9/11

After years trying to conceive I was finally pregnant. The pregnancy had started out with a few problems, but by summer everything was normal and we were told we were expecting a baby boy. Still, after all those years, I couldn't let myself believe we were really having a baby. I didn't buy anything, save one little pair of overalls and two coordinating shirts (to combat a pair of pink socks and a pink blanket a girlfriend had given me... even steven ya know, I was afraid she had jinxed me and maybe she did.. for the better!).

So, there I was, about 7 months pregnant with none of the usual stockpile most expecting mothers had begun to gather... when I was told that I had preeclamsia and that the baby would have to be delivered right away. It was the last weekend of August. We had just been on a vacation to the Oregon beach. During the next couple days I was given steroid injections to help the lungs grow and was told that my baby would be whisked away to the NICU at the Children’s Hospital in Seattle and we wouldn’t even be together. Things seemed grim, but we were hopeful.

And so I laid on my left side, for all but a few minutes a day, trying to incubate that baby just long enough for him to grow strong enough to survive. Our routine was to go into the doctors office, every other day for stress tests and monitoring. 9/11 started like any other day and I soaped six times in the shower… Which I had been lectured about by my OBGYN bytheway... Yes, there was much discussion about my showers and cutting my routine down. But I digress…

Then we saw the news. At that point no one knew what was really going on. Just as we were about to leave for our appointment my brother called. He has been working for a U.S. Congressman at the Capitol building in Washington D.C. His wife at the time worked for the FAA and in the parking lot watched the Pentagon burn. He assured us that they were O.K. it was just a matter of figuring out transportation, which was completely shut down and getting home. We were not able to have any more communication with him until later that night. The distraction of our own situation forced us to continue on with our day... And after a few tests we were sent home yet again, to wait things out another day or so.

During the next few weeks I watched a lot of news, as this was about all I could do laying on my left side 24 hours a day. I remember watching the U.S. Army move into Afghanistan. Seeing these troops LIVE on the news laying on their bellies over some bridge … is this really happening?

Through many prayers and miracles I was able to keep my pregnancy for altogether 2 months of bedrest. During that time this baby was our distraction from the changing world around us. But also baseball. The Mariners were in the playoffs and being the diehard baseball fans we were that was exciting. We even watched the game the day I gave birth, all the while being told Awsumb would come at the end of the game… Well, we lost and Awsumb had still not arrived … and didn’t until 6:30 the next morning on October 19th when I finally gave birth to a perfect baby boy. And of course the Mariners had lost the playoffs and did not make it to The World Series.

That fall was such a time of sadness and joy and mixed emotions at our house. These are two documentaries I enjoy watching each year about 9/11. Each time I see this footage, especially the one from 9/11 I am taken right back to the emotions and puzzlement I felt that day.



9/11 is by two French filmmakers who set out to make a documentary about 21-year-old Tony Benetatos a firefighter trainee at Manhattan's Duane Street firehouse, located seven blocks from the World Trade Center. The only footage of the command center set up in the Lobby of WTC Tower 1. It’s an amazing film about these two brothers, separated during the call and their reunion back at the firehouse. And of course it also tell the story of the men at the firehouse, who miraculously safely made it out.

For something a little more heart warming don’t miss…

Nine Innings From Ground Zero: The 2001 World Series (2004) about the Yankees vs. Diamondbacks Series Playoffs and how baseball healed the hearts of New Yorkers.

Where were you on 9/11/01?