May 9, 2006

• Happy Birthday Infiniteplatypus!
  
  
  
  For my Emily!
  
  
  
       Last Aug
  I wrote Allison’s birth story for part of her birthday gift. 
  Today is Emily’s birthday so at the risk of boring my faithful readers
  and grossing out the guys among you, here is the birth story for my
  youngest.  The one destined, for the rest of her life no matter how
  old she gets, and no matter how senile I get, to be known as “my baby
  girl”.  (no comments on the senility, wacky people)
                                                   
  
  circa 1984
  
  We were still Air Force and were
  stationed at a small base in Merced, California called Castle. (it’s
  closed now) This was really the first time I had been so far from my
  family and when I found out I was pregnant shortly after getting to
  California it never dawned on me how hard the next 9 months would be without my
  friends and family and a one year old to round things out.  But
  time and growing belly wait for no woman

  .  
  
   Before I knew it mid April had arrived and my mom was there to help
  out. (Emily by the way had a due date the last week of April.)  May 1st
  rolled around and still no baby.  I went in for my regular weekly
  appointment and everything was still fine.  They figured that every
  day she stayed where she was, was a little bit more weight and
  growth.
   I think they like it when you can’t breathe, bend over
  and have to run to the bathroom every 5 mins. (the doctors I mean, not
  the babies) 
  All 4 of us were like planes circling the landing strip just
  waiting.  Allison spent a lot of time patting my belly and telling
  her sister it was okay to come out.  I spent a lot of time napping
  since my mom was there to watch Allison.  And Bear spent a lot of
  time wishing his life had less women in it…..or a bigger apt…..poor
  guy.  My mom spent a lot of time wondering why she had come over
  to California so soon.
  
  
  
  By May 9th I was back at the obstretician and practically begging him to do something. 
  By our calculations I was more than 10 days over due.  The doctors
  disagreed.  But I knew my mom
  couldn’t stay forever and if she went home that meant that I would
    (A.)  have to drive myself to the hospital or (B.)  
  Bear could drive the whole family there but then still have to leave to
  take care of Allie. Because we just didn’t have anyone we could leave
  her with overnight.  I knew I couldn’t do this childbirth thing
  without him there so I was getting in a bit of a hurry even if Emily
  wasn’t.

  Finally Dr. Graham said he could scrape my membranes.  I thought
  it sounded awful but when he explained it I thought it was
  brilliant.  Basically the idea is to thin the membrane with a
  gentle scrape or two and if she was ready to come she would but if she
  wasn’t then the membrane would just thicken up again.  I was so
  thrilled with the possibility that I practically leaped into the
  stirrups.  Scrape away doc. 
  Then I went home and took a walk followed by another nap.  (I
  learned with Allison, sleep every single chance you can.) 

  
  That evening seemed like every other evening for the last 2 weeks and
  even though at first I had been excited by 9 PM I was just tired. 
  We stayed up for the 11 O clock news and then went to bed.  At
  about 1 A.M. I woke up and had to pee so bad it felt like Em was
  digging her heel into my bladder.  So I lumbered to the
  bathroom.  When I got back in bed I had barely got comfortable
  when I felt moisture between my legs.  I was peeing the bed. 
  “For Gods sake” I thought, “let’s just pile on one more
  embarrassment.”   So I got back out of bed and went back to
  pee some more.  Then went and got back in bed.  More
  pee!!  Wait a minute?? (light bulb)  I think my water
  broke.  So not being completely sure, since I hadn’t had a
  contraction and believe it or not was about half asleep, I thought I
  would call the
  hospital and ask some questions.
   
  I snuck downstairs dialled
  the hospital and told the nurse on duty what was going on.  
  Of course her first question was “Have you had a contraction?”  I
  was literally in the middle of saying no when the first one hit. 
  That settled that and I told her to expect us soon.  (Barry and I
  had discussed before hand with my Dr. the need to go immediately because my
  contractions with Allison had never come regular and the whole
  hemorrhaging after birth thing had kind of scared us both last
  time.  Though with Dr. Graham we both felt much more secure.)
  So
  I went back upstairs woke up Barry and told him what was going on, then
  we went down and woke my mom up and told her we were headed for the
  hospital.  FINALLY! 
  2 AM and we were finally headed toward baby day.

  Then the contractions started in earnest.  (Want to know what pain
  is?  Be in the middle of back labor and hit railroad tracks. 
  I yelled at Bear, and for the first time ever in a driving
  situation instead of yelling back … apologised.) 
  Luckily we weren’t that far from the hospital.  And even better we
  were pre-registered so we got to sail straight to a bed.  Yay,
  lets get some pressure off of my poor back.  Em typical of her
  future Taurian birthday was head down and trying to
  bull her way thru.  My back was on fire and I thought for a while
  that she was going to break me in half.  This was a lot more
  intense than last time.  The next few hours were just a blur of
  trying to find a comfortable position and trying to breathe thru the
  pain. 

  I looked at the clock thru my lamaze breathing and saw it was 11:30
  AM.  And when the pain was over I remember saying “I need to have
  her at noon.  That will be really easy to remember.”  Hah,
  what was really going thru my mind was…..”please God let me have her
  at noon.  I want to be done, she’s killing me!”  Of course,
  it’s true noon would be easy but I had an ulterior motive even thru the
  pain.  You always hear about back labor but until you actually
  have it, you really have no idea.  And of course now everyone gets
  epidurals so a completely natural childbirth is getting pretty
  rare.  I blame all this natural stuff on my 70′s era
  upbringing.  You just can’t have three 60′s raised sisters and
  then be raised in the 70′s yourself without being all gungho
  natural. 

  Noon arrived and Emily didn’t.  By then I was pushing so hard my
  glasses fogged up so I never noticed until it had passed.  When I
  did notice it was about 12:15 and I thought oh lord please don’t let
  this last much longer. Three more good strong pushes and she
  gave up trying to break my back and popped out and joined the world at
  12:25 PM.   She was long and skinny and looked for all the world
  like a monkey.  We held her and just couldn’t believe we had done
  it again.  We had our little girl.  Allison had begged us for
  a baby sister, I had prayed for one and lo and behold here she
  was. 
  Our little miracle, born at Castle Air Force Base, Merced,
  California.   May 10th 1984 turned out to be a great day.
  May 11th turned out to be a little odd.   Emily wasn’t even
  24 hours old when a fire alarm went off in another part of the
  hospital.  (It was about 7 or 8 in the morning.)  A nurse
  came in and instructed me to pick up Emily and follow her.  So I
  did and we went outside.  There all the new moms were just sort of
  milling around wishing to high heaven somebody had brought chairs or
  something.  Finally, about the time I thought I was just going to
  lay down in the weeds, they let us back inside only to tell us that
  they were sending every healthy mother and child home as a
  precaution.  So less than 24 hours after having her, we were back
  home.  I admit I was secretly glad.  I missed Allison so
  bad.  Funny thing is when I saw her she looked huge compared to
  Emily so it was a shock to see her as a toddler instead of a
  baby.  (She was 21 months old then.)  She took to Emily like
  a duck takes to water.  I gave her Emily and told her here was the
  baby she asked for and since that day they have been inseparable.
  
  Emily is empathic so sometimes I think on some level we didn’t pick her,
  she picked us.  I think she knew she would have unconditional love
  and support from us.  Not that we don’t all fight like cats and
  dogs sometimes but then who doesn’t.  We are after all a pretty
  normal family.  But our Emily, she’s special, always has
  been.  And that’s not just mom talking you can ask anyone. 
  She will give you her last dime and then ask if you need her coat
  too.  She will run to you if you say, I need you now.  She
  loves with a ferocity and loyalty that is a wonder to behold.  If
  you need a tiger in your corner call my Em.

  I hope for Emily, this……….

  For your birthday I hope that you have the knowledge that we love
  you.  I wish you joy and contentment in your life.  I wish
  for you to know that we have always been proud to call you our
  daughter.  You have blessed our lives beyond measure.

  Happy Birthday Baby Girl!

  Love mom
   

  • 9:08 pm
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