It really feels like yesterday. I have such vivid memories...In March of 2001 I announced my pregnancy. Actually, it was my mom who announced it to me.
I had been telling her how sick I felt and how my legs were cramping. I was sure it was all sympathy pain. My mother had been diagnosed with ovarian cancer stage 3. She had already had 1 surgery to balloon open a vein in her leg and insert a shunt in her chest. She had begun chemotherapy and just generally felt like hell. I liked to think that I was close enough to her to wake up in the middle of the night with pains in my legs and assume she was having pain at that same moment. It kept me praying for her, but it didn't dawn on me that I might be pregnant. I was 19!
I can remember peeing on a stick for the first time...which one do I buy? How do you do this without splashing everywhere? Are there really 2 lines or does the double line count as one? Maybe I should do another one just in case...
Anyway, when I started feeling even more sick I thought for sure something was wrong with the baby. How could anyone be this sick just because they were pregnant?
Then we had a sonogram! Bubblegum was a verrrrry active little fetus! But we finally caught a shot of his baby butt and little boy parts when he mooned the camera!
A BOY!!!
I knew it would be. I didn't even consider the fact that it could have been a girl. Neither did my mom. And she immediately started buying stuff for him!
On the morning of September 11th I sat down to watch my favorite morning talk show, and watched in horror as the second plane came crashing through the second trade tower. I put my hands protectively around my full belly and called my mom...
On December 10th at 2am I woke up with a baby bouncing on my bladder. As I got up to waddle to the bathroom I felt a gush of warmth down my legs. Did I just pee myself? Cause that would be a first for me...
Then I realized my water had broken! "Jooooooohn!"
Off we went to the hospital with an exhilarating rush! My contractions started immediately. But it wasn't to be that simple.
I had aspirations to have a natural birth with this baby. I do have a very high pain tolerance. But after 12 hours of contracting and only progressing to 3 centimeters I broke and asked for Stadol. NEVER I repeat NEVER ask for Stadol! Loopy doop! It did help me sleep though, but a tortured sleep full of visions and freaky dreams. Finally the doctors said I needed some help and started a Pitossin drip. Then I really did need an epidural. Things went quickly after that but the epidural hadn't been done correctly and had left me with a severe headache. To this day I am not sure how I pushed that boy out while suffering a severe migraine. My eyeballs were so strained that they broke all the little capillaries inside and around them!
Bubblegum was born at 7:53 December 10th at Florida Hospital Rollins just 6 floors below my mother, who was on the cancer floor recovering a full hysterectomy.
It was such a difficult time. A low so severe that depression was beginning to sink in, and a high so high! My first baby...my boy, my little Bubblegum!
I know without a doubt that even though this precious child wasn't my plan, he was God's. My mother's one dream was to have grandchildren. She had planned for it for years! Stashing toys away, planning what the kids should call her (dran-ma) and how she would wear her hair when it turned gray (in a long braid down her back).
She got to love Bubblegum for the first three months of his life before she passed away. He was among the few rare things she would always smile about through all the pain and misery. And she certainly didn't fail to impart her maternal wisdom on me as I began this new journey of motherhood!
Bubblegum was and still is such a joy. Everyday he makes me laugh - every other day he makes me cry, tears of joy at my baby boy. I don't know what I would do without him.
1 comment:
***hugs***
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