I was heavily pregnant. My high-risk doctor had scheduled me for an appointment, so I was wobbling my way through the parking lot at the hospital (where his office was). I know it was 11:00, because the state of Kansas tests the tornado sirens the first Wednesday of every month at 11:00. And the sirens had started to go off in the distance.
I chuckled to myself and called my boss. We were fortunate enough to share a workspace situated directly below one of those sirens, and it always brought work to a grinding halt for a few minutes because the sirens were so loud, we literally couldn't do anything else but wait for it to be over. So I called her and jokingly asked, "So are the sirens working?" because that's the kind of rapport we had.
I won't repeat her reply, because it's family-unfriendly. Because that's the kind of rapport we had.
Anyway, I signed in for my appointment and situated myself on the table for my bazillionth ultrasound for this pregnancy. I was lucky enough to live near a high-risk prenatal specialist with all the equipment on hand, and they used it enthusiastically.
"Good morning," he said as he walked in. "38 weeks...let's take some measurements."
I agreed and settled back for what had become routine. I barely listened as he called out numbers to the nurse sitting at the computer behind him. But it got my attention when he turned to her and said, "So, where are we at?"
The nurse didn't reply immediately. When she did, she said "Second percentile."
The temperature in the room dropped by about fifteen degrees. "Say again?"
She didn't say it. She didn't have to. The doctor had walked over to the computer to review everything. I was whisked down the hall to a room with a large, squashy chair in it but not much else and told to have a seat.
When the doctor came in, it was with the news that something was going very, very wrong. The baby that I'd been trying so hard to take care of was measuring at about 15 weeks, and they needed to get her out before tragedy struck our family again.
"Okay, when?" I asked stupidly. It wasn't that I hadn't caught on, it was that I was in denial.
"As soon as possible. If not, sooner."
Five frantic hours later, I'd rushed home, packed a bag, told my boss, set my away message on my work phone, picked up my son from day care, run him over to my sister's, and rushed back to the hospital. The baby never stopped moving. The whole time, she thrashed and struggled as if to tell me that she was still there and things were still okay.
An hour after that, doctors placed a nearly-seven-pound bundle into my husband's arms. She was here, and she was healthy, and the doctor shrugged and phoned in a request for his instruments to be checked.
Today, Sunshine is eight years old, and she's just as unstoppable now as she was then.
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