Livia’s Parent Corner: Emily Havens

Livia’s Parent Corner highlight the kids of Arete Living employees and residents. This section is named after Livia Thompson, Senior Life Enrichment Director with Avamere at Bethany, who initiated this idea.

By Emily Havens, Director of Sales & Marketing, Ovation Sienna Hills

It was just after 3 p.m. on the hot, black asphalt outside of the used car lot. I felt a sharp pain in my protruding, 7-month pregnant abdomen and doubled over just before I could reach the air-conditioned bliss of the marble flooring inside of the Toyota showroom.

Steve, a colleague of mine—who would often IM funny memes and inside jokes to pass the time between sales appointments—saw me from over his cubicle wall and rushed over to help me to my adjacent station.

He wasn’t joking now. We didn’t know it then, but this was real—baby was coming.

I didn’t know for sure what the sex of my baby would be. This pregnancy was defined early on as “high risk” as I had developed pre-eclampsia, also known as gestational diabetes, sometime during my nesting period. This was a concern, but the good news was that I had an excuse to receive more ultrasound appointments than a healthy mother typically receives. I cherished the extra facetime.

Generally, you find out the sex of your baby at the 16th week ultrasound. Just as I was settling into this round of vulnerability (does anyone else forget in the moment that these procedures aren’t really a big deal?), the technician said the words you never want to hear: “Let me go get the doctor.”

As it turns out, my baby’s sex was undetermined. The anatomy was different somehow. Odd. Not normal.

My mom was with me, and she assured me it would be OK. Her mind and my doctor’s mind was made up: We would simply assign the baby’s sex after birth through surgery. Assess my baby’s anatomy and pick whichever option would be easiest to artificially replicate.

This didn’t sit right with me. How could I choose something so significant to someone—my child, nonetheless—who cannot consent? How could I decide, in the name of convenience, something so foundational to their future identity? Plenty of people are born intersex. It wasn’t something I had planned on, but it was looking more and more like this was their future and the cards they had been dealt.

Though we never knew the baby’s sex before delivery, there was a chance the anatomy would be typical and obvious: boy or girl. I just hoped for a healthy baby—no matter what the anatomy looked like. Still, though: I always hoped for a girl. I named her anyway.

Back at the dealership, as I sat in my cubicle hugging my belly in pain next to Steve—who was very bravely kneeling on the ground beside me, as if we were going to deliver that baby right then and there in a car dealership. Can you imagine?—we wondered what to do. I was 20 years old, a newlywed, full-time college student, and didn’t have a clue what to do. (Neither did Steve, if you’re wondering).

My then-husband was in line waiting to receive his new iPhone. I called him, told him the situation, and he reminded me he was “almost to the front of the line.” I sighed. “No, you stay there. I’m sure it’s nothing. I’ll go get checked out real quick and call you back.”

I called my OB, and they lured me into the clinic by telling me they were going to check my vitals. When I arrived, I was ushered to a private room, and a hospital gown was folded neatly on the corner of the bed.

“Go ahead and put this on, and I’ll be right back to check your blood pressure,” the nurse said.

“Oh—no. I’m good!” I replied confidently. “Didn’t they tell you? I’m just here for the vital check.”

I kept my gaze on the gown, so I couldn’t see her face, but I imagine her smiling. “Well… Just in case,” she replied. “Might as well just put it on?”

I surrendered. And she was right—I needed it.

Baby Havens was significantly premature, and the heart rate was plummeting all through the night as I tried to deliver. Early morning came, and my OB told me a cesarean section would be the safest option for baby.

At 11:15 a.m., I was taken to the operating room, and I remember shaking as they injected me with numbing solution. I sat on the edge of the cold, metal table, and a nurse came in front of me and embraced me while they administered the anesthetic. My whole body was shaking, and she held me like my mom would have held me if she could have been in the room.

There is a very special place waiting for every loving and thoughtful nurse in this world.

After a while, baby Havens was here—and she was beautiful. That’s right, I got my girl. She was healthy, perfect, and enriched my life the second I saw her. Despite her prematurity, she didn’t have to spend a minute in the neonatal unit. We commemorated her strength and “fierceness” with a cartoonish tiger ornament on the Christmas tree that year—her name and birthdate delicately embroidered on the back by my mom.

My husband got his iPhone. Almost exactly 2 years later, I got my divorce decree. A year after that, my daughter got the best “bonus dad” anyone could ever ask for.

My now rambunctious, curious, empathetic, book-loving 8-year-old is the absolute light of my life. She, to my amusement and pride, never got rid of her fierce nature. She’s a negotiator—after all, she was almost born at a car dealership, remember?—and always tries to “close the deal” with me using leverage. It’s frustratingly effective.

“I’ll smile with my teeth on picture day if you give me five dollars!” she insisted in the kindergarten drop-off line. How could I say no?

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