Spelling It Like It Is (19 page)

Another nurse came in. By way of explaining my condition I said, “My son just graduated from preschool and I missed it.”

She said, “This is just the first of many. You’ll be there for all the rest.”

“I know,” I said, “but I missed this one.” That was the low point of my time on bed rest. I couldn’t see the glass as half-full right then. Liam wouldn’t remember or care, but I would always know that I’d missed my first baby’s preschool graduation. I’d never see it. It was over. I longed to be home with my babies, making up for lost time.

There was an upside to the end of the school year, and it brightened my days immediately. Now that it was summer vacation, the kids and Dean could move closer to the hospital. We had rented a two-bedroom apartment nearby. It happened to be in the Marlowe, the same apartment building that Dean and I had lived in together when we first met. They would come to the hospital every day from now until the baby was born.

THEN, A FEW weeks later, a miracle happened. When Dr. Silverman finished scanning me carefully, he said, “We have good news here.” The placenta had moved! Dr. Silverman was very pleased with what he saw. He said that if everything stayed quiet for the next few days, if everything stayed the same, I could go home.

Three days later, Dr. Silverman released me, on one condition. He wanted me to be within fifteen minutes of the hospital at all times. He said that I should stay in bed and make sure not to move around too much. He would see me in two weeks and reassess whether I could go back to our house for the rest of the pregnancy. Dean and the kids were already in the Marlowe, ten minutes away! I was all set.

After fifty-five days in the hospital, I was released. I was thirty weeks pregnant.

ALL OF US and Patsy were squished in a two-bedroom apartment. Liam and Stella slept on a mattress right next to our bed. I was happy. On the Fourth of July, we wrapped a bandage around my ankle so it looked like I’d hurt myself, and Dean put me in a wheelchair and wheeled me down to sit poolside. The Marlowe wasn’t exactly a family destination. The pool was full of singles in bikinis drinking margaritas. But I sat in the sun in my wheelchair, with my fake sprained ankle, watching our kids frolic. Being free from the hospital was a great way to celebrate Independence Day. Our family was together again.

Two weeks later, when I saw Dr. Silverman again, he had more good news. The placenta had moved completely. He, and later Dr. J, was completely amazed. They’d seen placentas move slowly out of the danger zone, but never so far, so completely, so fast. It was unheard of. Dr. J actually said it was a miracle.

He told me that my pregnancy was no longer high risk. It was completely normal. I could deliver at thirty-seven weeks. He gave me my final shot of steroids and sent me back to Westlake Village. As we left the office, Dean was pushing me in a wheelchair. Dr. J said, “You can walk out of this office.” I stood up, then realized I had to lean on Dean because I was weak from bed rest. Who cared? I was going home.

During that last month of pregnancy, I decorated a nursery for the baby. I did the walls in the same bright turquoise wallpaper I’d had in my hospital room. Scout was skeptical. Did I really want a long-term reminder of my time in the hospital? I did. That wallpaper was my bright spot in the hospital. And now that it was over, I didn’t see the hospital as a nightmare. I’m not an independent person, and in the hospital I was on my own for a long time. It was just me and the baby. That period had bonded us. I wanted to preserve the best of that experience, and I wanted him to see it when he was out in daylight. That paper wasn’t the hospital or my high-risk pregnancy. It was us. Me and Finn (because that is what we would name him). Even now, every day when I walk into that room I look at that paper and smile, because I remember the journey we went through together and how much it means.

Dr. J told me that we had to schedule my Cesarean right away—the hospital would book up. He suggested August 29, but as it happened I had a personal appearance—a charity event for Lunchables—scheduled for that day. It had been scheduled long ago, when we thought the baby was going to be born the third week of September. I hadn’t worked for so long—I didn’t want to give it up.

So now I had to pick another day. I put Patti and Fay on it, asking both of them what the most auspicious dates for this baby’s birth might be. It was psychic versus psychic. They came back with September 7, but Dr. J wasn’t willing to wait that long. Then they wanted September 3, but that was Labor Day. September 1 was no good—Saturdays are too busy at the hospital. August didn’t seem right to me, but I had run out of options. Finally Patti and Fay told me that August 30 was the perfect day for this baby to be born. Frankly at that point I think they were just trying to make me feel better.

I made it to thirty-seven weeks. Finn was born on August 30, full term, weighing six pounds, six ounces. Liam, Stella, and Hattie came to meet him the night he was born. There were no reality cameras this time. The moment was all ours.

I’ll never forget the first moments of Finn’s life. They placed him in my arms and I held him close, my tears moistening his perfect new cheeks. Here was the baby boy whose image I’d envisioned for all those months. He had asked for my complete love, and I had given it. I had devoted my whole heart, soul, and body to keeping him alive, and now here he was, his little heart beating quick and strong. His fingers curled into sweet fists. A miracle. I nuzzled him and whispered, “We made it.”

The Fourth Hole

T
wo days after I got home from the hospital, when Finn was only five days old, it was Orientation Day at Liam and Stella’s new Westlake Village school. It was a small, quaint school where all the kids wore uniforms. Both kids had orientation at the same time, so I went with Stella to her new preschool class while Dean went with Liam to kindergarten.

I sat through the review of the daily schedule and pickup/drop-off procedures, but when the teacher said, “We have class parties for every holiday. You can sign up to bring food,” I immediately perked up. This was my domain. There’s nothing I love more than bringing homemade, theme-appropriate, kid-friendly food to a holiday party. The memory of store-bought hummus and crudité platters at the kids’ former preschool still gave me nightmares, but this was the start of a new day. As soon as the teacher finished talking, I made a beeline for the sign-up sheets. I reminded myself that I had a newborn at home. Best not to overdo it. I would only sign up for Halloween and Christmas. And maybe Valentine’s Day. And definitely Dr. Seuss’s birthday. I mean, I had to make my green deviled eggs and ham.

I assumed the sign-up sheets would list each holiday and then give you the option to sign up for food, drinks, dessert, or paper products. That’s how they’d done it at the kids’ last school. To my shock, these sign-up sheets were much more specific. For the Halloween party I had to sign up for grapes, crackers, carrot sticks, juice boxes, or pizza. Those were my only options. I stared at the sign-up sheet, my mouth falling open in horror. There wasn’t even a space for “other.” How could I make something special? I moved over to the Christmas party sign-up sheet. It listed
exactly the same foods
. An organ struck chords of doom in the background music of my brain. No themed holiday food. The world was ending.

I shyly approached the teacher.

“Excuse me,” I said. “I love baking and cooking for holiday parties. I went to sign up, but I noticed there’s a specific list. Nothing homemade.”

The teacher said, “Oh, we’ve just found that it’s easier to give people guidelines.”

I said, “This list is fine . . . but if I made something homemade, would that be okay?”

She said, “Of course. We love homemade. You know, if you like being involved, you could sign up to be a room parent.”

Suddenly it was all clear to me. If I were a room parent, I could control all the parties. If I controlled the parties, I could make sure everything was homemade. Heck, I could make it all myself. I quickly found the room parent sign-up sheet. There were three spaces on it and two were already filled. Just in time! I put my name down. I could see the Christmas party now: A towering tree of homemade red and green French macaroons. A gingerbread house in the shape of the school with sugar stained-glass windows . . . and the wall outside this school would be built with saltwater taffy bricks that wouldn’t be knocked down by a paparazzi-fleeing mom.

The minute I got home, the e-mails started. Maybe under ordinary circumstances I would have been able to manage, or politely avoid, the influx of e-mails about the various issues room parents were supposed to handle, 90 percent of which had nothing to do with innovative holiday baked goods (note to self: read the fine print). But two days after orientation, I was hit with much bigger problems.

THE C-SECTION I had for Finn was my fourth. I’d always weathered the surgery pretty well. (Too well, some might say. Thanks to my speedy recovery I now had two babies only ten months apart. You’re supposed to wait until six weeks after the baby is born to have sex, but my husband has never been great at math.) Anyway, Finn’s birth had gone as smoothly as the others, and afterward, in the hospital, I felt great. But soon after I came home, I was in severe pain at the site of the incision. It was far worse than anything I’d felt with the other babies. When I told Dr. J, he said, “You shouldn’t be in this kind of pain.” I agreed with that. Nobody should be in this kind of pain. But it sounded like he was saying “you shouldn’t” as in “you
aren’t
.” Yet I was. Finally, I told Dr. J that I couldn’t take it anymore, so two days after Liam and Stella’s orientation I made an appointment to come in to see him.

Dr. J’s office was a full hour away from our new house. It also happened to be relatively close to the Hotel Bel-Air, where Mehran and I were planning an event with JCPenney to launch our partnership with them for our children’s clothing line, Little Maven. So naturally I coordinated the two, figuring I’d squeeze in a quick meeting with the event rental and catering companies en route to having the doctor check me out.

There was only one problem. My incision hurt so much I could barely stand up.

No matter. I arrived at the Bel-Air and hobbled down the stone path toward the bathroom. As I slowly made my way there, a man stopped me.

He said, “Hey, Tori, my wife’s a big fan of yours.” He was middle-aged and balding, wearing too-new jeans, cut high, and a leather aviator jacket, crisp and new. I pulled myself up straight, put on my public face, and thanked him. He asked to take my picture—or if I would say hi to his wife on the phone; my memory’s a little blurry on that. I complied, and then he said, “By the way, I’m Steve Madden, the shoe designer.”

I said, “Oh my God, I’m such a fan of yours. I love your shoes. I have tons of them!” In my head I was thinking,
See? It pays to be nice.
I had visions of boxes of free shoes being dropped off in my driveway.

The man I now knew was Steve Madden said, “Well, thanks a lot. See you around. Keep buying my shoes!”

No free shoes? No family-and-friends discount? Oh, well. “Bye, Steve,” I chirped, and resumed my slow stagger to the bathroom.

By the time I came out of the bathroom I was walking doubled over in pain, hand on my incision site. A voice came from across the courtyard: “Hey, Tori.”

It was Steve Madden. He must have reconsidered. The new fall combat boots I’d been eyeing would be mine.

Seeing my awkward, desperate, incision-clutching hobble, he asked, “What’s going on down there?” and waggled a finger in the direction of my crotch.

“Nothing,” I said. “I just had a baby, Steve. C-section. Recovering.” I waved him off and kept hobbling.

The pain was definitely escalating. When I got back to Mehran I said, “There’s definitely something wrong.” He pulled up a chair for me. I sat down and took a deep breath. Then the concept for the Little Maven party came to me. In a rush, I fired off ideas. “It’s Camp Little Maven. There’ll be a campfire, roasted marshmallows.” I was on a roll. There would be interactive stations where the kids could make friendship bracelets and pet rocks. We’d have pretend fishing in a man-made pond, where the prizes would be jars of gummy worms resting on crumbled chocolate-cake soil. Across the whole campsite would be clothing lines with old-fashioned clothespins holding the samples so people could see the collection as they walked through the party.

As soon as I finished brainstorming, the pain came surging back. My friend Jess drove me to the doctor. I lay back on the chair and Dr. J untaped my incision.

He said, “Now I understand why you’re in so much pain. It opened up.”

It was open? I’d never heard of this. Dr. J said this complication wasn’t common, but it could happen. While he was still examining me, I handed Jess my phone and said, “Could you take a picture for me?” I love gruesome stuff, but when I saw the photo of my incision I wanted to throw up. I guess I figured just the top layer of skin would be open. A little open. But no, it was two inches wide and two inches deep. I could see my insides. Instagram, eat your heart out. This image would definitely knock Kim Kardashian’s ass off the popular page.

Dr. J said, “The good news is that it’s all clean, there’s no infection. But I can’t sew it back up. If I do, we’ll trap bacteria in there. We have to pack it with gauze. It will close up all on its own.”

That was all. I had to take it easy. A nurse would come to my house daily to repack the wound. We’d keep an eye out for infection. I’d come back in a week. There was nothing to worry about. What, me worry?

At home, the nurse came every day. A couple of days we couldn’t schedule the right timing with the nurses, so Dean excitedly stepped in. He put on glasses with a light attached and gloves and packed my wound. He said, “I’m not a doctor but I’ve played one on TV.” I didn’t have a choice. I’d have to trust him.

I said, “Is this gross? Do you think less of me?”

He said, “Are you kidding me? I love every part of you, insides and out. And besides, right now I can say my wife is a four-hole girl. I’m a lucky man.”