Sunday, June 16, 2013

The Birth of my Now-12yo Mr. Always Random

I can’t believe it’s here. My oldest child is turning 12. It's tomorrow actually, but I just couldn't wait until then to post about him.

This is (obviously) his last year as a tween...and he is very quick to tell me, or anyone else, so.

And he will finally be able to legally ride in the front seat of the car.

My handsome young man...almost 12yo.

I should amend that statement…he will finally be able to RIDE in the front seat of the car. I believe that Mr. Always Random has allowed him to ride in the front of his truck, but Little Miss Rule Follower has not let him ever ride in the front seat.

That’s me, in case you didn’t know.

Full Disclosure: I was staunch about it until last Thursday...I did let him ride in the front on the way to pick up his brother from camp.

But that's IT.

I think my child is most excited about this aspect of turning 12...riding in the front seat...there aren't really any other perks which ride on the coat-tails of the 12th birthday.

It is most unfortunate for him, however, that he probably will have to wait an additional two weeks after his birthday to enjoy such privileges...at least on a consistent basis. We are leaving on vacation tomorrow. A two-week-plus vacation. Six of us in one van…and no way an adult is riding in the back when there is no need…birthday boy or not.

We’re mean like that.

So, even though it’s been a while, I think I remember some of the details surrounding this young man’s birth. 

I was there for it and all. I shall attempt to be succinct, but as we all know, I sometimes tend to get bogged down in details so no promises.

With that…we are off (in two senses of the word, at least!)!

My now-12yo was due in July. July 15, to be exact. Which is very confusing to me (even to this day I have to stop and think about it before I say his birthday) because he was born on June 17. (Originally 7-15, but arrived 6-17. 

As we’ve previously discussed, math is not my thing. Frankly numbers in general…not really my thing. But I deal with them because I have to. How else will I get that shopper’s high if I don’t know how much I’m saving. For that, especially, I’m willing to do the math).

So…on June 15, I had an appointment with my OB/GYN and they thought I was getting too big. Or he was...let's say it that say, shall we? Otherwise it simply sounds like they're calling me fat.

They did an ultrasound to check on the baby’s size and estimated that he was already at about 7 pounds.
I was a little surprised at that, because I, myself, was only 6 lbs 1 oz at full term. But Mr. Always Random was a hefty 10 pounds and something…but three weeks overdue.

It almost goes without say (but I’m obviously saying it anyway) that my MIL was not allowed to have any more children after delivering her bruiser of a baby.

Anyway…at the time of my pregnancy, Mr. Always Random was working a second job as a banquet captain (be sure to picture him saluting as you read this, because I always do) for a catering company.

He’d had this job off and on since college and when we found out we were expecting our first child, we thought it might be a good idea to have some extra income in the bank account.

See, that's funny because we didn't know that there would never again be something called "extra money in the bank account".

So…on June 16, Mr. Always Random was working his last catering gig before the baby’s due date. We didn’t want to risk the possibility of me going into labor while he was at work, because THAT would be crazy.

Please keep in mind, you young whipper-snappers, that these were the days when cell phones were not attached to (most) people all the time. People who did always have their phones were usually dealing in illegal goods of some kind.

Not judging...just stating facts.

I don’t remember what all I did that evening but I do remember that I ate a late dinner. I didn’t have plans and was home by myself. In fact, I had showered and was in bed by 9…I had some HGTV to watch, no doubt.

So on second thought, it WAS a big night. It’s always a big night with HGTV.

So, I was in bed, and if you know how it feels to be 8 months pregnant (which is what I was), it’s not always terribly easy to get comfy in bed. So I rolled over…and immediately felt something wet.

“Are you kidding me?!? Did I REALLY just wet my pants? Really?”

I got up, went to the bathroom (again…I went right before I got into bed), changed all my clothes, including my skivvies (I just wanted to say that so I could include the label "contains the word skivvies"), took them into the laundry room, and got back into bed.

I laid there for a minute and decided to try an experiment. Fully confident that my bladder was empty, I rolled over. Wet again.

OK…I think that’s my water. I called the doctor’s office and got ahold of the medical exchange, who took my information and promised to have the doctor call me.

In the meantime, I changed clothes again and pulled out a feminine hygiene product (not a tampon, just to be clear), to prevent another clothing change.

Took the second set of wet clothes to the laundry room and by the time I got back to my room…how should I say this?...the water was gushing.

Fortunately I already had my bag packed, so after changing clothes again (this is the third time, in case you're having trouble keeping up), I sat on a towel to absorb any excess moisture.

And I called Mr. Always Random.

Now remember, children, that he was at work. And it was catering work. It is not often that someone is in the office during an event because they’re all serving the clients. I say that in case you are unfamiliar with such things. I’m certain that I would be unfamiliar if I were not married to a former banquet captain (insert salute here).

And God would, in his graciousness, have it, Mr. Always Random just happened to be in the office when I called the office number.

AND…he actually answered the phone. He NEVER answered the phone in the office.

Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition! (Yes, I’ve referenced this 1940’s War Propaganda song in the past so I’m certain you’re all familiar with it and possibly sing it to your children when you tuck them in at night, just as I do…but if you’ve not had the pleasure, here you go.) 

No, it has absolutely nothing to do with what I’m talking about here, but since when has that concept ever pertained to this blog? Thanks for just rolling with it.

So…Mr. Always Random answered the phone. Frankly I don’t know the words which were exchanged (though, let me say for the record that there is very little in this world that I forget…Mr. Always Random will tell you that), but through our brief chat I made it abundantly clear that he needed to come home because I needed a ride to the hospital.

While he was on his way, I was still awaiting a call back from my doctor. Yes, I had not been told to go to the hospital yet, but seeing as how I knew it would take my husband a while to get home, better to call early rather than late.

When the doctor finally called (and I was thrilled that in a group of doctors, it happened to be my own doctor who was on call that week-end), I explained what had happened, and the several costume (ok not really but it sounds better in the context, doesn’t it?) changes. 

And then she proceeded to ask if I had simply wet my pants.

“No, I’m pretty sure that’s not it.”

I could tell she didn’t want to tell me to come in because she didn’t think it was truly “my time” but she told me to go ahead and go.

A few minutes later, Mr. Always Random arrived home. I was sitting on the couch (ok, on a towel on the couch) with my bag on my lap. He came in to get me and wanted to head back out the door, but I made him change first. “Yes, it is a big event but I don’t know that you need to wear a tux…”

“Do I have time?!?”

“Yes, I haven’t had any contractions…just a bunch of water. But hurry up.”

Clearly he had missed the part of the obligatory classes which explained that first babies can often take their sweet time.

Well, let me tell you brothers and sisters…this one did.

I won’t go through all the ins and outs...the gory details, if you will.

Well, maybe just a few…what woman doesn’t want to share her birth story, right? And what woman doesn’t want to sit politely and smile and nod because she’s not really listening…she’s just waiting for her opportunity to share her story.

Or some other story that she finds more interesting than the one she's supposedly listening to.

I apologize for that. And I don’t mean to be snarky so please forgive if it comes across that way. But I do have a birth story to share for my now-12yo so I’ll be sharing it.

Feel free to skip ahead if you’ve heard it / don’t care to read it / frankly just want to get to the end of this thing so you can see the pictures of my handsome boy.

I won’t be offended because I won’t.even.know.

So…after a few hours after a broken water and nothing happening…I got the beloved pitocin.

Ok, it’s not beloved.

Not beloved at all. Frankly, it's horrid.

And in spite of it's horrible effects, still not much happened except a bunch of pain. So I got my epidural.

And they over-dosed me on my epidural. My blood-pressure dropped, I threw up and the only parts of my body which were not numb were: my head and my right arm.

Yes, you read that correctly. I could feel NOTHING. ELSE.

As it tends to do, it began to wear off and when they redosed me, they gave me less (good call), and I regained some of the feeling in my left arm.

But  I did throw up again.

Fast forward…twenty hours after my water broke, I still had no baby to show for my laboring.

And I was BARELY at 4 cm.

For those of you who may not know or cannot recall: that’s not enough room to squeeze out a nearly-full-term baby.

Ten cm is the ideal. At least that’s what they tell me. I never had a regular delivery.

So…my doctor, who had been on call since Friday night (it was now late on Sunday afternoon), said we had two options: continue to wait or c-section. I didn’t hesitate.

“Get it out. Now.”

Yes, I called my child “it”…I’m not proud of that fact, but I was over this labor business by that point. I wanted to see this baby in all his birthday suit glory.

He’ll probably kill me for that statement, but it doesn’t make it any less true.

NOTE: I do NOT want to see him NOW in all his birthday suit glory. I’m sure that will make him feel much better.

So…they whisked me off to delivery and frankly I don’t remember too much after that. I think they gave me more drugs; I do know that I was loopy (as the photos immediately following would indicate…should I let you see them, but I will not. You’ll have to trust me here. I don’t look good.)

At 6 something that evening (yes, I’m a horrible mother for not remembering the exact time..but I’m fairly certain it’s written down in the baby book. Wherever that is. JK. I’m just too lazy/busy to go and fetch it. I’m all about the facts but I’m letting this one go.)

Actually…I’ll just tell you a time and you’ll never know the difference. It was at 6:21pm that my first sweet baby boy came bouncing into the world.

He was 5lbs 10ozs of pure joy. Early joy, but joy nonetheless.

Born on Father’s Day…the perfect gift for his dad, two grandpas, and one great-grandpa...all of whom got to be there and meet him minutes after he was born.

Just about an hour old. Sweet baby.

And not to bring this back around to me, but since I alluded to the post-delivery experience in my post about the Birth of Mr. Always Random the Youngest, I wanted to follow-through with some info.

Because I’m certain you’ve been eagerly anticipating this post for weeks. And I hate to leave my readers twisting in the wind.

So…briefly recapping the events thus far:
  • My water broke on a Saturday night.
  • I did not handle the epidural well AT ALL.
  • My son was born on Sunday evening, via a c-section.

Which brings us to Monday…the day before we should have gone home (which was Tuesday). I was sitting up and eating my first solid food (no more broth…wahoo!) on Monday afternoon…the first solid food since my dinner on Saturday night.  And the first time I had really be able to sit up.

I stood up to go to the bathroom and my pjs were soaking wet.

No, I didn’t have a bladder control issue.

So I sat back down and my mom called the nurse.

After a quick assessment of the situation, she paged my doctor.

Yes, the very doctor who’d been on call all week-end. It was her day off. She was out bra shopping (she loved to remind me of that every time I saw her after this, because she said she would never forget what happened in this scenario). When the nurse explained what happened, the doctor told her to keep me in the bed and she was on her way.

Well, by this point I REALLY had to pee…because they have you drink all that water to flush the epidural medicine out of your system.

I was freaking out and begging to get up.

Nope…wouldn’t let me.

More begging…I don’t think they understood the severity of the situation.

At one point, they told me to just go…there was a pad underneath me that would soak it up, and they could change it from underneath me.

Well, I was desperate but not THAT desperate. I refused. But continued to beg.

Finally they said the only option was to cath me.

“Yes, please do.”

I proceeded to fill one bag and they had to change it. And then I half-filled the second bag.

“Boy, you weren’t kidding…you really had to go!”

Would I honestly joke about something like that? And would someone WILLINGLY choose to be cathed if they DIDN’T have to pee really badly.

As we’ve already discussed, I have a bladder the size of a cow…they must have missed that memo.

So…finally the doctor arrived, took one look at me and I knew it wasn’t good.

Apparently part of my body which should have been on the inside were not. It was outside.

Because the stitches of my c-section had come apart.

Oh yes...they did. I could not be kidding you less.

Fortunately I had enough pain meds coursing through my body that I hadn’t felt a thing.

So…they gave me ANOTHER epidural (though this one went slightly better than the first one…no vomit this time) and took me back into surgery…where they stapled my incision shut. And sewed it up too, using individual stitches, not the more conventional “running” stitch I believe was used during the first attempt.

And because of my infection risk, I didn’t get to go home until Friday. Yes, your math is correct…I was in the hospital for a week. My baby, who was technically a preemie, was able to go home on Tuesday morning.  

But I was not.

Fortunately they let him stay too.

So that’s his story of his big dramatic entrance. Not at all what (or when) we expected, but a blessing nonetheless.  


Happy Birthday, Darling! We love you and are so proud of the young man that you are and the gentleman you are becoming. What a gift you are to us each and every day. God has blessed us richly by the treasure of you!

1 comment:

  1. If it had been a "normal" delivery (whatever those are; I haven't had one myself), your story wouldn't have been as interesting.

    I really think c-section sutures should hold up better. I also "came undone", though not to the degree that you did.

    What a sweet boy you have, though, and what a great Father's Day gift!

    ReplyDelete