My Sister’s Keeper

Today is my nephew’s first birthday.

His laugh is so infectious and he has the most gorgeous, big, brown eyes. But his entry into the world wasn’t as warm and welcoming. He was dealt a tough hand the moment he entered our realm, and sometimes we just don’t know why these things happen to us. One of those, “okay universe, calm down” events.

Three weeks after his birth, I remember my sister messaging me as I made that 3 hour drive to the hospital from where I was living at the time. She kept saying she wasn’t going to go home this time. She was losing her vision, her hearing and drained of all her strength and blood. Nobody listened and nobody helped until it was almost too late, but her husband was her angry and panicked advocate. The very negligent OB who delivered my beautiful nephew almost killed my sister.

The doctor left a part of her placenta inside her body during c-section, ignored her complaints and concerns, gave her a uterus contracting medication, performed a DIC (surgical tissue removal from the uterus) - which all led to her uterus rupturing at 3 am one night. The ambulance was called but failed her from the beginning, checking her in to the hospital as a “non emergent patient”. The nurses were indifferent, unpleasant and kept reminding her that she just had a baby. Mind you, my sister is a pioneer in the baby birthing industry. She has 3 children, 4 years old and younger. She is well aware of the feelings of post partum... and more importantly, what it’s not supposed to feel like.

I watched my sister sleep in ICU, barely able to lift her head. I watched her husband cry as he held her hands, begging her not to leave him. I listened to her recall telling the emergency surgeon to save her because she has three small children. My sister heard her yell to the nurse, “get the blood from trauma, she doesn’t have thirty minutes!”

And one year later, she loves and celebrates her son but mourns how his birth impacted her life. She is ridden with guilt from feeling sad and resentful from the traumatizing experience. She tries every day to balance her mental and physical aches with a normal life but is reminded of how difficult it is because she has to be lifted out of bed in the morning, even now. At any given time, on a scale of 1-10, her pain level is between and a 3 and 4 minimum. And she goes to work, she mothers her children when she goes home and she pushes through her struggles, some days better than others, but one day at a time. I saw her children change her from being a distant and closed off individual to an invested, understanding, gentle and loving human being. She sends baskets to the doctor who saved her life and she’s Santa Clause for all five of our children. We have come a far way as siblings - from being each other’s worst nightmare, to being each other’s keeper.

After recently recovering from bladder prolapse, she is preparing to do surgery again to remove her left ovary (all as a result of the trauma a year ago) and I am putting out all the good energy to rid her of this ongoing pain, relieve her and her other half’s anxiety and to ensure she goes home safely to her three babies.

Trust yourself, trust your body. Only you know what you are feeling. Speak your truth and speak it ever, cost it what it will. And happy birthday to our baby of the quintet cousins, Zayn, who we all love so dearly.