One Mom’s Lifesong

My baby girl is four years old today. This week she stopped using her booster chair at the dining room table. It was the last piece of "baby" equipment in the house. And now even that is relegated to the closet to be pulled out only when friends come with little ones.

At this time 4 years ago I was just beginning to feel the contractions. My water had broke about 3:15 a.m. I jumped rolled out of bed and ran waddled quickly to the bathroom. From there I yelled "Mark…honey….MARK!" until he finally woke up. "I think my water broke."

"Are you sure? You didn’t just…you know…"

"What? Pee the bed?" I’m 29 years old I haven’t peed the bed in 27 years! Yes I’m sure." (I’ll cut him a little slack, he was still half asleep.)

So we called his mom to come over to the house to be with big brother. We called the dr.’s office. Then I took a shower. I hadn’t even packed a bag yet. I had planned to do it that day. It was still 3 weeks before my due date (try to hold off the jealousy). Noah had done the same thing to me – coming 3 weeks early. So I showered and hobbled around the room holding a towel between my legs because every  few seconds more amniotic fluid would seep out.

We finally left for the hospital around 4:15. I wasn’t really feeling too many hard contractions, just a little uncomfortable.

"I’m hungry," hubby says. "Can we stop for donuts?"

I gave him the Death Stare.

"Aren’t you hungry?"

The "Are You Kidding?" stare.

Okay, I was sort of hungry but I’d heard all these stories of women puking during labor and I really did NOT need that.

When we got there we checked into triage and they hooked me up, tested the fluid to make sure it really was amniotic fluid – apparently the nurses are skeptics too. The contractions finally started to feel a little more real. My mom arrived around 5:30 a.m. (Mark’s mom got to be there when Noah was born but not my mom so it was her turn.) She’s dressed really nice – hair, makeup, jewelry, the whole 9 yards….at 5:30 in the blessed morning!

"Well," she says, "we have a funeral to go to later today and I thought that if you have the baby this morning I could still go so I’d just come prepared."

Just a couple days ago a friend pointed out the irony of my mom coming to my daughter’s birth dressed for a funeral. I had to laugh. I’d never really thought about it.

About 6 a.m. they finally moved me to the delivery room. My doctor (who luckily was on call) arrived around 7:30. She says to me "The ASU game kickoff is at 1 p.m. So do you think you can have the baby by then?" Um, sure. By 8:00 the contractions were going pretty good. So Mark left to go get donuts… and milk… and brings them back to the room. Of course NOW I’m hungry. Oh well.

The lovely part of all of this is that everytime I get up to go to the bathroom (which is like every 20 minutes) more amniotic fluid leaks out and soaks my socks. I went through about 6 pairs of socks that morning. About 10:30 I decide it’s time for the epidural. Mark leaves so as to not faint at the sight of the needle. I feel much better. At 11:15 the nurse tells Mark and mom that if they’re hungry they should probably go eat now.

While they’re gone, the baby’s heart rate starts to dip a little low at each contraction and has a hard time rebounding when the contraction is over. So they put me on oxygen. The same thing happened with my son, who ended up having a knot in his cord, so I’m used to that as well. Mom and Mark get back from lunch.

The doctor comes by around 12:15 and lets me know that the lady next door (also her patient) and I are both at about the same point but she thinks that the other lady will go first.

At 12:35 the nurse comes in and checks me – 8 cm. She says to let them know when I start to feel like I need to push.

Five minutes later I say "Um, mom, I think I feel something."

My mom goes in to the hall to grab the nurse but since Dr. Tom is standing there she grabs her. When she comes in she kind of rolls her eyes at me (in a nice way) like "we just checked you". She checks me again and says, "Well, I guess YOU get to go first."

18 minutes later after about 4 pushes (yes, I know, you’re jealous again). Natalie was born. She was tiny – 5 lbs. 3 oz.

While Natalie was being examined by the nurses her breathing started to sound a little strange so they had the ped come and check her out. They decided they wanted to monitor her for a little while so I only got to hold her for a few minutes before they took her to the nursery. It was several hours later before I would see her again. By that night she seemed to be fine.

She ended up having a pretty severe case of jaundice so we spent lots of time at doctor’s offices and labs the first few days and she got poked more times than I care to count. She spent the first several days at home on a Billiblanket that made her look like a little glow worm.

Now she is a energetic, bright, cheerful four year old who loves to play pretend. She showers hugs and kisses on everyone, is kind to her friends and is a joy to us all. Happy birthday princess!