I didn’t sleep the night before we were scheduled to go in. Maybe an hour. When we woke up, the house was spotless. My Mom and Dad has spent the entire night previous, cleaning and scrubbing and organizing and NESTING…I tried to help as much as I could, but my belly was LARGE and the fatigue was indescribable. It’s a strange situation knowing the exact hour you will be giving birth. It’s a little unnatural. The little turkey was flipped upside down in my belly so we had no choice (apparently…….that’s another story) but to schedule a c-section for the 29th… 7a.m.!
I was pretty giddy that morning….heart pounding….nervous, excited, hopeful, a tad worried… !! Colin was on edge. He was very worried.
I can remember the drive down as clear as day….the route we took, the conversation we had,….”this is my last time driving as a motherless woman”..haha…. all the cheesy things you say …I wore a tight blue shirt that my mother totally disapproved of..”Why do you women insist on SHOWING your belly nowadays?” haha! We got out the video camera and recorded almost every minute of our morning….walking into the hospital, checking in, puttin’ on our blue scrubs for the operating room. The footage portrays 2 school kids playing dress-up.
When they took me to the operating room, I was all giggles and jokes. There was what seemed like a million doctors and nurses in the room waiting for me. It was a little surprising how many people were needed for a cesearean! They sat me down and I cracked a few jokes to lighten the mood. It’s funny thinking back to my headspace. Colin had been so nervous that I guess I counteracted his energy. Totally not like how I had envisioned my mood at all…
They gave me the epidural so I didn’t feel anything and let Colin come into the room to hold my head and hands. They had curtains between my neck and my lower half so I couldn’t see anything that was going on. It seemed like only minutes and the doc was exclaiming ”he or she will be here any minute now!”….the table was moving as they agressively moved my tummy around………(what a strange, strange feeling) and then ta-daaaaaa….”she’s a girl!!!” His arms bounced into the air, high as he showed her off to the room and to me from above the curtain. Imagine “The circle of Life” song from the Lion King when they show off the little Lion from the top of the cliff…..haha! ….i could barely see her above the curtain… My body was shaking…trembling from the drugs, and the hormones…. and all of the emotions. I mood had completely switched from class clown to emotional wreck. Just writing this and thinking back on it gives me goosebumps! My first thoughts ….”is she okay?” “is evrything okay?”….it’s still so scary when you can’t see where they’ve taken your baby and you can hear her wailing in between loud vaccuum -like noises. My second thoughts…”who is SHE?” ….she didn’t look anything like me at first….well still doesn’t…and it was so surprising…I didn’t recognize her. From the moment she was born, we KNEW that she was her own person. She was unique. I love that!
They took her away to the nursery with Colin and sent my bed off to recovery. I was in and out of consciousness for the next hour. Meanwhile, Colin had accidentally kept the video camera rolling the entire walk down the hall, into the nursery where they greeted my parents and his Mom. He even made sure to record his special time alone with Izzy-Rae, rocking her and talking to her, so I’d have all the footage to look back on and see what I missed.
The whole experience was out of the world. You can never fully wrap your head around this whole ‘giving birth to another HUMAN’ thing. To this day, I still can’t comprehend how it all happened. She was in my BELLY! I liken it to trying to think really hard about the planets and the universe and why we are here… it’s so strange that you just have to stop thinking about it or you’ll drive yourself crazy.
My time in the hospital was ironically one of my favourite getaways with my husband. We haven’t been anywhere else, yet! haha Colin was Man of the Year. They don’t tell you this so I don’t know if it’s normal, but I had the HOTS for him more than ever before in the days after Izzy-Rae was born. Man, he was sexy!
haha
I wrote myself an email in the wee morning hours of our first night…You can tell how delirious I was…typing it to myself on my iphone, while Colin bunked up beside me on the pull-out bed….
Colin is amzing… He jps
at every little thing. I’ll have to watch how much we spoil her. I
love this so far. Totally sleep deprlibed already but I lobe problem
solving and trying to figure out her needs is fun.
(original sleepy spelling mistakes were left in for amusement)
Nothing has changed much since that note to myself. Colin continues to be the greatest dad and husband. He really does aspire to make me the happiest wife in the world and every day he does his very, very best. I aspire to be more like HIM every day. Don’t tell him that,…it may ruin our “momma runs the house” dynamic! haha
Amanda, my step-daughter has been a tremendous help in this last year…. babysitting, changing dirty diapers, reading stories, cleaning…. she really stepped it up as Big Sis and Izzy-Rae’s so lucky to have her.
I coudn’t have imagined the fun that would come from having a child. My auntie Maureen said to me “kids are our best entertainment” and she was so incredibly right. Izzy-Rae has brought so much joy to our home. She brightens our day when things are crappy, she giggles AT us and forces us to laugh at ourselves, she is learning new things every day and taking us along for a ride of re-discovery.
I have never been pushed to my limits like I have being a mom. But I have also never known anything that is more natural. I feel like I was meant to be this little girls Mother and so in knowing this it gives me great comfort when everything gets too overwhelming. And it WILL overwhelm you. If I feel like I’m not doing it right, doubt my abilities, question our tactics……..this wave of calm usually comes over me late at night and I just know that with the amount of LOVE we shower her with…she’s going to be okay. She’ll be fine. She’ll be better than fine! She will be Great!
Happy Birthday, my little one…. I can’t wait to make more memories with you.
I love you,
MOM!
