The Christmas of Gross

This was the Christmas of Gross.


It was great seeing everyone, don’t get me wrong. My niece (now five months old) is cute as a button. The travel was long and arduous, but we were prepared for that, and the new Prius performed like a champ. (Total gas expenditures: less than $200 for 2,800 miles.) But not only did my husband get the stomach flu on Christmas Day, leading to some fairly Technicolor carpet decorations, my sister-in-law went into premature labor at about 4 am New Year’s Day. There was quite a lot of blood. Guess who got to clean that up, too.

New Year’s Eve was what you’d expect. We opened presents, played family beer pong, got drunk on my uncle’s homemade hooch in the hot tub. My brother and his wife, almost seven months pregnant, came in late. We all went to bed around 1 am.

About 4 am, I awoke to her screaming in the next bathroom. There was blood all over the bed, and all over her. She’d had some trouble with bleeding earlier in the pregnancy, so as my brother scrambled for clothes, I woke up my mom, who woke up my aunt (a nurse), and we got them bundled up and out the door to the nearest hospital. My parents got dressed and took off after them, while my aunt and I washed all the sheets and towels, cleaned down the bathroom, and started the process of scrubbing out the bloody mattress. Far too much drama for 4 am, in my opinion, especially as I was working on about three hours of drunk sleep.

I was afraid she was miscarrying, but she had actually gone into premature labor. She’s currently flat on her back in the ICU, pumped full of labor-stopping drugs, while they try to keep the baby in her as long as possible. At nine weeks premature, the baby would probably survive on her own (she’s already four pounds), but regardless, both my sister-in-law and the baby are looking at very long hospital stays. So think good thoughts/pray for both of them. I could have a new niece any day now.

My husband and I drove back home the next day. He’s now coming down with a head cold, and I’ve had just about enough of bodily fluids to last me quite a while, thankyouverymuch.

Then we had to shovel last week’s two feet of snow out of our driveway.

Next year people can come to us for the holidays. Or maybe we’ll just go to Fiji.