I Forgot to Remember: A Memoir of Amnesia (17 page)

That night, back at our hotel room, is the first time I can actually remember enjoying (and having a better understanding of) sex with Jim. And that memory is all the sweeter because I am certain that my beautiful daughter, Kassidy, was conceived that very night.

—Guns N’ Roses

T
he first thing I did when I found out I was pregnant in the late fall or early winter of 1991 was panic! Panic was followed immediately by a longtime state of denial. I would not have even realized I was pregnant if it wasn’t for my friend Jodi. Patrick took gymnastics classes with Jodi’s girls at Hills Gymnastics Center, and one morning, while we watched the kids tumble, viewing them through the glass between the parents’ waiting area and the gym, Jodi started complaining about how bad her cramps were. I said something like, “I would rather have cramps than be throwing up all the time.” She asked me what I meant by that, and I said, “Well, I haven’t had a period for a really long time, but I throw up all the time.” She gave me her classic incredulous Jodi
look, and asked me, “Well? Are you pregnant?” Jodi has never been one to mince words or hold back anything she thinks. She is without filter! In a good way. When the gymnastics class ended, Jodi insisted we pile all the kids into her mother’s Range Rover so her mom could take them all to their house to have lunch and to play. Jodi then took me to Drug Emporium and bought me a pregnancy test kit. We went to my house and she waited while I peed on the stick. Before I even flushed, the “+” was showing. Holy shit! Now what? Initially I thought, Gross! There’s someone living and growing
inside
of me! What did I know about being pregnant? Nothing. What did I know about giving birth to babies? Nothing. What did I know about taking care of newborn babies? Nothing. Was this something that would just go away if ignored? Maybe. Possibly.

Jim continued to travel. For the most part he remained gone for three weeks out of every month, so it was no surprise that he was away the week I found out I was pregnant. Even when he came home for the weekend, I didn’t know how or what to tell him. I didn’t know what to do at all. I never went to the doctor. I didn’t even know who my doctor was or where he or she was even located. A couple of weeks passed before Jim asked if I was okay, because I came down one morning while he was making his coffee, and I barely made it to the bathroom before throwing up. I told him right then that I was pregnant (and also how much I hated the smell of his coffee). He was over-the-moon excited about the news! That day at work, he looked up Ob-gyns in Montgomery Village that would take our health insurance and, thankfully, he found Dr. Brockett Muir.

Dr. Muir was the perfect fit because he was the quintessential old-school obstetrician. By 1991, when I first met him, he seemingly had successfully delivered at least half the population of
Montgomery County under the age of thirty-five. He didn’t get outwardly excited, flustered, nervous, or worried about much of anything, and he always took tons of time answering my endless questions in his office, as he sat fingering his packet of Camels. He was a no-nonsense, straight-talking guy, with compassion and heart. Dr. Muir was the first (and probably to this day the
only
) doctor, other than my kids’ pediatricians and their dentist, that I fully trusted, respected, and liked.

Even so, I was so afraid of what another baby would mean for our family. By the fall of 1991, Benjamin was five, and in kindergarten, and Patrick was four, and in preschool. They both knew how to walk, talk, dress themselves, go potty (in the potty), blow their own noses, eat with silverware, and drink from a glass. And most of the time, I could do all that stuff, too. But a baby wouldn’t know how to do anything, and it would depend on me to do everything for it. That was a terrifying thought! Would Benjamin be able to help me with this like he helped out with everything else? I was unclear as to whether he could. The three of us, the boys and I, worked well together as a trio. Sure, there were bad moments. If truth be told, a
lot
of bad moments. And I was exhausted most of the time. But Benjamin, Patrick, and I got through most days without too many life-altering catastrophes. How would a new baby change the system that we had in place? Granted, it was a loose and vague system, but it was a system that seemed to work for us.

Would I still be able to teach aerobics? I was working at a few different health clubs now, teaching at least twelve or thirteen classes a week. But I also was thinking about branching out into personal training. Several people had approached me about training them one-on-one, and I was seriously considering the idea. The notion of having to give up my classes, and the paychecks that
went along with them, was not a happy one. Jim and I barely made ends meet as it was. Sometimes we didn’t, and when that happened there was a lot of putting up with Jim’s shouting and carrying on. Would a new baby leave us utterly destitute? And what about the time factor? How much time did a new baby take? I didn’t have any extra time in my day as it was, so how exactly would that work? Would Jim know what to do? Would he ever even be around at all to help out?

I started watching women with babies in the grocery store, in the neighborhood, at church, at the gyms where I worked, at Goshen Elementary when I picked up Benjamin after school, and at the Montgomery Village preschool where Patrick went. Babies could be cute, but they seemed like a lot of work. They couldn’t be left alone for a second, even if they were in a car seat or a stroller. Most babies also seemed really messy to me. They drooled, they coughed, spit up, and their noses always seemed to be running, which was really gross. Putting a coat, or a sweater, or shoes, or boots, or mittens on a baby looked incredibly difficult and complicated. Babies were fussy and squirmy, and their movements were so random. Even holding them seemed to be a struggle.

But then at one of my early appointments with Dr. Muir, I heard my baby’s heartbeat. Almost instantly I was in love. I suddenly had an entirely new outlook about this little being inside of me. Pregnancy didn’t seem quite so gross and disgusting to me anymore, and the whole “birth” part was so far away anyway that I didn’t even worry about that. I had absolutely no appreciation for, or understanding of, what was to come. Suddenly I started seeing moms out with their babies in a whole different way. Moms didn’t seem quite so frazzled, and babies didn’t seem quite so grubby. I began to really pay attention to everything I ate, and I drank
gallons of milk. I continued to teach my aerobics classes with Dr. Muir’s blessing: “Su, your body would go into shock if you stopped doing any of that exercising. By all means, keep up with the activities that you’re used to doing.”

Other than throwing up pretty much all the time until February or so, my pregnancy proceeded without too much difficulty. I can remember coming out of a monthly appointment with Dr. Muir close to Valentine’s Day and smelling doughnuts. Montgomery Donuts had a shop right across the street from the medical office complex, and I
needed
doughnuts. I told myself, I’ll surprise the boys and take doughnuts home for their after-school snack. I bought two heart-shaped doughnuts with pink- and red-colored sprinkles, and eleven jelly doughnuts, for an even baker’s dozen. Every single one of those jelly doughnuts was gone by the time I picked up Benjamin and Patrick from school that afternoon. They were both excited about getting a special after-school snack, and when Patrick asked me where my doughnut was, I just said, “Mommy already ate hers.” I always blamed Montgomery Donuts for the more than fifty pounds I gained during my pregnancy with Kassidy. When it came to jelly doughnuts, I had absolutely no willpower whatsoever.

In March of 1992, Jim decided to take Benjamin, Patrick, my brother Mark, and his then girlfriend, Tiffany, and me skiing in Snowshoe, West Virginia. Mark and Tiffany were both undergraduate students at James Madison University, and they had a weeklong spring break in mid-March. I checked with Dr. Muir to make sure that skiing would be a sanctioned activity for me, as I was now well into my second trimester. He did not seem the least bit worried about the baby, or me, and sent me on my way, telling me to relax and have a good time.

Snowshoe was a blast. We arrived the first night in an actual blizzard, which was a little scary as we drove on unfamiliar roads up the mountain to the resort. However, because so much snow fell that first night, the ski conditions were glorious the entire time we were there, and because it was late in the season, it was not the least bit crowded. The boys, who were only four and five, learned to ski, went sledding, built snow castles, and sipped hot chocolate. I had never been skiing before, and it had been a while since Mark, Tiffany, and Jim had been on skis. But they picked it back up quickly, and pretty soon all three were off looking for more hazardous mountains to conquer. I was happy going up and down the bunny hill by myself with my skis in a snowplow position for the entire first day. However, I got more adventurous by day three, and even attempted a few longer and steeper blue square trails. This trip was by far the best vacation, and I think the only vacation, that we ever took as a family that was purely just for the fun of it. In fact, I still have the Snowshoe sweatshirt that I purchased that week. I just cannot bring myself to part with it.

We had only been home from that perfect family vacation for a few weeks before my pregnancy took a turn for the worse.

Early in April, Benjamin’s kindergarten class began learning about all the ways that five- and six-year-olds can help save their planet. These discussions were most likely leading up to some kind of culminating Earth Day activity at the school. April wasn’t always especially warm, but by this point in the year the slightest bit of sunshine would drive us all outside for some “fresh air.” On this particular day, Patrick, Benjamin, and I had decided to take a walk around Lake Marion, near our home, before supper. At the last
moment, they both decided they wanted to ride their bikes instead. I said fine, as long as they followed the walking-Mommy bike rules. Basically, they were not allowed to ride their bikes so far ahead of me that I couldn’t see them and they couldn’t see me. They had to stop and wait (patiently, without whining) for me to catch up. They both agreed, and we were off. When I arrived at the top of the path that led down to Lake Marion, they were waiting for me. Patrick asked if they could ride all around the lake without stopping. I said yes, and they were off like a shot. I started walking around the lake, watching the boys as they sped ahead. I can remember thinking how amazed I was at how quickly Patrick had picked up riding a two-wheeler. They rode up behind me and I remember pretending to be shocked and amazed at how fast they both rode. They asked if they could go around again, and we all laughed and recited together the words from Dr. Seuss’s
Go, Dog, Go!
“The dogs are all going around and around. Go around again!” And once again, they sped off.