.  We had compiled our list, and narrowed it down to our favorites.  But, those names were no longer right...  Her name started with an “S”.  I would know it, when I heard it again…  And so, we sat all afternoon, Paul reading off every “S” name, until we’d gone through all our books…  Other women on my floor brought their books to us, upon hearing of our story, and our search for this name.  Finally, Paul stumbled upon a name.  He couldn’t quite pronounce it.  I asked him to spell it, and as he did, I heard that little voice from the fog “Saskia”…

It was quite a fight, to name my daughter something ‘no one could pronounce’!  Our family would call, and I could hear Paul struggling to say her name, and then struggling to say it 10 more times as the person would ask “what is it?” on the other end of the line…  Not said with a ‘ski’ in the middle as a 3-syllable name.  Pronounced with a ‘ya’ at the end, ‘Sa-skia’, a 2-syllable name.

Paul’s parents called her ‘angel’ – that is what his mother had called her, when Saskia was all ‘hers’ to care for in the beginning.  My parents referred to her as ‘baby’, since that is what Ian called her, “my baby”…  It took both our families most of the first year, before they became comfortable with saying her name.  I think it took Paul two!

I’ve never said her name out loud once, without hearing that sweet little voice inside my head say it with me…  It is the way my artistic mind works!  It is the price I pay, for possessing my creativity.  Saskia called me the ‘story teller’…  She adored how my mind held on to things, how I remembered them, and time and time again – how I plucked each story from my brain, so vivid and unwavering…

It seems almost a curse to me now – for I remember everything…