It’s amazing to me how the human body holds memories. Completely separate from my brain my body becomes tense and anxious every year at this time. Eight years ago on this date was the last day I would be pregnant with my first child. I was already a week passed my due date and my obstetrician had finally convinced me that my body was not going to go into labor on its own. I felt a little defeated when I accepted that fact, like my body had let me down. I wanted to play out that scene in every movie featuring pregnancy, where I wake in the middle of the night and announce that it’s “time” and my husband comically runs around in a panic. Which would not have happened anyway, my husband is not one to panic.
Since my labor was planned my grandfather was able to be there, he drove 9 hours at the age of 83 to be there for me and meet his great-grandson. I will always be grateful that he made it to both of my children’s births. He made it into the room when I was in labor with my son just in time for me to projectile vomit from an allergic reaction to one of the induction medications. I seen his cowboy hat out of the corner of my eye enter then immediately exit the room, to which my husband said teasingly “you know how to clear a room honey”. My allergic reaction was the first of so many unexpected complications, when my water broke we found out that our son had already passed his first bowel movement. Not uncommon with overdue babies, the hospital made the preparations to clear his nose and throat of the sticky substance.
Also unexpected was how big he was, after two hours of pushing, oxygen for me and a dropping heart rate for him the doctor used forceps as the last option before we would have to go for a c-section. The forceps worked and all 10lbs 2oz of our son came into the world. The Boston-born respiratory therapist exclaimed “what a bruisah!” and she worked over him to help him breathe normally. The first few hours after he was born went by quickly and just like a typical birthday should. I was able to hold him for about 20 minutes between doctors and nurses checking oxygen levels and other things, everyone was so positive around me that when six hours after his birth when they told me that his lungs were not drying out as expected I had a hard time understanding/accepting what they were telling me. The pediatrician we chose for him had a stellar reputation and arrived at one in the morning to assess the situation. I will always hold the upmost respect for him for not pulling any punches and saying it was time for my baby to go to a specialty hospital.
I had been awake for a full day when we boarded the life flight plane, the whole way I watched the nurses take turns squeezing the bag in rhythm, breathing for my sedated son. After arriving at the hospital and dozens of strange machines, wires and tubes attached to my son, no one had time to answer my questions. Like the hospital we came from, everyone was positive and encouraging, they talked a lot yet said nothing. This is when the head nurse from the plane came in and told me unceremoniously and with strange fascination that he had never seen the machines at such high settings, and we would be “lucky” if he made it out of the hospital. At that moment I never wanted to hurt anyone more, if I had any control of my body right then I could have killed him.
As it happened we were lucky, and the nurse was right, those machines had only had to work as hard a few times to bring a baby back from the brink. After three torturous weeks we were able to turn the machines off and hold our son again. A total of five weeks passed between his birthday and the day we were able to bring him home. Five weeks of constant stress, major lows and small victories. In those five weeks my husband and I built a foundation for our marriage that has yet to be shaken. There is nothing that we have gone through since that compares; arguments, stress, the things that would cause other relationships to falter or crumble are small bumps for us. Now every year at this time we get to celebrate the “bruisah’s” birthday and another year of our bond that was born along with him.
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