HAPPY BIRTHDAY WILLIAM!!!
You are 15 today.
15.
one. five.
Wow.
It's 12:35 a.m. right now... we just got home from a Drive In Movie of Star Trek and Monster vs. Aliens.
15 years ago, at this very moment, I was sitting up in my bed, worried sick about the
impending C-Section that would take place at 8 a.m. the same morning.
After having lost my first baby at 4 months, and having a DNC on May 10,1993, God produced a miracle and made sure that day would never again be a day of sorrow for me.
YOU were born on May 10, 1994, a planned C - Section because you were breach, and all the attempts to turn you externally failed, and boy did they try.
They failed for a reason.
I was spared a day of grief.
For exactly one year, I thought of what would never be, of my first baby, a girl.
For only one year.
How could I feel sorrow after giving birth on the very same day exactly a year later.
I can't.
I believe I will see her again, when my work here is done... but in the mean time,
I have you to keep me busy.
*
I remember being wheeled into the hospital. Dad and I were nervous wrecks trying to stay calm on the way to the hospital at 6 a.m.
My Anesthesiologist came in to do a final work up at 7 a.m. and reassured me that I could be awake for the entire procedure.
They wheeled me into the operating room on my bed, and transfered me onto my surgery table.
They wouldn't allow Daddy into this part of the procedure. I was going to have a saddle block instead of an epidural, for reasons still unknown to me. It was my first time, and I didn't know I had options. I sure spoke my mind when I had your brothers c - sections.
They had me sit up, on the table, and proceeded to stick the needle into my back.
I saw Daddy looking on from a window on the door of the OR.
I was smiling at him one minute, and then... I must have had a look of horror on my face, because he yelled... "Hey... someone needs to catch her!"
They aptly named the saddle block. I went from feeling to total paralysis in a milisecond, from the breast down.
NO ONE WAS IN FRONT OF ME TO CATCH ME, and down I went.
Straight on to the floor.
Idiots.
Daddy rushed in, told them to help me, and they finally got me back where I belonged.
The only thing I could feel was my arms, neck and face.
I feel so sorry for para and quadriplegics.
I was so afraid I had hurt you by falling. I couldn't feel myself hit the floor... couldn't help myself back up at all.
*
My OBGYN entered the room all scrubbed up, and didn't say a word.
She was all business.
I wasn't fond of her from the beginning, and had changed to a midwife at my 5 month mark, and when you went breach, I had to go back to her. She wasn't a pleasant one, especially after having left her and had to come back.
Now I wonder if that was her way of getting back at me.
Nah... I'm being too Italian on that one.
Hmmmmm.....
*
3o minutes later, out you came... all screaming and juicy.
I cried, and cried, and cried.
They put you on my chest, but I couldn't feel you. My arms were all tethered to IV's and pumps and tubes.
I guess I was crying too much, because the Doctor asked my Anesthesiologist to pump in the
Stadol, and I remember going from tears of joy, to cracking jokes and telling people how cute they were.
Now I know why they lock those drugs up.
I called them Nice-Nice drugs.
*
They placed the most fantastic warm blankets over me. I was already starting to get my feeling back in recovery just 40 minutes later. My toes were already tingling, and my breathing
became a lot easier.
My Mama was dying to get into the recovery room.
I could hear her pleading with the nurses, telling them this was her first grandchild, and could she please, please, please see you. They obliged.
I was sitting up a little by the time she came in, you were about 45 minutes old, and
Bill, the first to hold you, passed you to my Mama.
It was so beautiful.
I've never seen her as happy as she was right then.
She stared at you, spoke soft Italian to you, telling you how long she had waited for you,
kissing your head, calling you "My heart" in Italian.
Then she looked at me... and said "Thank you... Thank you... Thank you.. Thank you...this is all I've ever wanted. If I were to die right now... this would be enough."
Then she passed you to me.
I was the third person to hold you.
The second you were in my arms...I vowed to never let you go. I felt this rush of joy and fear all rolled into one. I knew I loved you.. I just didn't realize what lengths I was willing to go to protect and love you...no idea until that very moment.
Mama kept rubbing my arm and thanking me.
I looked up at her, with my teary, swollen eyes and said these three words...
"I'm so sorry."
She knew instantly what I meant.
I remember doubting her love for me when I was angry at her in my teen years, or for fibbing to her, or coming home late, or not doing what I was told...
and it all rushed to me at that very moment I held you.
I completely, wholly, with every fiber of my being and soul, knew, truly knew, what a Mother's love is. I have never looked at my Mama the same way ever again.
She became even more of a hero to me from that day forward.
*
You looked exactly like me... already. It was uncanny. She kept saying it was like I gave birth to my clone.
I began nursing you right away. I had read up on the "Liquid Gold" that is the colostrum.
Then I got extremely exhausted, and drifted in and out of sleep.
Nana, gladly, took you off my hands, as they wheeled me into my postpartum room.
*
The next morning, my nurse came in and remembered me from the previous year.
She then looked at my chart, and noticed it was exactly a year ago.
She winked at me and told me I was being looked after very well, by the Big Guy.
I remember those 2 days in the hospital as a miraculous time.
You and I spent some great one on one time. You would sigh with contentment and I would stare at you and cry tears of amazement.
*
You are the reason I could call myself Mama.
You were my first foray in the Mama Club.
All the important firsts were with you.
Everything in my prior life had to happen so that I could have you, on this very day.
The culmination of everything I had ever done, pales in comparison with becoming a Mother for the first time. The feeling is the most overwhelming, true, terrifying, happy, joyous,
monumental of all.
I so, so, so, so love you my darling Son.
Happy Birthday.
I pray you have 85 more.
