Thank Heaven for Seven-Eleven!

It was 1999 and things were going smoothly at work. I was practically an expert at returning to work after maternity leave. Those first couple of weeks are a whirl of exhaustion from new parenthood, along with the flurry of work catch-up, mixed with heart-hurting sadness of missing your baby. Toss in the giddiness of reuniting with real adults who can hold intelligent conversations and “taking breaks” in the lactation room (DO NOT GET ME STARTED!!) and you kind of get an idea of just how HOT of a MESS I was.

I started this job pregnant with Alex and took my first maternity leave after working for just six months. Then just a few months after returning from maternity leave, I was pregnant again with Chris. Surprise!

So by the time I dusted out my cubicle and fired up my computer after my second maternity leave, I had worked at Blue Cross of California for almost 2 ½ years—30 months—and already hatched out two babies and taken 20% of my time there as maternity leave. I am an HR nightmare.

Fast forward another few months and I’m eating a salad at my desk. My co-worker, Erik, had been with me through two pregnancies already and eyed my lunch suspiciously.

He: Salad for lunch! It looks good. Where did you get it?

You see, he had been working with me long enough to know that a salad for lunch was not normal for me. I have always been a hearty eater, and back then I was also much less aware of nutrition. Pastrami sandwiches with a side of fries at Stuart Anderson’s. (The Square Cow Fun Bar!) Giant burritos…..oh, man, those Southern California burritos!! Tempura udon on cooler days. Salad rarely crossed my mind, and Erik approached cautiously.

Me: I walked across the street to the Italian restaurant.

He: How much did it cost you?

Me: Thirteen bucks.

(Nineteen ninety-nine, AMIRIGHT??)

He: Thirteen bucks!!? Why didn’t you just go down to the cafeteria?

Me: Well…..this one has avocado.

He with a side-eye: Are you telling me that you walked all the way across the street in 100-degree weather (Woodland Hills…..*sweat*) to buy a thirteen-dollar salad, when you could have gotten a six-dollar salad downstairs? You’re not pregnant again, are you?

Wow.

Hilarious.

I JUST had a baby six months ago.

NO! I’m not pregnant again!

Just to be safe, I bought two more pregnancy tests on my way home. Negative.

The next morning, I strutted my non-pregnant self confidently into the office. I ate my salad unperturbed. Because look at me! NOT PREGNANT.

This confidence lasted a couple more weeks. I had only had one cycle since Chris was born. Could I be late already?

Good thing those pregnancy tests come in a two-pack. One more test confirmed what Erik and the salads knew all along.

Alex had just turned two, Chris was six months old, and here is another Fu on the way?? Not only that, but Chris was SUCH a bad baby, and I was already a Certified Disaster Area.

As a kid, I dreamed of having loads of kids! Maybe six, but at least four! But after not sleeping for the past two years, I had decided that two boys were plenty of kids for me. WELP. It seems that our Littlest Fu had other plans. Audrey has never been one to follow a rule without challenge. Audrey Fu DO what she wanna do.

It took a full 24 hours for me to gather up the pieces of my brain and regulate my respiratory rate before telling Albert. My husband has never been keen on surprises, but another 48 hours after learning the big news, he was on board as well. We started out as TwoFus in 1992 and kind of skimmed right past ThreeFus and FourFus to become FiveFus with no time to change our email address in between. Efficiency at its finest!

The day that Audrey arrived was a hot one. July in Southern California. The boys were splashing in the little baby pool in the backyard, playing with the hose, and making construction sites with their Tonka trucks in the mud. Alex was almost three, and Chris was 15 months old.

My parents had brought McDonald’s for lunch earlier that day. The boys shared a box of chicken McNuggets, and I went more healthy with a McDLT.

Plus a vanilla milkshake.

It was HOT, you guys!

So when my contractions started, I thought it might just be McDiarrhea. But after about fifteen minutes, I knew it was time so I got on the horn.

My inlaws came over to watch the boys. Albert came to pick me up. The doctor told me to go to his office, since I was just beginning contractions. All was calm. All was bright.

Albert had missed lunch, so we stopped at Carl’s Junior on the way to the doctor’s office. So much fast food, I know. This was six years before “Fast Food Nation.”

We were escorted right into a room upon arrival at the doctor’s office. Women in active labor get priority it seems! My contractions were frequent by that time, and the doctor had to wait before checking my cervix. “Just tell me when you’re done.”

After that rock-hard mound of baby started to relax, he checked me swiftly, snapped off his gloves and smiled. “You’re at 7cm. I can’t believe it.” He turned to Albert. “You’re just sitting over there sipping your drink. You guys look so calm.”

Honestly, it didn’t hurt that much. I know that I am a very lucky lady! None of my labors were really that painful. The pain came much later…..when my kids became teenagers.

Dr. Coyle instructed us to go across the street to the hospital and he’d meet us there. Just a few minutes later, we were greeted by the always cheerful L&D nurses. “Are you the one at 7cm? Just walking right up here?”

Albert replied as any chronically precise creature would: “Actually we took the elevator.” Because, you see, we didn’t walk UP there. We technically walked OVER there.

One of the nurses commented with amusement that women don’t usually walk into Labor and Delivery at 7cm, to which Albert proudly responded, “Yeah. She’s tough.”

Ex-squeeze me? If you guys done with your little discussion, I’m having a baby over here! It didn’t take long before it was time to push. Dr. Coyle breezed in. One push, two pushes….OHHHH-kay! Stop pushing now.

My little buttercup squished right out at 4:07pm weighing a tiny six-and-a-half pounds on July 11, 2000. We had spent a record hour and fifteen minutes in the hospital. That was more time than BOTH of my boys combined. The excitement was over, but the work wasn’t done.

Placenta Accreta. Audrey’s placenta was attached to my uterine wall and wouldn’t release. This condition can cause severe bleeding and death of the mom. All because Audrey refused to leave the house.

For the next hour, my uterus was mashed this way and that, while Audrey’s umbilical cord hung out of my body getting tugged like a campanile bell. Meanwhile, Audrey was cleaned up and brought back to me. She was incredibly tiny and so, SO beautiful.

I held her for just a moment before being whisked away to surgery. The last thing I remembered was seeing Albert’s worried face as I was wheeled away. Then suddenly, I was shaking my head trying to wake up. I heard Dr. Coyle say to Albert, “She did great. It’s like we did nothing more than cut her toenails.” I remembered nothing in between.

We forget to appreciate little medical miracles like this because they happen all the time. Not that long ago, I might have bled to death. Blows my mind.

Only clear liquids are allowed after anesthesia. I hadn’t had dinner, and the jello and broth were not cutting it for me. I was so hungry and tired that I was crying and unable to sleep.

The nurse finally had pity on me around midnight and scrounged up a leftover sandwich from the staff lounge. A couple of slices of dry turkey on white bread with the saddest piece of lettuce I’d ever seen….the most delicious sandwich I ever tasted!

Audrey will always be my very best surprise ever. Even though she almost killed me the day she was born, she teaches me how to be better. I admire the way she stands up for herself fearlessly. Her keen observations pair magnificently with her creative problem solving. No matter how distressing life can get sometimes, all she has to do is flash those sweet dimples and all is well. She is one of the very best people I know. Happy birthday, Buttercup.

Thank you for reading, friends!! I hope you have a wonderful week!