Are you superstitious?
Once upon a time I was. When it came to my heart, and all the things that can go wrong with it. But especially all of the things that DID go wrong with it, and everything that I associated with that.
What were those things you may ask?
Basically anything I associated with coming home from the hospital after having baby #3 and then, about six hours and three episodes of shortness of breath later, going back to the hospital and being readmitted to the ICU for the next several days.
- Olive Garden for dinner. We brought it in the night I came home and I could barely eat. It was probably due to all the fluid in my abdomen.
- Pink satiny pajamas from Walmart. I was wearing these when I couldn’t breathe. When I felt like I was drowning in my own body, but had no way of escaping. And the material the pajamas were made from made me sweat, which made the shortness of breath feel all that much worse. I wore those pajamas on my little ambulance ride to the ICU, and they had to be cut off of me when they started me on Lasix and had to place a catheter in my bladder.
- Watching the Fresh Prince of Bel Air before going to bed. Since this happened at night, right before I was supposed to go to sleep (but you know, baby), back in 2006 Nick at Nite played The Fresh Prince of Bel Air.
- Boppy breast feeding pillow. My baby was cradled in one as I struggled to breathe. I placed him there in the middle of the bed, hoping he would be safe. I used the pillow when I came home from the ICU to splint my C-section incision, and once that was healed I tossed it. I just couldn’t look at it anymore.
Are these all truly superstitions? Or are they more, I stopped doing these things for a while because I didn’t want to remember the horrors of that night, and these things did just that. For awhile at least.
We have ordered dinner from Olive Garden since, but it took awhile. And I still prefer to go there instead.
The pajamas had to be cut off of me and were tossed. I now get my pajamas at Kohls, and in a more comfortable and breathable fabric (perimenopause and night sweats).
It took me a long time to watch The Fresh Prince of Bel Air again in bed. This one I couldn’t shake. I eventually did, about six months later, as my adoration for Will Smith surpassed any superstitions or fears I may have had.
The Boppy pillow was a hand me down from someone I wasn’t a big fan of to begin with. It came in handy to splint the C-section incision, but my kiddo was a 10+ pound bouncing baby boy and needless to say, he grew out of it lickity split.
So what’s everyone else superstitious of?