It's that time again, but the good news is that I've already told R's birthday story, and I've only got the two, so no more "day you were born" stories to tell this year.
Today K is 19. Considering her last two years of high school battling chronic fatigue and how happy she is now away at college, 19 is somehow a landmark. But I digress.
It was springtime and I was, not suprisingly, the fattest pregnant woman on earth. During this pregnancy I had decided to do all kinds of healthy things, and I signed up for an exercise class. I bought a maternity leotard and (I'm sorry, it was the eighties) matching leg-warmers and headband. All of it was, in fact, purple, although this was way before my puple phase really got into full swing. I think it was the only color I could get. Anyway, I put the getup on one night and posed for a picture, because you should always have one picture of yourself pregnant to prove to the kid s/he wasn't adopted, right? It was a Polaroid picture, I was laughing so hard I could hardly stand still, and when I saw the picture I took off the getup and never went to exercise class. I gained a good 45-50 pounds each time I was pregnant.
So, like the rest of us, having had one already, I knew what was coming. Right?
Oh, and did I neglect to mention that at her own little birthday party just three weeks earlier, R and all her little friends came down with chicken pox? And Hubs had never had it? Waiting for him to pop out spots any minute, we count down to labor, which, last time, was never ever regular for 37 hours, I never felt the urge to push, and they pulled the kid out of me with tongs.
It's about six in the evening, and I'm feeling a little cramp in my thigh when I walk. Not a big deal. Hubs gives R dinner and puts her to bed while I lie on the couch being waited on like the world's largest Cleopatra.
Contractions begin around 11, hey, not so bad at first. But these are ... regular. We can ... time them. By the time we've watched The Honeymooners -- Ralph and Ed go partners on buying a car -- it's time to call my sister to come over and stay with R and we're off to the hospital.
It's after midnight, a beautiful spring night. The roads are peacefully empty. And Hubs even then would not go one micro-mile over the speed limit, as well as hugging the curb as he drives so that every time we go over a sewer grate the car dips like a little roller coaster, on my side. And yet he lives.
Here I am in the labor room and the water breaks and the contractions are really really really regular. I know my doctor is here because I talked to him on the phone from home and he said he had two patients already in the hospital and two more on hold after me, so I might as well come in. It's a busy night for him.
About a second after my water breaks I remember that last time I had a spinal and it was so very nice so I tell Hubs that he better tell that doctor I want a spinal and I want it now. He nods helplessly, but when the doctor comes in he promises me that I will certainly get a spinal when I'm in the delivery room.
Contraction, contraction, contraction OMIGOD THE URGE TO PUSH THAT'S WHAT THEY'RE ALL TALKING ABOUT OMIGOD OMIGOD. And in the first of my very charming moments of the night, I literally grabbed Hubs by the front of his shirt at the collar and pulled him two inches from my face and said very seriously "If I ever tell you that I want to do this again, LAUGH IN MY FACE!" Which at that point was just fine with him, for sure.
Contraction contraction contraction contraction we're going into the delivery room! I am mommy number 3 out of the doctor's ultimate 5 that night. He is so tired he is barely making any of the dirty jokes he is famous for among all his patients, an odd quality to be sure in an obstetrician, but it's his trademark. I digress. I shift onto the delivery table (such things were common then, I think not anymore) and, ever observant, I declare:
"There's no anesthesiologist in here!"
And Dr. Dirtyjoke says, laughing, "Oh, you don't need one."
I am having natural childbirth, just like in all the videos we saw in Lamaze class. I may suck at breastfeeding (yeah, ha ha) but damn, I'm having me a natural childbirth!
Which proceeds to take place exactly like in the videos we saw in Lamaze class. Except for these little details:
It feels like you're passing a bowling ball. A bowling ball with eyes. There's just no better description.
And those naturally childbirthed babies, they're ... not so much like the pictures in the magazines, y'know?
Well, first of all, I was so sure I was having a boy that when they said it was a girl I made them turn her over and show me about a dozen times. It's not that I especially wanted a boy, or a girl either -- I didn't have a preference, I mean -- but I just felt sure, as sure as I felt that R was a girl from the minute she was conceived. And then, as they kept turning her over and over I was thinking "My God she's huge" -- at 8 lbs just 1 lb more than R -- and "she's all lopsided!" For indeed, one side of her head was all big and that eye was swollen shut and the other side was more kinda normal. When they pull the baby out of you with the tongs they don't get all birth-canaled out of shape, and that's all I knew before. So she looked pretty bizarre.
And then, my shining moment. Definitely one of those that will march past me in the parade of my life when the day comes, and probably for everyone else in the room too. Here goes:
I had had the episiotomy, of course, and Dr. Dirtyjoke had followed the delivery of the placenta with a little shot of novocaine and now he was stitching it up. (Do they still do that anymore?) Everybody was very happy and chatty, the baby was in good shape, and truth be told, I felt way way better than I did after R was born. But then the novocaine started to wear off, and he wasn't done yet.
"Wait!" I said. "Wait a minute!"
He didn't stop, but looked up at me. "What is it?"
I had to make him stop, didn't I? It hurt, after all. How to explain to him as concisely as possible that he had to stop because it hurt? Ah, inspiration. I said:
"I feel a little prick down there."
So you see. Everyone in the room went nuts, including Hubs, the nurse with the baby, the nurse with the instruments, and of course, Dr. Dirtyjoke. They're probably still telling that story in the maternity ward over there.
It never fails to amuse.
Nor, by sheer coincidence, does my Baby K, now 19, and despite any claims to the contrary, still not taller than Mommy. Except that I'll shrink and she'll still be a strapping 5'2". She can always make me laugh, and as it says on my players page, the sound of her laughing is my favorite sound in all the world.
Happy Birthday, Baby.
52dF - sunny!
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I'm watching Mad About You
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Sweet Sorrow - 06.12.2007
So ... - 12.19.2006
Christmastime Is Near - 12.18.2006
Fifteen Years - 12.17.2006
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