twelve precious years

 On September 26, 1991, Carma learned she was pregnant. Two weeks later, she had her first ultrasound and it was confirmed. She was about six weeks along. She called her mother and shared the happy news. After many years of trying to have a baby, it was finally happening. 

Her first was born in 1977 (top photo). Her second would be born in 1992 (bottom photo). Her first was adopted in 1979. Giant mistake. If you're thinking of giving a baby up for adoption, do yourself and the child the courtesy of consulting with a psychologist and an attorney, and stick with a reputable adoption agency. There are reasons couples are not selected, and it isn't what they will tell the sister of girl who is struggling as a single mom after a disasterous teenage marriage. Enough said about Carma's biggest regret. The important thing is today. She and her daughter are reconciled.

The second time around she prepared herself to raise a child alone. In fact, she relished the privilege. She had taken a home study course--yes, people did that before the internet. She had become certified to read and transcribe court stenographers' notes. This was how she would work from home.  She had always wanted to be a full-time, stay-at-home mom. 

Her sister called from Colorado and persuaded her to have the baby there--to come and live with her so that she could be the birth coach, and her girls could see the miracle. Carma agreed to it. She liked the idea. Besides, it was wise to move away from Houston and the birth father, who would have nothing to do with raising this child. 

Carma drove to Colorado in November 1991 with everything that could fit into a Subaru sedan.

Long story short, her second child was born three months early. The years between 1992 and 2004 were filled with motherhood. A million moments of parenting a very special infant, toddler, preschooler, homeschooling and Cub Scouts. Happy and intense moments, unforgettable and never regretted. 

Saardu quietly waited in the dark, in a box containing every scrap related to its creation. Someday she would rewrite that script, but not now. Now, in 1992, she had to learn to parent a preemie. 

In 1994 she had to return to work part-time. There wasn't enough work from court reporters to keep her afloat. Her time with her son was cut short by twenty-five hours every week. That is a huge chunk to trust someone else with your preemie. 

In 1996 she married and by September 1997 she was a full-time, stay-at-home mom. The stepdad did well enough in the early years, but the marriage deteriorated and Carma found herself in a conundrum. She managed to conceal the drama from the child--the stepdad was careful about how he treated the child, at first. 

One day in a decisive moment she would deeply regret, Carma threw the box of Saardu stuff into the trash.

She had a new idea. A wholly new idea for it. It would be the same planet, but how the girl arrives there would not be by spaceship. Carma had met a family who transformed her thinking about these special babies who spend their first months in the NICU. For those unfamiliar, recognize that the ICU means intensive care unit, and the N is for newborn or neonatal, depending on who you talk to. Think about intensive care, and then multiply that times thirty and replace the patients with babies, some weigh only a pound, and some are chubby full-term babies who are dreadfully ill for a variety of reasons. Most of these babies are born of women who did all the right things and are baffled how this could happen to them. They took the horse pills, went to the doctor appointments, stopped drinking coffee and wine, stopped taking aspirin or anything else that had a warning of, "do not use if you are pregnant..." They were healthy women. Sometimes the placenta does not form properly, and the child starts to die and must be surgically removed to save mother and baby. Sometimes the umbilical cord is flawed. Sometimes a heart valve is not fully formed. Sometimes part of the placenta is between the baby's head and the pelvic bone, walking causes friction, a rupture, internal bleeding, and nothing triggers preterm labor like blood in the uterus. It does not belong there in this situation. It is a threat--a high risk of infection--so the body attempts to expel the blood. Sometimes the bleeding stops, the contractions stop, and the scare passes. 

In Carma's case, the contractions on January 31 caused a rupture of the sac. She nearly lost the baby on February 1. Three weeks later, he was born weighing 940 grams, or two pounds two ounces. 

One of the families she befriended while visiting her baby in the NICU every day was a young couple who had a full-term baby in need of a heart. She had a faulty valve and was expected to die within two months. She had to stay in the NICU while waiting for a heart. 

Another family Carma befriended years later--the year she threw the box of Saardu in the trash--had a little girl in a wheelchair. Katy could not speak, feed herself, stand, sit without supports and safety traps, and the prognosis was that she would die before she reached adulthood. Katy was born with cerebral palsy. Her parents went through years of being told she would not live to her next birthday. Over and over, she proved the doctors wrong. Katy and her mother had an extraordinary bond. Her mother could read her child's subtle cues. She was sure that Katy was in there, she was trying to communicate, and Dawn was dedicated to learning her daughter's language skills.

Carma was so inspired and impressed by Katy and her parents, she decided to completely rewrite Saardu featuring them and their story as the possible metaphysical basis for Katy's adventurous inner life. In 2000, she began sharing the new concept one chapter at a time with readers who frequented AuthorsDen.com. Carma introduced this version on July 27, 2000, with this banner and introduction.

Ruby was ten years old when I met her in 1983 in California, but for all practical purposes she might as well have been a baby. She could not feed herself. She could not walk. Her mother had to provide constant care and rarely got a break. It was sad and there was little to be cheery about if you knew this family. Until the day Ruby liberated us all when she learned to communicate and took us on this incredible adventure.

     I am honored that she asked me to introduce her, now, in this way.  I started out as Ruby's occupational therapist in 1983.  Today, I am her editor, helping her to share her stories with a world in desperate need of inspiration. On the outside, her life may not look like much, but Ruby has an incredible inner life. I hope to serve her well, as she dishes up her delicious tales of a place she calls Saardu and how she gets there.  I cannot draw worth a dime, and of course Ruby cannot either, so she has chosen the above sketch to represent her inner self portrait.