Capturing the moment before it fades...

I'm sitting down for one of those rare moments that Cole is actually napping and I find myself astounded that I don't really know what I should be doing. For once in a blue moon I feel caught up on bills, laundry, grocery lists, cleaning et al and the million other TO-DOs can wait for some reason (I can't tell you the last time I thought that...LOL). Do I read, watch TV, peruse a magazine, write?? I have precious minutes of ME time to spend and I literally am at a loss as to how to spend them. I think I have forgotten how to be ME? I don't say that with sadness, I just mean that for the past 10 months my days have not been about me. So here I am finally crafting a post to a BLOG that I created months ago but have yet to have sat down to actually begin writing for.

I am well past the 90 day orientation period where in a new job employees and their employers evaluate how things are going. I have not had so much as a spare moment to actual THINK like I once used to. I have been operating on automatic drive the past 10 months so it had not yet crossed my mind to take a step back and "critique" myself in my new role with my new responsibilities. So I am taking advantage of the strange peace and quiet I find myself reveling in as Cole has decided to make the most of a rainy day and nap (the two new teeth he sprouted may have something to do with this sudden desire to catch some ZZZZs!)

Unless you have "worked" in the same profession you may not understand how quickly AND how slowly simultaneously days pass, how they have have no true agenda and a schedule redefines itself daily. Unless however you are a first time mom. You can read, prepare, plan, shop, listen to others, research, and take a class but there is NO true instruction manual for having a baby, becoming a mom for the first time and learning to balance a whole new way of life and purpose.

For today, I will just blog about Cole's birth as that day is waning in my memory and I want to preserve my recollection of that once in a lifetime event.

Cole was born in early December a few days later than the EDD (estimated delivery date). After several early pre-term scares where everyone anxiously waited his/her early arrival (as we did not know the gender beforehand) Cole decided to become a squatter in his existing abode and required an eviction notice and some assistance in moving.

The induction started out at 7am but proceeded painstakingly slow in the initial hours, tick-tock, tick-tock went the first 7 hours .Once my OB got my waters flowing around 2pm, things picked up speed. In fear of utter exhaustion and due to the contractions coming at a Pitocin-induced pace, I gave in and got the Epidural around 4pm. AHHHHH... relief...my best friend had told me with great emphasis (and numerous times over my pregnancy) to get one but I had resisted and had wanted to do it MY way. Well we all know about best intentions...blah blah blah. I jumped in dilation numbers pretty quickly and found myself fully 10cm and being told to push around 8pm without any advanced warning. It was really and truly like, OKAY, READY SET GO! It was like going from 0-60mph in a car without having control of the steering. Here is how the next few hours played out (from my memory of it).

1 hour down (I am a pusher like no other pusher according to the nurse)

2 hours down (they kept telling me they could see the head, I was skeptical but hey, I didn't exactly have the best view)

2 hours 15 minutes (I am now scaring all the other laboring moms in the ward with my grunting/mewling as the epidural has run out)

2 hours 30 minutes (I am running on fumes and begging Dave to do something about the pain)

2 hours 45 minutes (they finally decide that the baby is not descending and a C-section is the only way out. Oh, and by the way you cannot push anymore WHAT!?? My brain cannot compute that function, refresh, try again.)

I was becoming frantic and I couldn't breathe (get that damn oxygen mask out of my face). I needed pain relief (where the hell was the guy with the needles that I so wanted to avoid just hours before!!??) In the fog that is pain, I was absolutely unaware of ten or so medical personnel bustling in my room other than Dave, my OB and my nurse. I now know why the drug doc gets paid so much. The 20 minutes or so that passed until they wheeled me into the OR felt like hours. Once pain relief came, I was talking in full expletive free sentences again but feeling anxiety about the surgery I was so mentally unprepared for. This was going to complicate my recovery and my ability to be mobile dammit! I had wanted to avoid drugs and being bedridden and yet ended up drugged and immobile and now with a icky scar on my once smooth tummy (I had avoided stretch marks so was doubly pissed about the scar).

However, the end result was all that mattered and our little boy was born healthy at 8lbs 6 oz and had big feet (I repeated this several times to Dave's annoyance but it was all I could see of Cole for the first several moments as they did all his checks). Cole was born just after midnight at 12:06 am on 12/6/06 (WOW, that will be a statistic easy to remember) and by the time we were wheeled back to the room, it was the middle of the night. As the racing of my heart lessened, the magnitude of what had just occurred overwhelmed my exhausted mind and body. I silently cried with tears of joy as I gazed into Cole's face as he slept peacefully with newborn breathe. The lights were dimmed in the room and it took on an entirely different mood than it had hours earlier. Dave was out cold breathing heavily on the pull out chair. He was way beyond exhausted after having coached me through what ended up being my most difficult feat in life to date! I can only guess at the sheer amount of energy, stamina, and brain power it took to guide me through labor and delivery. Without his calming presence, I would have wigged out entirely especially when I realized following each contraction that the PRESSURE was becoming PAIN and my luck and time had run out! The clock read 3am as a nurse came in to check on me, my mouth was as dry as the Sahara but she wouldn't get me ice for fear I would puke post-op, ummm, so what, i was doped up on Morphine!! That anecdote aside, here I was holding our son in my arms! How many times had I dreamt about having a boy!! I had felt so assuredly that it was a boy I was growing in my womb all along and here was living proof that my gut was spot on! I relish that I had been given that quiet wee hour of the night to digest that I was now a parent. My life as everyone had told me would be changed forever and as I sat there processing the journey to Cole's birth, I kept thinking of the Johnson and Johnson's ad "a baby changes everything". There is no other statement that holds so much truth behind its' words!