Can You Imagine?

A question for all you parents out there: Do you remember when you first held your baby? Do you remember the overwhelming sense of love you felt for that tiny soul who’d just come into your life? Now can you even imagine resenting that baby?  Can you imagine wishing that you’d terminated the pregnancy months before when you had the chance?

It shames me to say that I know that feeling, the one about resentment.  I know what it feels like to be in such indescribable physical pain as a result of being pregnant that you wish you could go back in time and do the unthinkable. 

Today, most people who learn of my experience nearly dying in childbirth immediately want to reach for the Hallmark version of the story: how I must’ve missed my baby so much when she was sent to live with my brother’s family 400 miles away while I struggled to stay alive in the ICU. But that’s just not true.

My experience with childbirth – my first and last – was skewed by the onset of a very common pregnancy-related disorder called preeclampsia, which claims the lives of 76,000 moms and half a million babies every year.  Every year. 

For me, preeclampsia meant multiple organ failure, massive blood transfusions, and pain. Lots and lots of pain. It taught me that it’s possible to suffer so intensely that no amount of morphine can quell it, and no amount of maternal love can overcome it. By the time I was released from the hospital and my baby came home to live with my husband, Jeff, and me when she was two months old, my resentment had shifted to a different emotion – failure. I felt I had failed as a mother before I even began mothering.

Not everyone who deals with preeclampsia goes through the same emotions that I did. I’ll bet my friend Leticia never resented her baby.  How could she? Four days after he was born prematurely due to preeclampsia, he died. And what emotions must my friends John and Brenda have felt as they held their first grandchild shortly after preeclampsia took their daughter’s life? How does my friend Chris feel every time she takes one of her triplets to yet another doctor appointment to address the ongoing health issues tied to their preeclampsia-induced prematurity?

Preeclampsia is capable of causing such utter despair.  And the antidote to despair is hope.  For millions of new moms and babies, that hope comes in the form of blood. That’s precisely why the Preeclampsia Foundation and the Foundation for America’s Blood Centers are collaborating on a gala benefit in NYC this November 12^th – to create hope for every person who has ever felt the despair brought on by preeclampsia, to create hope for the millions of new moms and babies who will rely on lifesaving blood transfusions in the future. 

I am chairing this event and could sure use your help: auction items, sponsors, ticket sales, and attendance (email me! laurenwardlarsen@earthlink.net). Even if you can’t attend, you can show your support with an online donation: savinggrace.preeclampsia.org. Every bit adds up to more hope.

Can you imagine a world in which every new parent gets to hold their beloved baby and be swept away by an indescribable love? Not despair, just love. 

I can. 

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Lauren's book, Zuzu's Petals: A True Story of Second Chances (In The Telling Press, 2011), is the #1 Top Rated memoir on Kindle. Hardcover copies are available at www.amazon.com, or signed copies can be ordered at www.laurenwardlarsen.com. Happy Reading!

The Heart of Brian Boyle

I admit it: I’m a memoir junkie. I love a good story. And I love a well-told story. And if I can get both in the same book, I’m in heaven. Recently, I got just that when I read Iron Heart: The True Story of How I Came Back from the Dead.

Iron Heart is the story of a kid – a nice kid – who’s a competitive swimmer in high school. One month after graduation, he is “T-boned” by a dump truck that runs a stop sign and slams into the driver’s side of his Chevy Camaro. At the hospital, he’s not expected to live. He’s lost 60 percent of his blood, and his pelvis and guts are pulverized. And his heart – did I mention his heart? When the doctors opened him up on the operating table, they found his heart on the other side of his chest. That one really got to me. I mean, his heart ... on the other side of his chest!

After a two-month drug-induced coma, this nice kid wakes up, but he is incapable of moving or speaking. So he lies still and listens, unable to respond when he hears words like “vegetable” and “nursing home” during discussions about his prognosis. But the kid gets the last laugh. Three years and a lot of recovery work later, he defies the odds by competing in the Kona Ironman Triathlon: 2.4-mile swim, 112-mile bike ride, 26.2-mile run.

As a seven-time marathoner, I found myself cheering Brian Boyle as he crossed the finish line of one of the most respected athletic races on earth. As a fellow “train wreck,” I found myself shaking my head in solidarity at much of what Brian experienced while in the ICU. As a parent, however, my response to his book was much more visceral. A mother should not have to see her child suffer such physical pain. A father should not have to beg his son not to give up on life. Upon finishing Iron Heart, I found myself as impressed with Joanne and Garth Boyle as I was with their incredible son.

Then I did what any self-respecting new Brian Boyle fan would do: I tracked him down through Facebook and invited him and his parents to dinner. When the Boyle family arrived at the offices of America’s Blood Centers earlier this week, I found his enthusiasm for helping other blood recipients even more impressive than Brian’s unlikely comeback. Over dinner, he and I brainstormed how we could work together to spread the word about volunteer blood donation – not just small-scale “practical” concepts, but big ideas. Maybe that’s the problem with those of us who’ve come back from the dead. We know that sometimes that which isn’t possible is possible, and that these things usually offer the greatest satisfaction and the most fun. And once you’ve nearly lost your life, fun becomes a much higher priority.

Having received about 50 pints of blood, Brian now gets it. And he wants to do whatever he can to help others get it. At 24 years old, he has the youth (and long hair) to relate to high school and college audiences. With his continued participation in triathlon competitions, he’s a shoo-in with athletic audiences. And having been on both the Today Show and Ellen, his reach has expanded. (Is having 5,000 Facebook Friends even legal?)

Brian Boyle is a young man – a nice young man – with a mission. And if your mission is to save lives through transfusion medicine, he can help. 

I don’t care where his heart was immediately following his horrific accident; it’s definitely in the right place today.

Download a PDF of the first 4 chapters of Lauren's memoir, Zuzu's Petals: A True Story of Second Chances, FREE here.  Click on the link below the green "Buy the Book" button.  Happy reading!