Getting old
I had spent the last hour walking the halls of the hospital. I was having contractions but they were weak and irregular and I hadn't dialated. I can remember the doctor standing beside my bed saying, "Well, you're not tearing it up, but I'm going to admit you since you live so far away. You rest though. I don't think this baby will be born until over in the morning." Morning was over 12 hours away. My husband went down to get my bag while the nurses came to hook up my IV.
My memory is clear for about the next 15 minutes. My husband came back from the car just after they got me hooked up to the IV. We called his parents in New Jersey to let them know today would be the day. I was talking on the phone with my mother-in-law when the contraction knocked the breath right out of me. The next one felt like I'd been picked up and slammed down on the bed like something out of the exorcist. I remember the nurse saying I needed to be checked again. Surely I wasn't that big of a wuss. Here it gets fuzzy. I can remember pain. Lots of pain coming in fierce waves like a storm rolling in at the beach. There would be no time for further prep - cancel the anesthesiologist. Oh no, now I wanted the anesthesiologist. I was ready to abandon the idea that I'd like to try natural childbirth. Bring him back...at least give me Tylenol. I remember a scared look on my husband's face (it was his first birth experience) but he stood with me and held my hand while they turned my bed so my head was hanging way down and slipped the oxygen mask over my face - something was wrong with the baby's heartbeat.
I signed my admission papers while someone snapped the hospital bracelet around my wrist and someone else put my legs in the stirrups. One nurse was on the phone calling the doctor while the other rushed to massage the baby's head to keep oxygen moving to the brain. "Call him back!" the massage nurse said to the one that had just phoned the doctor. "Tell him NOW! We have a rapid dissention!" I remember my husband's face when the tiny bald head became visible. I've only ever seen such wonder in the face of a child. Suddenly, excitement replaced his fear and he kept telling me it would be over soon. The doctor arrived in time to cut Emily's cord.
It was 45 minutes, beginning to end.
Emily Caitlyn Riggs was born at 1:45 on this day 8 years ago. She's never looked back. My brother used to call her a "little chunk of hell" and not undeservedly. By the time she was a year old she had been for head x-rays twice to check for skull fractures. At 18 months she drank an entire bottle of aftershave and spent the afternoon at the hospital, and the evening drunk as a skunk (we never did figure out where the aftershave came from, my husband don't wear it). She does everything her own way, in her own time - usually without doubt and without thought - plunging headlong into anything that looks remotely interesting to her.
It's hard to imagine it's been 8 years since the day I first held her. They grow up so fast. Keeping me young and make me old at the same time. They move from stage to stage with little effort, leaving gray hair in their wake. I can't complain. As long as I have my kids and Garnier covers the gray, I'm happy.
I had spent the last hour walking the halls of the hospital. I was having contractions but they were weak and irregular and I hadn't dialated. I can remember the doctor standing beside my bed saying, "Well, you're not tearing it up, but I'm going to admit you since you live so far away. You rest though. I don't think this baby will be born until over in the morning." Morning was over 12 hours away. My husband went down to get my bag while the nurses came to hook up my IV.
My memory is clear for about the next 15 minutes. My husband came back from the car just after they got me hooked up to the IV. We called his parents in New Jersey to let them know today would be the day. I was talking on the phone with my mother-in-law when the contraction knocked the breath right out of me. The next one felt like I'd been picked up and slammed down on the bed like something out of the exorcist. I remember the nurse saying I needed to be checked again. Surely I wasn't that big of a wuss. Here it gets fuzzy. I can remember pain. Lots of pain coming in fierce waves like a storm rolling in at the beach. There would be no time for further prep - cancel the anesthesiologist. Oh no, now I wanted the anesthesiologist. I was ready to abandon the idea that I'd like to try natural childbirth. Bring him back...at least give me Tylenol. I remember a scared look on my husband's face (it was his first birth experience) but he stood with me and held my hand while they turned my bed so my head was hanging way down and slipped the oxygen mask over my face - something was wrong with the baby's heartbeat.
I signed my admission papers while someone snapped the hospital bracelet around my wrist and someone else put my legs in the stirrups. One nurse was on the phone calling the doctor while the other rushed to massage the baby's head to keep oxygen moving to the brain. "Call him back!" the massage nurse said to the one that had just phoned the doctor. "Tell him NOW! We have a rapid dissention!" I remember my husband's face when the tiny bald head became visible. I've only ever seen such wonder in the face of a child. Suddenly, excitement replaced his fear and he kept telling me it would be over soon. The doctor arrived in time to cut Emily's cord.
It was 45 minutes, beginning to end.
Emily Caitlyn Riggs was born at 1:45 on this day 8 years ago. She's never looked back. My brother used to call her a "little chunk of hell" and not undeservedly. By the time she was a year old she had been for head x-rays twice to check for skull fractures. At 18 months she drank an entire bottle of aftershave and spent the afternoon at the hospital, and the evening drunk as a skunk (we never did figure out where the aftershave came from, my husband don't wear it). She does everything her own way, in her own time - usually without doubt and without thought - plunging headlong into anything that looks remotely interesting to her.
It's hard to imagine it's been 8 years since the day I first held her. They grow up so fast. Keeping me young and make me old at the same time. They move from stage to stage with little effort, leaving gray hair in their wake. I can't complain. As long as I have my kids and Garnier covers the gray, I'm happy.
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