Tomorrow marks the day 13 years ago when I gave birth to my oldest son. He wasn't a planned baby but he sure was a wanted baby. My plan for his birth was to be admitted to the hospital the day he was due (May 15th), get hooked up to an epidural and look stunning after he was born. You know the kind you see on tv, not a hair out of place, make up done, and fashionable jammies. It was all planned out. Or so I thought.
Two days before he was born, Good Friday of that year) my beloved grandfather passed away. He had done his best to live in order to see his first great grandbaby. Unfortunately, his body had other plans. So that Saturday we spent the day returning medical equipment, going to the funeral home, and laughing about the good times. My uncle had a watering hole that he visited quite frequently, and when he came home that Saturday afternoon, he had with him a giant sandwich platter with all the fixings. Apparently the lovely people at his hangout had heard about his father's passing and had called him to come pick up this tray of food. So that Saturday night as we sat making ourselves eat something we discussed what our plans for Easter Sunday would be. My plan was to get up whenever I woke up and go out and cut the grass. Luckily, we had a riding mower and my doc had already signed off that it was fine for me to ride it.
Easter morning dawns and I tell my mom how I had dreamed about a pain in my belly all night long. Right at the top of my stomach and I remember dreaming that it was incredibly painful. I didn't feel in pain at that time, so I knew it was just a dream, so I headed out to cut the grass. I had probably taken two trips around the yard when I hit one of those spots in the yard that you probably shouldn't take the lawn mower into. The jolt from "little" bump caused my son to kick me in the bladder and we all know what happens when a baby kicks you in the bladder. I figured I'd be showering after I finished the lawn so I ignored it. I took one more trip around the yard and I'll be darned if I didn't land in the exact same spot with another pretty good jolt. This time, however, the mower said it wasn't moving out of this hole until I got someone to move it for me. Figuring, I might as well empty my bladder, seeing as how my son loved having his feet pushed into it, I headed into the house to take care of business. However, what I found was a gusher of blood.
I tried not to panic when I called the OB/GYN, she told me that it was probably nothing so not to worry about it. I told her I was worried and that I wanted to be checked because it was a lot of blood. She told me to go to the hospital and have them look at me, but that she was sure that it wasn't anything major. Boy was she wrong. I showered, the little voice in my head told me I might not get a shower for a couple of days so I better do it now, and headed out to the hospital. The nurses had heard from my doc and weren't expecting me to be having too many problems.
It was Easter Sunday so the nurses were all in their festive scrub shirts and one was wearing bunny ears. They made me feel so relaxed until they saw what I was seeing. They laid me on my side, told me don't move and then went to call the doc. I showed up at the hospital at about 1 in the afternoon. I spend the rest of the day bleeding profusely, until the doc showed up. At 7 pm. I was furious, I was worried about my baby, and I was ready to choke the doc. Again she is nonchalant about the whole thing. Oh there's nothing wrong, just a bit of blood. The nurse told me that I was hemorrhaging. Finally, the dumbass doctor decided to break my water and let my body do the rest.
My body refused to let her break the water, then my son's heart rate started dropping and they couldn't get it back up. Now she is in a hurry and they rush me off to the OR. Where, at 10:13pm, my little guy was born. Instead of pink, he was blue, he didn't cry, and all I could hear was the sound of the doctor and nurses saying "come one little guy breathe". I panicked of course and was given a whole lotta Versed. My son was blue for 17 minutes. The neonatologist could not get the breathing tube in him, his APGAR was a 1 (he had a heart beat), and he was bleeding at the cord site.
I later found out that he had lost 40% of his blood volume, my placenta had not only ruptured from me, but had torn loose from him as well. Had the idiot left me another hour or two my baby would have died and I wouldn't have been much better off.
I didn't get to see my sweet baby until he was 12 hours old because of my spinal from the C-section. During that time I had been told that he would most likely end up at the children's hospital, and that I should be prepared for him to be deaf, blind, mentally retarded, and have cerebral palsy. Nothing like hearing all that stuff and never having laid eyes on the baby. When I saw him in the NICU, I cried because he was so beautiful, all 5lbs 5oz of him.
Today he is a very smart 13 year old who's only difficulties are that he is ADHD and has Asperger's syndrome. Otherwise, he is perfectly normal young man. I am not religious, but I believe that my grandfather died those two days earlier because he knew my son needed a helping hand to make it end to this world. I thank my grandfather every year on my son's birthday because he made sure that my Easter basket was complete and that I did not leave that hospital with an empty basket.
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