My Birthday Part 1: L.A. Sights + Kirsten Gilbert’s Life Events

https://open.spotify.com/episode/1bKmdGi98yHTSe70pLcbyf?si=0cf963dc6d5546a7

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My birthday is around now, so my dear Khashayar created an itinerary that turned out to be even more fun that either of us anticipated. We both took a day off, including me pausing my search for a stellar agent to rep my novels, to explore downtown Los Angeles’s historic district. Old, in this earthquake-rattled region, is defined as any building still standing after 100 years — give or take.

Like the PacMutual Building…

And the Bradbury Building of Blade Runner movie fame…

And the Angel’s Flight funicular…

Wait, Grand Central Market is old too, even though it first opened around 1941…

Los Angeles Central Public Library isn’t quite 100. And it was severely burned a few decades ago, then rebuilt as well as added; so it’s both old and new…

Today’s guest blog post is by Kirsten Gilbert. All who visit my favorite local library are lucky to encounter her at the checkout desk. Invariably, she has a smile and kind words to share. With her packed schedule, I don’t suppose she indulges her hobbies as much as she’d like: contemporary romance books with cartoon covers (especially if they include AAPI, BIPOC, queer, and/or neurodivergent characters), KPop music, and KDramas. Whereas to my mind she’s completely amazing, in her words, she’s “just your average neuro-spicy middle-aged mom trying to navigate the world of parenting, divorce, dating, and returning to college as an older adult”…

Life Events by Kirsten Gilbert

When I was pregnant with my last child at the ripe old age of 36, I had certain medical tests done because of my advanced maternal age (aka geriatric pregnancy in the medical world). Of course, I thought that nothing out of the ordinary would come of these tests, and I was just excited to learn the gender of my baby, which was also one of the screenings being done. Some of the initial labs came back with the gender results showed that I was at high risk of having a child with Down syndrome (88% likelihood).

While I was overjoyed that I’d be having a boy, after having two girls and knowing that this would be my last attempt at pregnancy no matter what, I was unsurprisingly shocked at these results and lived in a state of denial for a bit. These results spurred on many more appointments with specialists than I had experienced with my first two pregnancies and deemed this one as high risk. Among these appointments were an amniocentesis, multiple ultrasounds, and visits to see the genetic counselors.

After my amniocentesis, I was expecting to receive the results confirming or denying the diagnosis of Down syndrome. The life-changing results were due to come back right around the time my sister was getting married (and I was one of her bridesmaids). Of course, I did not want to bring attention on myself during my sister’s big day, so I’d asked my OB not to relay the results until after that weekend.

I got the call with results while I was walking my daughters to school the next Monday morning. Since I didn’t recognize the phone number from the genetic counselors’ office, I let the call go to voicemail. On the walk back home after dropping the girls off, I listened to the message. Alone. Then I cried A LOT. I was never afraid of the Down syndrome diagnosis itself, but the possibility of so many medical issues that goes along with it was so very daunting, and I doubted my skills as a mother and my capability of taking care of a child with so many special needs. For Pete’s sake, I had to have my husband go through my Medical Terminology textbook when we were first married, and I attended LBCC the first time to cover all of the yucky pictures (even cartoon ones) with post-it notes. I cannot handle blood and guts very well. Many of the medical professionals at these visits asked me multiple times if I wanted to keep my son, or if I would opt to terminate the pregnancy.

Once I was comfortable sharing our news with family and friends via social media, I received a lot of messages from friends saying they could never have made the same decision/dealt with all the extra parenting required. I also received a lot of praise for my decision (from family/friends/medical professionals), and it almost felt like hero worship and people said they were sorry about the diagnosis.

Those comments made me feel icky. I was just an ordinary mom who loved her baby. (Don’t worry! Everyone who meets my son instantly falls in love with him because he is the friendliest little dude ever, and none of my family or friends could imagine life without him now.) I ended up delivering early (by almost six weeks) at 34 weeks and 3 days gestation because my son had duodenal atresia, meaning his stomach and intestines were not connected. This caused my son to lack the instinct/ability to swallow the excess amniotic fluid and added more stress to my body because I was carrying so much extra fluid around.

Without getting too graphic, I had complications post-delivery, and almost died because I was bleeding out and required three units of donor blood. Unfortunately, my son decided to make his grand entrance to the world right at the beginning of insurance qualification time for me to keep our benefits for the last half of the year.

Since I could not get anyone I spoke to in the library system, including HR and the union to provide a special circumstances exclusion on this policy for me, I had to return to work about a week after giving birth. It was even more vital that I work the required hours to qualify for this health insurance coverage because we knew my son would need open heart surgery around six months old (right when the insurance would run out if I didn’t qualify).

So, I had two school aged children to care for, a newborn in the NICU who’d had duodenal atresia repair and a g-tube placement the day after he was born, work, and breastmilk pumping to balance on the daily. Maybe I did receive some of that hero worship after all! Even with all of the uncertainty, thousands of appointments, multiple surgeries, constant vomiting, speech/physical/occupational therapy visits, SO MANY DIAPERS, and everything else, I wouldn’t trade the joy that my son brings for anything in the world.

If he would have born a typical child, who knows who he’d be. He definitely wouldn’t have been the same, and I wouldn’t have met so many amazing people along this wild journey. I have learned and done so many things that I never could have imagined I’d be capable of.

I’m tired as hell, but I’m doing it! I’m not sure if I would have returned to college after such a prolonged absence if I hadn’t had these experiences. Having learned basic American Sign Language with all three of my children while they were pre-verbal and needing to continue learning more of it and for an extended amount of time to be able to communicate with my son, I’m majoring in ASL to become an interpreter. Knowing that so many parents don’t do their deaf or hard-of-hearing children justice by learning to communicate with them via ASL breaks my heart, and I’d like to be there for anyone I can to help bring awareness and language/communication aid to those who need it. At the very least, I’ll be able to use these skills to communicate with library patrons at work as needed.

Has something turned out far better for you than you anticipated?