A Chick in the Cockpit (11 page)

During those days of recovery and realizing how quickly my career could end, I forced myself to envision what life would or could be like outside of aviation. It was all I knew or thought about, but for once in my life I forced myself to open a tiny door that had a tiny sign whispering, “Back Up Plan.” I had never even considered it, but once I confronted my initial fear, a quiet calm settled over me. Somewhere inside, my soul gave me a taste of foreshadowing that I would still be okay if I couldn't fly.

I still had ugly, distracting bandages on my ring finger for our wedding, so we used my right hand for the ring exchange. How ironic that of all the bones in my body, it was my wedding ring finger that received the most damage in the accident. The photographer printed our photos in reverse so it looked like the rings were on my left hand, but you could still see the ugly bandages. We had been married the following July after the proposal in September. I did most of the planning and paid for almost everything since I had the bigger bank account. My flight schedule was getting busy again and Brad didn't have many vacation days, so after a fun and casual wedding at the Evergreen, Colorado Lake House, we took a three day honeymoon to the mountains and went right back to work.

During the honeymoon, we dreamed of traveling the world, and Brad mentioned once again that he wanted to become an airline pilot. He said he'd always been jealous of me being a pilot and that he was going to go back and get his ratings. I thought it would be exciting to have a spouse who knew all the nuances of what it took to be a pilot, so I offered to help him get there. We both agreed that once we got settled into a new house together, he'd get started on getting his licenses.

I combined the rest of the money I hadn't used for my canceled trip to Africa with my savings and put together a sixty-thousand dollar down payment into the purchase of a house in Evergreen, Colorado. Even though we were now living in the mountains outside Denver, it was worth the extra commute time to wake up and find elk lounging in the front yard. This was what we had dreamed about. Work hard, play hard, and living in the mountains. Never before had my maternal instinct spoken before, but in the back of my mind, I thought we had the perfect foundation for starting a family.

13
Warning Indications

1.
The cockpit has warning, caution, and advisory lights and audio warnings

2.
Red warning - most urgent, requires immediate response

3.
Amber - may become urgent if not addressed

4.
Green - good

5.
Blue or white - indicates routine operating functions

6.
Illumination of a red warning light - followed by pilot audio response, “Oh, Shit”

The most famous warning light changed the aviation industry for the better, but it was a hard lesson to learn. In 1972, Eastern Air Lines Flight 401 crashed into the Everglades killing 101 people because a light bulb had burned out.

On approach to landing into Miami International Airport, the first officer of the brand new Lockheed L-1011 extended the landing gear and noticed that one of the green landing gear indicator lights did not illuminate. The pilots cycled the gear, but could not get a green down and locked indication. They told air traffic control they wanted to depart the traffic pattern and enter a holding pattern to work on the problem. They headed out over the Everglades, in the dark of night, to fix a tiny problem. Even if the gear was not down, they could manually extend it.

Once they got into the holding pattern, the captain told the first officer to put on the autopilot and he then sent the second officer down to the avionics bay to confirm, via a small viewing port, if the gear was, indeed, down. For eighty seconds, the plane maintained altitude. Unknown to them all, the autopilot had not captured or somehow departed from the altitude setting so the aircraft began a gradual and unnoticeable steady descent while the crew tried to figure out why they didn't get a green light. They also didn't hear the audio chime warning them that they were off their altitude setting and since it was at night, they had no instant point of reference that they were descending.

The perfectly good airplane hit the ground at 227 mph. Since it was in mid-turn in the hold, the left wingtip hit first, then the left engine, then the left landing gear. It was discovered later than the light bulb they were worried about was just burned out and that their gear was down and locked.

This accident created the “situational awareness training” that we still have today. The error was just so simple, yet so deadly. One single indicator distracted everyone to death.

Having children is one of those topics that you can sit and describe for a million hours, but until you have children of your own, you'll just never know what I'm talking about. It's a waste of words.

The baby discussion was broached after we got engaged. We spent many long nights talking about how that would look. I strongly believed that if someone chose to bring a child into this world that it was up to the parents to make the sacrifice needed to raise the child themselves. I had several friends who did the child care route, and I firmly respected their choice, but I couldn't see why you would have a child, only to have someone else spend the majority of their waking hours with them. I'm sure my being adopted propelled that feeling of responsibility, and I was passionate about making sure that any child of ours would be raised by us. This was the promise I made to my unborn children, and Brad assured me he agreed completely.

We discussed how it would work to have Brad continue working his mechanic position at the airlines, but he despised his job and because of his schedule, he had to sleep during the day. Delegated to always working the night shift (the planes flew all day so most mechanics work at night) and in extreme weather conditions, it was easily decided that I would continue working and Brad would be the stay at home parent if we decided to have children. I made twice as much as he did, so it was the logical decision. He daydreamed about the new scenario and excitedly explained that he had several ideas that he wanted patented. He also loved working on his race car, so he thought this was going to work out well for all involved. He could stay home and be a famous inventor, while I brought home the proverbial bacon, thank you, Gloria Steinem. He was giddy with the possibilities. So was I. Our lives were perfect, except that I didn't have a green down and locked indicator.

I had spent eighteen years trying not to get pregnant and it blew my mind the first time I thought about actually trying to get pregnant on purpose. Brad had wanted to start right away and I thought that since I'd been on birth control for so long that it would take some time for the chemicals to get out of my system. I figured at least a year before I'd actually get pregnant. Wrong. The first month off the pill I got pregnant, but it took me awhile to figure it out.

My sister had jokingly wrapped a wedding present to us with a few pregnancy test sticks attached to the ribbon, still in the plastic wrapper but not inside the original box. I had kept them as a memento of our wedding. Never thinking that the reason for my late period was anything more than exhaustion, my body and brain told me otherwise. I had a dream that I was pregnant and when I woke up, the rush of realization gave me tunnel vision.

I remembered the joke pregnancy sticks tied to our wedding present and I wondered if they might work. There were no directions attached so when I used one of them, it came up as two negative signs so I thought that meant I wasn't pregnant. It told me twice that I was not pregnant, right? I was slightly relieved. I was in the grocery store a week later with Brad and the last aisle had all the family planning products, one of which was the same pregnancy test that I'd taken. I picked up the box and turned it over. The directions explained that the results were simple: if the symbol in each window matched, you were pregnant! I had two negative signs so I thought two wrongs would never equal a right.

I was in aisle twelve at King Soopers when I figured out I was pregnant. I explained the story right then and there to Brad, and we burst out crying with tears of laughter and joy. We hugged each other, and I'm sure it was quite disturbing to the other shoppers trying to grab a box of condoms.

As recommended by the old wives tales, we didn't say anything for the first obligatory three months. I continued on my same flight schedule and was actually trying to pick up as many extra flights as possible because Brad constantly reminded me about the pay hit we'd have to take while I was on maternity leave. I planned on being one of those moms who would have a baby and joyfully go back to work. They exist, right? Who knew how a baby could change your life. Babies come with red annunciator lights. They are the most urgent warnings and require immediate and full focused attention.

Morning sickness also comes with a red warning light. Everything I smelled, looked at, or thought about made me sick. I craved Pop Tarts, but would gag at the thought of chicken. You can just imagine how well I did in the airplane lavatory. Each morning, I'd walk with the crew into the airplane and excuse myself to the restroom. I was going to throw up no matter what, so just simply walking into the ghastly smell of the restroom would just start the sequence. I avoided eating during a flight and stuck to pretzels and ginger ale. I was able to manage it so that I never threw up when I had passengers onboard, but it took all my strength and concentration to take my focus off my body and put it on the task at hand.

For the passengers on my flights during my pregnancy, they were the safest flights I've ever flown. Every move I made was for the safety of me and my baby, so my passengers got the peripheral result of my overly anal retentiveness. I drove the other pilots crazy because I turned off the radar unless I absolutely needed it. I just kept thinking about all the passive radiation bouncing around in the flight deck, and adding the radar beam to the mix conjured up thoughts of extra limbs and eyes.

I flew until I was eight months pregnant. Yes, I know. I shouldn't have. I was sleeping on a hide-a-bed at the crash pad, at eight months pregnant. I was commuting and working a full schedule up until the last moment. I was a walking mass of change being held together by a lifetime of focus.

The topic of my pregnancy was never mentioned, and I know it made everyone uncomfortable. There was no policy, no uniform adjustments, and no standard procedure for this. My pregnancy was handled like I had a disease that would be cured in nine months. They forgot this disease also had a lifetime of side effects.

I am five foot eleven inches (well, I was before I got pregnant), so I was able to hide the extent of my pregnancy with a suit coat and aviation sweaters, and they never asked when my due date was. I wasn't sure when I should stop flying, but I figured when I couldn't pull back on the yoke or get out of the emergency exit, I'd call crew scheduling and tell them I was too fat to fly.

My maternity leave had to start before most women. I really couldn't safely operate the airplane during an emergency with my stomach in the way of the yoke and indicator lights. I called (s)crew scheduling to tell them, and they asked that I fly three more trips. What part of “I'm not safe to fly” didn't they understand? I had already waited too long, but it meant that my baby would be just two months old when my maternity leave would be used up. Crew scheduling happily reminded me of that when I went on maternity leave.

It was during these final months of happy anticipation and introspection at home that I first felt a shift in the relationship with Brad. Never having spent this much time alone together, simple disagreements escalated into arguments, and Brad learned quickly that calling me a “fucking cunt,” or his favorite, “stupid fucking bitch” would take my breath away, and he would win the argument by default. I was shocked into silence and stopped the argument immediately by walking away.

I'd never been called that, and it was particularly shocking because it was in response to such benign things. He'd taunt and say, “Oh yeah, just walk away. You're just proving you're a weak, dumb bitch.” Afterward, he'd laugh and give me a hug while saying, “God, you're acting like you're having your period, but obviously not...”

Here I was, eight months pregnant and being called names no one deserves to be called. I spent the last of my pregnancy an emotional wreck, constantly in tears. Is this truly part of a relationship? Do people do this to each other? If someone does this, will it ever stop? Since I was always traveling while we were dating and in the first few months of marriage, we always had the rush of excitement of seeing each other. Now, we were with each other from sunrise to sunrise, and the sun was only shining meekly through the overcast.

After twenty-six hours of labor, six hours of pushing, and no drugs, I ended up with a cesarean section because my daughter had an enormous head (I tell her it's all those brains in there) and refused to turn around, so she got stuck in the birth canal sunny side up. Every time I had a contraction, her neck and head would bend to create a ball that simply got wedged. The warning lights on the baby monitor started screaming louder than I was, so into the operating room we went.

When I hear birthing stories, my fascination always turns to how the husbands handled the situation. I believe that how they handle this situation is indicative of how they handle everything else in their life.

My water broke about 10:00 p.m. and the contractions were faint and about eight minutes apart, so there was no rush. But because we lived an hour away in the mountains, we got ourselves down to the hospital right away. By 6:00 a.m., the contractions were about four minutes apart and stayed that way most of the day. By 3:00 p.m., they were about two minutes apart and their strength was breathtaking, but I was progressing slowly. Shortly before 6:00 p.m., my husband walked up to my bed in the delivery room and announced that he was exhausted and hungry. His mom, standing beside him, put her hands on his shoulder and said, “Oh, Brad, I'm sorry. I should have brought you dinner. You must be beat. Let's take a break and pop out for some dinner.”

I had already been awake for thirty six hours (Brad slept most of the night on the cot in the room and had a nice breakfast and lunch), and Brad tells me he needs a break for a while? He actually left the birthing room as the nurses were coming in to instruct me to start pushing. He shrugged his shoulders and said he had to get away from the commotion for a while. He came back an hour later and since I was still pushing, he said, “See, I didn't miss a thing.”

While they were giving me an epidural, I wondered why the fuck they couldn't have given it to me about twenty hours earlier. Within ten minutes, my body was released from my mind, and I lay on the surgical table with the doctor telling me I'll feel pressure and pulling. I did, and compared to the previous pain, I didn't care. My daughter was “born” at 12:13 a.m., and she was the color of a Smurf. Big and blue, but as life can be, she changed from blue to pink in a matter of moments as she gathered her strength to give us her first wail.

My eyes well up with tears just remembering the moment they put her in my arms. Why the hell is everyone looking for the meaning of life? It's right there, in that moment, when you realize why we exist. There was an actual pathway created in my brain at that moment that connects mother and child. Even now, if I see that either of my children are in danger (or if my brain even thinks they
might
be in danger) or about to get hurt, I have an actual physical contraction. My kids think it's hilarious and after an injury, they wipe their tears and ask, “Mom, did that give you a contraction?” They smile because it always does. It's an intense, painful contraction. What better example of Mother Nature's power than having an uncontrollable physical reaction to something your eyes and brain see? It didn't exist until I'd given birth, but it created an automatic warning indicator system within my own body. That instinct was created at that moment of birth and it may not always happen for everyone, but it did for me. It's strong and deep and no matter how much a father loves their children, it doesn't compare with the power of connection between mother and child. You can't always have equal rights.