April 19th: A Day that will live in Infamy

Really. Waco. Oklahoma City. The day I learned we lost my first pregnancy, and the due date for my ectopic.

But, happiness prevails. My little N is six years old today. Happy birthday, Peebers!

Hubby and I stayed up until midnight cutting, baking, and decorating gingerbread light saber cookies for her class. 35+ cookies, all cut by hand, because try as we may, we could not find light saber cookie cutters. Go figure. The Star Wars franchise sells over $1billion of action figures, fruit snacks and underwear, but no cookie cutters.

Frankly, I'm stunned.

She skipped off to school in Heidi braids with roses, so excited for it to be her birthday. Last year, she did NOT, in no uncertain terms, want to turn five. She liked being four and couldn't see how it could get any better than that. This year, she must have accepted that change can be a good thing.

Six years ago, I was still in labor after an entire preceeding day being in labor. Since I shared A's story, I'll share N's as well:

N was born at 10:25 in the morning on April 19th, 2000, one week after her due date. She weighed 7 pounds, 7 oz, and was 20" long. She was just the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. I woke up at 7:30 the previous morning with contractions 3 to 5 minutes apart, but they didn't hurt all that much. No contractions before that, unless they were in my sleep. I knew they weren't Braxton Hicks as I had back pain associated with them. But where were the usual ctx 20 or 10 minutes apart before that? I took a hot shower and walked around, but they didn't go away. We called the doctor, and they said come to the hospital if I felt like it. So we did, after stopping by the store for fruit and chocolates for the nurses. At the store, the ctx were getting stronger, and I had to stop on occassion to compose myself. Hubby was frantic that I go to the hospital NOW!

We checked in the hospital at 1 pm. I was only 2 cm dialated and 70% effaced, but since I was at nothing just a few days before that, they kept me there. By 4 pm, I was only 3 cm. By 7 pm, I was at 6 cm, and the contractions were starting to get painful. Really painful. N was facing sideways instead of forward or back, which was giving me incredible back pain. I started to fight the contractions - wrong thing to do, but I had three sources of pain going on - the pressure, the back pain, and the normal ctx. The monitor showed transition type contractions - hard and sudden. By 11 pm, I was still at 6 cm, and she had moved even higher. I was losing ground after four hours of transition labor. Ugh! The doctor was called, and we all agreed that I needed an epidural to relax. Otherwise, she almost certainly would be a c-section. I was really hoping for a drug-free birth to experience the whole thing, but I think I did enough experiencing for this birth!

By 1 am, I had the epidural. By 4 am, I was fully dialated, but she was so high they didn't want me to push - I would just wear myself out. The epidural was wearing off, and she was still sideways, so they upped the dose and let me try and sleep for a few hours hoping she would move down. The drugs didn't help the back pain during a contraction, so I was moaning every three minutes or so, but was actually able to catnap between ctx. By 7 am the next day, she was down to zero station and I started to push simply because the pressure pain was too much. She had turned during those early morning hours to the normal position, which helped alot.

At about 9:30, my doctor showed up and was not pleased. I pushed during a contraction and he felt no progress. He said we should consider a c-section since I had been in labor so long, and had been pushing for several hours. I said give me twenty minutes. He walked out, I repositioned myself from a sitting position to on my back, and let the epidural wear off so I could feel my pushes. When he came back, she was nearly out, and we kept going! I think I was a little afraid of pushing her out - how painful would it be, and wait, did I really want to be a Mom? But he definately gave me the impetus to get her out NOW!

Oh my word. What a feeling to have a baby come out of me. I couldn't believe it... here she was! One of the first words out of my mouth was, "Oh my! It's a baby!" Like, no duh! But it was so amazing - I had just given birth! Here was this whole new person - right there! Even after all that effort to get and stay pregnant, and an extended pregnancy to boot, somehow it seemed so sudden.

Which it is. One minute you're you. The next minute your somebody else's, forever.

It's good to be a Mom.

Happy birthday, little girl!