For seven years, I was a helicopter pilot in the U.S. Army. Flying helicopters was challenging and exhilarating and gave me a lifelong confidence and swagger—if you can fly a helicopter, you can do anything. Unfortunately, the vibrations of the aircraft combined with a non-ergonomic mesh seat led to several herniated discs in my lower back, causing lasting pain that began as soon as I first arrived in Iraq.
After I left the army, I spent several years trying to find the right combination of treatments to manage the pain. I tried physical therapy, a chiropractor, epidural steroid injections, acupuncture, surgeries, and pain medication. Eventually, doctors installed a spinal cord stimulator in me, and though I still needed pain medication to function, the stimulator made my pain bearable.
The relief brought other opportunities: I could swim and bike, and I even began training in Muay Thai. My husband and I were hopeful, yet cautious, that we could start a family a decision we had been delaying because my back couldn’t handle the weight of a baby. Still, we had questions: Was there a pain medication that could help me without hurting the baby? What kind of strain would the baby put on my back at full-term?
We took these concerns to my pain management doctor. He painted a rosy picture: We could continue to manage my pain with medication with minimum impact on the baby. After the baby was born, he explained, he would just need to stay in the hospital a few extra days to get weaned off the medication, which would inevitably enter his bloodstream as I was taking it. I felt relieved but at the time didn’t realize what that really meant. We took the doctor’s perspective as law and didn’t really look into the process further. He had said what we wanted to hear. My husband and I relaxed, got pregnant, and I had an uncomplicated pregnancy with only the normal type of discomfort.
The joyous day finally came with a scheduled C-section, and my beautiful baby boy entered the world at nine pounds, nine ounces. I felt a rush of love for my newborn son and husband. The entire medical staff knew my medication history and took extra care of our son. He was weighed and measured, poked and tested, and by all accounts was a healthy baby boy with a great set of lungs. For the next 12 hours, we had our son right there in the room with us. Soon though, he began to show symptoms of withdrawal. He had tremors along with a pitiful, painful cry. The nurses informed us that he needed to go to the NICU in order to begin the weaning process. We were stunned—my doctor hadn’t told us that the weaning would require NICU care or that it would cause such discomfort for our son. He was whooshed to the NICU, where we would have limited access to him.
I felt like the worst mother in the world. Couldn’t I have made it through my pregnancy without painkillers? How selfish I had been! Now, in order to see our son, we had to trudge down the hall to the NICU room, wash our hands for three minutes, knock on the door to be let in, and pass incubators holding tiny, premature babies. We would arrive to our big baby boy, who was usually restless and uncomfortable. The post-pregnancy raging hormones did not help my guilt. I was weepy and at times hysterical over putting our son in this miserable condition.
Members of our family visited our son too. On top of my own guilt, I learned several family members blamed me for his condition. I was an absolute mess. It took years to repair the damage to our broader family.
The day doctors discharged me from the hospital, without our son, was my lowest point. A nurse wheeled me to the front of the hospital, where my husband met us with the car. I saw other families carefully load their newborns into their rear-facing car seats, and I envied them. We were still operating under the delusion that our son would be in the hospital just a few more days. The reality was that doctors would need weeks to wean him off the medication. For the next five weeks, my days revolved around visiting our son in the NICU. I would arrive around 10 a.m. and not leave until after 4 p.m. On nights when I couldn’t sleep, I would drive down to the NICU. One night, I arrived around 2 a.m., but the nurses wouldn’t let me hold him. He had been crying for hours and had finally fallen asleep. As I sat next to his crib, I felt incredibly lonely. I wondered if I had left permanent marks on our son. And even though I was motivated by love for him, I felt like I had to prove myself as a responsible mother. I had to show our families that I was dedicated to our son. Look, I’m trying. I love my son. I hated to see him suffer.
After five weeks of treatment, it was finally time to bring home our newborn. We hugged and thanked the NICU nurses (who are angels from heaven). We cried tears of relief and joy. We pulled up to the front of the hospital, and loaded him into the rear-facing car seat. Through the accusations from our family, the suffering of our son, and the shock of how long the process was, my husband and I learned how important it was to stick together. When faced with outside criticism and immense guilt, we formed a stronger union.
Our son is a healthy, smart and joyful seven-year-old, but he does have a speech delay. We will never know if the pain medication caused this, and every time he speaks, I wonder if I caused it. I try to look at the big picture, though. We have mended the relationships with our extended family. Our boy is quick to smile. I am able to function now without pain medication. Though our little family got off to a rough start, we are a tight unit, ready to weather any challenges that come our way.
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