Life Flies By

29 years ago today, I woke up, sat up in bed and was immediately surrounded by a soaked mattress.
It wasn't a water bed. It wasn't a leaking roof.
I was pregnant with my first born child, and it was, what I thought, was my water breaking.
My husband drove me to the hospital.
He waited while they examined me. I was very excited because I was ready to have my baby. It had been a rough few months in late November, all of December and half of January. Every time I stood up I would get dizzy and my heart would race after a minute or two. It took two days just to decorate the Christmas tree, because of how long I had to sit in between hanging ornaments on the tree.

The nurses then announced my water hadn't broken, I was dilated a little (2 or 3) and I could walk around for days like that, and the monitor didn't show me having any contractions.

So they sent me home.
My husband continued on to work an hour drive away.
I sat down on the couch to watch a little tv and could not get comfortable.
I wasn't comfortable sitting, I wasn't comfortable standing, I was miserable.
I went to the bathroom and was spotting.
I called the doctors' office.

I could be spotting due to the nurses checking to see if I was dilated. If I didn't feel better soon, then come to the office or the hospital.

After a while I was in pain and I drove myself to the hospital.
It was beginning to snow.
Again the nurses smiled and acted like I was being silly. It could be days before I had the baby, just because I was dilated a little meant nothing. The contraction monitor was not picking up any contractions.

The doctor ordered some pain meds and my mother showed up  (I guess I called her, but I don't remember it).
Mother sat in the chair next to the bed and was stroking the back of my hand and I was in so much pain that i concentrated on the soothing stroke of my mothers hand on mine.

The nurses continued to treat me as if I was not having a baby that day.
I emphatically told them "I am having this baby today!"

I asked for more pain meds, they laughed and said I had been given too much already, especially since no contractions were registering on the machine.
My mother got up to do something or just sit back and she stopped stroking my hand and I asked her to come back… she poopoo-ed me and shushed me and told me she was tired of holding my hand.

Then Dr. Mary came in. A small woman, probably of Indian or Native American descent (I never asked but her last name was Birdsong), and checked me. I was fully dilated.

I WAS having a baby.

They whisked me into the delivery room, I started pushing, in dire pain and agony. My husband showed up and after a while (I don't remember how long, I just remember my mother telling me the harder I pushed the sooner I would have the baby. So… I PUSHED) the baby was here.
He was a boy.

Then my mom was silent, and my husband was silent and they were watching the doctor. I was just relieved to be finished with pushing and was unaware anything was out of the ordinary.

The baby needed an incubator to warm him up they told me. I didn't hold him right away, I don't think anyone else did either. When I saw him, he was grey, not bright pink or creamy.

They checked me for after birth and sewed up my episiotomy, pushing on my stomach many times. Then they took me to a hospital room.

Nurses came in and out and pushed on my stomach and took my vitals for quite some time, while Mother and my husband made small talk (I was pretty out of it). Each time they pushed on my stomach, I gushed blood all over the bed and they had to put pads and sheets to soak it up. Finally Dr. Mary came in and took me to an operating room and reached up into me to try to get all of the placenta that didn't break loose when I had the baby.

We hoped we had it all out. But we didn't.

They ended up calling a doctor in to give me a DNC. He came in the room to meet me. I was so low on blood I couldn't hardly hear anything he said, but I asked him what his credentials were and how many DNC's he had done before. My mother scolded me.

So, a baby boy, 10 inches of snow and a DNC later, I was in my hospital room recovering and receiving a total of 5 pints of blood.

Joshua was fine as well with few complications. Come to find out, the umbilical cord was wrapped around his neck 7 times and his apgar test (newborn test) was a 3. Not a good score.

However, I am happy to say, it had no bearing on his development to this day.

I am very proud of him and all he has accomplished. He had the high score of 99 on a standardized test they give in Kindergarten to show he was always at the top of the class (even if his grades in high school didn't reflect it).
He was brave enough to leave home and move thousands of miles away with no family members living close by.
He broke the cycle of what is carried from generation to generation on my mother's side of the family in so many ways (and I am extremely proud of this accomplishment) by learning how to deal with people calmly and gently.
He followed his passion and became a game tester for many different companies that make video games. I love telling people because they think of it as a dream job.

But the things that make me the proudest is when the people in his life now, his friends, his wife or her family members comment on what a good man he is.

He turned out ok, and we are both here to tell the tale. It could have gone a completely different way, and I am so thankful it didn't. Dr. Mary and all the hospital staff received my thanks over and over.

Life flies by. I wish I had spent more time with my children when they were little and enjoyed them more. When you are a young parent and working so hard to make life easier for your kids by working or doing things. I hope you will stop and just play with them. Spend the time, so you are glad you did later…. when they are nearly 30 years old.