"You better pay for that pee-stick when you're done with it. Don't think it's yours just because you marked it with your urine!"

November 18, 2008

For 9 months, every time I went to the doctor they'd ask the first day of my last period and the answer was the same; November 18, 2008. 6 days after my wedding day. I was supposed to start way earlier than that, but I manipulated it with my birth control pills a little bit every month until the start date was at the tail end of our cruise and then I tossed the pills because they made me Cah-razy. Once we got home I giggled at the fact we were having unprotected sex. Tee hee. Never had this been an on purpose thing, and very rarely was it an accident. I didn't get pregnant until I was 29 for a reason yo.

We got knocked up the first time we tried. What are the odds right? We were very lucky. I DECIDED she was a girl because dear god what would I have done with a boy?!

The day before my last day of work, at 35 weeks I went to the hospital for bleeding. Light, not a big deal. The monitor picked up contractions I wasn't aware of, and the nurse was unsure if things would progress or not. We'll wait and see she says and walks out of the room.

I burst into tears. I'm not ready yet! I wailed. She's too early! I'm supposed to have more time to prepare! J just looked at me. Then he says; Of course you're not ready yet, no one's ever ready for a baby, even when they think they are they're wrong. There's nothing you can do about that, we just gotta jump in feet first and do the best we can. I snuffled back the snot and said ok. We went home the next morning, everything was fine.

August 22, 2009 was a Saturday. It was warm, and I had a doctor's appointment. I'm not entirely sure why, I don't think I usually went on Saturdays, maybe it had something to do with losing the plug, or they just wanted to check me in case because there weren't office hours on Sunday, I'm just not sure. Anyway, she sticks her hand up my nether regions, tells me about my dilation and how much I'm effaced and asked if I wanted her to sweep my membranes. I was like, yeah sure, whatever, and then I said OW. Because that shit hurt. She told me to go home and walk.

It was warm, so we waited until evening. We lived in town then, a very hilly place. I remember wishing I was on the compound because there's 1 flat part of the driveway I could have walked repeatedly but I kept walking the hills. My in laws came to join us, waiting as I puffed my way up and down. We stopped at the ice cream place and had a soft serve vanilla ice cream dipped in fudge that was BOMB. After awhile they went home and J and I walked in the dark. We held hands, waved to the people we knew smoking outside the bar as we passed, stopped when the contractions got too bad for me to climb a hill then continued on as it lessened. Timed and wrote down each one.

Around 11pm we went in and showered. I shaved my legs and everything, which I usually don't do at night. At about 12:30 the contractions were still 5 minutes apart and while very noticeable still well within my ability to handle so I told J to go to sleep. Poor guy. Of course just as he drifted off Shit Got Real. All of a sudden they were 3 minutes apart, lasting more than a minute and holy shit they're crushing me. I was very paranoid about making it to the hospital. In the city there's always a parking lot, or a side street, SOMEWHERE you can pull the eff over should it be required. For much of the route to the hospital there is simply not a place to stop. It's curvy and mountainous with rarely a shoulder on the side of the road so it was something I'd worried about. I called the hospital and woke up J to take me. I text everyone on the way there. My dear sister calls me while we're on 13 corners and I'm like I CAN'T HOLD A CONVERSATION RIGHT NOW I HAVE TO GO. *click*

We get to the hospital, he drops me off at the ER as it's after hours and goes to park. My teeth chatter as I talk to the intake nurse. I'm not sure if it was nerves or pain. They take me upstairs and the nurse there wants a bunch of information that I just do not want to talk about right then. Jesusfuckingchrist I'd preregistered what more did they want?! They made me put on a hospital gown and I was not very pleased with that either.

All I wanted to do was go to the bathroom and sit on the toilet. I'm sorry if that's gross but I was seriously uncomfortable everywhere else. People showed up. My mom, his parents, a relative who was mad at me because I'd informed her she would not be present to witness me pushing a child out of my vagina. I told her to go right ahead and be mad, I was trying to keep the people who saw my girly bits to a minimum. But I was still stressed out that they were there. I knew they wanted to be a part of it even if it was just the contractions part. Looking back I say fuck them. I would never worry about that again. I should have been concentrating on the matter at hand and instead I was worried about people in the waiting room, plus the fact I was really concerned I might have this baby on the toilet. I did not want to give birth right there, but the bed was too uncomfortable. Now I know I should have requested a shower chair, we may live in the boondocks but our Labor and Delivery is awesome, and each room as a big roomy shower, I should have taken advantage of it. But I wasn't thinking and was a big ball of nerves.

The contractions are coming harder and faster and I'm swearing Very Loudly into J's stomach as I sit on the toilet and listen to it echo, sure everyone on this floor can hear me. Then comes a contraction so hard I literally can not inhale, it just squeezes all the breath right out of me. As soon as it lets up I inhale and with my exhale yell DRUGS. I WANT DRUGS GIVE THEM TO ME. We go to the bed and discuss this. Or they discuss and I yell DRUGS. It's the middle of the night and there's something about an on call epidural team so we have to wake them up and wait for them to get there and I have no clue because I want DRUGS. She asks if I want something in my IV to help until the team gets there and I ask if it will actually help with the pain or just get me all stoned so I don't notice it as much. She looked caught off guard and didn't really know how to answer. Finally I took that option which I did not like because I was just stoned and in pain which wasn't cool.

The team arrives. They lean me over and the nurse holds me. The clouds part and angels sing as the epidural works. Fuck yes. The rest of the night everyone's crowded in my room on various chairs while I try to sleep off the stupid drugs I got in my IV. I contract, they check, you know how it goes. Dilation continues, and the next morning the doctor comes in to check me and turns off my epidural so I can feel what I'm doing. I was against this, but didn't get a vote. It felt like G was attempting to exit my body the wrong direction, via my throat or something. She was all up in my ribs, and I could feel her and the contractions, I'd never heard of rib labor, but that was what I was having. As the contractions came I'd breath and push down on my stomach because it felt like she was climbing up, I swear my sternum sticks out to this day, she stretched everything. Oppositional from the beginning. The doctor comes in and with grumblings from the peanut gallery everyone leaves but J. (My FiL shot out at the first sight of the doctor, no grumbling from him.) He checks and says it's time to push. I realize I'm hella hungry and when J leaves to get the moms I see the lunch carts pass by. I decide I need to hurry or I will miss out on all the food. Weird. J and the moms get back and pushing starts.

Probably about 45 minutes later I'm able to take the first deep breath in who knows how long because the monkey that has been swinging on my sternum with her toes is born. They put her right up on my chest and my first thought was holy shit she has my ears. I have very unique ears and I blew my mind that she had them too. My second thought was I'm going to puke. Which I then verbalized.

I wish I had meaningful and beautiful prose for you about how awesome and epiphany like it was, but I don't, I barfed a bunch while delivering the placenta, I yelled at my mom for not taking pictures of my kid while the doctor sewed up my junk, I just...I'm sorry, I'm an asshole apparently. Especially on the day my first born came to join us in the world.

Nonetheless. 3 years and 90 minutes ago the most wonderful person I have ever met was born. I am eternally grateful. I kiss and hug her every single day and I appreciate every single thing she does. Even as I entertained thoughts of leaving her at the grocery store yesterday while buying food for her birthday party. Even then I'm so wildly happy I had her.

Happy 3rd birthday my sweet sweet girl.