Braver Women than I

I want to devote very little time in this column today to myself and my surgery, and so here is the summary: It is a good thing that I brought my own soft Kleenex tissues, because I spent a lot of time on-and-off crying that morning before the procedure, mostly because I am a very bad patient and a sissy. Number two on the surgery list for the day, I was wheeled in and put under (for 47 minutes!) around 10:30 am, and brought back to my room around noon. Around four pm, after the doctors and nurses saw me getting up by myself, taking patient calls (don't ask) and moving furniture ( a medium sized chair), they decided that I was well enough to go home, which I did.

I was under anesthesia much longer than anyone had expected, and it was what I call a 'dead sleep,' meaning that while I did not feel any pain Thank G-d, but I also did not dream, and when I woke up, had no memory of having been asleep for almost an hour. I didn't like it.

"This Womb in Clean," [Reference: Poltergeist, the movie] declared the surgeon. After waking up today in my own bed around ten in the morning, I will make every attempt to rest for the next three days, before the boredom makes me want to scream.

While in hospital, Barack Hussein "What the Hell have I gotten myself into" Obama became the 44th President of the United States, and my sister in New York gave birth to a healthy baby boy, with only 15 minutes of labour time.

Now , I would rather focus on two extraordinary women who have shared their stories with me, as I go through this process toward having my own healthy pregnancy and my own healthy child.

The first is Irena, my roommate yesterday at Hadassah. Thanks to my protected status, I received a semi-private room with only two beds, with our own clean bathroom and shower. Irena, an Israeli-Russian nurse about my age, was happily pregnant at 22 weeks - no complications - until three days ago, when she abruptly lost her first child while on vacation with her husband. They rushed back to Jerusalem and she had a D&C, and despite the surgical and medical intervention, when I left yesterday her fever was getting worse rather than better. The surgeon in the Women's Unit had told her that they could only identify one of the two bacteria with which she was infected, and so they were "throwing the antibiotic book" at her system, hoping that one of them will strike the target.

Here's the kicker of this story: she became infected after some amniotic fluid was removed last week in a standard exam for women "our age," by a very capable doctor whom they hired privately at great expense. She did all the right things with all the right doctors, and fell into that small percentage who are harmed by this procedure.

In all this, she comforted me when I was crying, welcomed me with a smile when I returned from the recovery room, and shared her home-made blintzes that her husband had brought. Thanks to her, I did not feel alone, and I did not have to eat a stitch of hospital food.

The second woman I honor today is "A," a friend from college who recently contacted me on the net. In the last four years, she has apparently had too many miscarriages to count, and last year lost a pregnancy after nine weeks. She writes that tissue obtained from the D&C showed that the fetus had an abnormal chromosomal count, and would not have necessarily survived, or lived a healthy life.

Her persistent faith in G-d and Universe amazes and inspires me, she writes: "You should look at each unsuccessful try not as a setback but as part of your journey...I have not lost hope yet that I will have a healthy baby. "

Amen to all of us trying to become mothers, I hope to see you all in the maternity ward with me, within the year.