Today is the birthday of my youngest child, my second son. I feel like a slug waiting so late to post this, but school starting has been like, well…rememb
Both of my sons arrived nine days after their due dates; my three girls were all early. Go figure.
Back to John:
Just when I’d reconciled myself to being pregnant forever, I felt twinges of contractions. I’m certain I willed myself into labor.
After calling a friend who was on standby to stay with the other four children, it was off to the hospital. Over an hour away off to the hospital.
Oh, I forgot the almost-birth of John. Two weeks before he was due, my labor started and the refrigerator died. I went to the hospital anyway. My doctor informed me that “the baby” was breech (this was 24 years ago, ascertaining the sex of the baby was out of the question unless the ultrasound indicated fancy parts). But…there was a new procedure: external cephalic version.
Sure. Go ahead. Push on my abdomen until you rotate my child out of the breech position. I was in active labor, the exact right time to ask anything of a pregnant woman. So, after a shot to stop the contractions, the pushing began. Let’s just say I’m glad he wasn’t twins.
Push. Ultrasound check. Push. Ultrasound check. Push. Ultrasound check. . . and on and on and on. Finally, he’d done the somersault, and it was back to waiting for the labor to start again.
It didn’t. The only thing that got delivered that day was a new refrigerator. To my house.
So, over three weeks later, I find myself climbing down five flights of stairs in the hospital parking garage because I don’t want to be a “Woman gives birth to fifth child in elevator” headline in Houston’s paper the next day. It took me a few years to figure out I could’ve gotten dropped off at the front door of the hospital…
I waddled to the nurses’ station and announced, “I’m dilated; I just walked down five flights of stairs, and this is my fifth child.” The two nurses behind the desk stared at one another like someone had dropped the spud during a game of “hot potato.” They steered me into the room closest to the station.
Fast forward about twenty dozen contractions. We’re almost to launch, and my doctor peered over my belly, and asked, “What size shoe do you wear?”
If they hadn’t already given me a shot of demerol, I might have yanked my feet out of those stirrups and pummeled her. But, the edge is off, so I’m thinking…I’ve been here before. I know this is not the time for small talk. Is she buying me shoes when this is over?
When I tell her I wear a size 5 1/2, she’s visibly relieved. “Great. Then you should be able to deliver this baby.”
Well now’s a heckofa time to get this news. (Later she explained that generally 4’11″ women have small bone structures. Not so good for hefty babies. Me? I’ve got hips made for delivery. Figures. The one thing I could do well, I had to stop doing. . . ).
Precious John weighed in at 9 pounds, 15 ounces. He was a beautiful, dark-eyed, baby with silky hair so dark it could have been poured from an inkwell.
He was named after my father, and my greatest sadness is that his PaPa did not live to see him grow into the kind, funny, thoughtful, unselfish, and handsome young man he is today. I have no doubt, though, that my father has watched him from heaven and, if one can glow from pride in heaven, he’s set the stars on fire.
