That may be the weirdest title I have chosen yet, for any of my ponderings, but as this is MY place, I can pretty much call it like I see it.  I usually write my post, then decide what the title will be, but I am feeling a little reflective, and looking pretty far backwards this evening, so it seems kind of fitting to me.  Maybe once I get this ball rolling, you will catch on too.  That’s my intention, anyway!  Fasten your seatbelts, and please keep your hands and feet inside the ride at all times!

I was chatting with a very good friend last night, and discussing all of the birthdays that happen in January, in both of our families, and I think this has been rambling around in my brain, writing itself, every since.  Today is actually my Dad’s birthday, and I can remember saying, to my friend, that my Dad didn’t get a birthday cake on his birthday, twenty-eight years ago, because he spent the entire night in the hospital, with me in labour, but that is really jumping in to the story somewhere in the middle, so let’s go back a wee bit, shall we?

I did pretty well in high school,and as a result, I had bursaries to go into nursing, at The Victoria General Hospital in Halifax, the fall I turned eighteen.  My room was reserved in the dorm, bedding and supplies bought, a very shiny and engraved watch pendant gifted, you know the ones nurses used to wear all the time, upside down on their uniforms?  My life was going fairly well to plan.  My parents were actually very grateful I was going to be moving away from the guy I was seeing at the time, because they never really cared for him. Fate, or some other power, had other plans for all of us, however, and my life turned a very sharp, very unexpected turn, when I found out I was pregnant.  To say it caused a stir in the family is like saying it got a little blustery the day of the last hurricane, massive understatement!  The first thing I will quickly clarify, is that I have not one single regret, and reap the benefits of this development, twentyfold, as the years progress.  As far as this chick is concerned, there was only EVER one option.

I was not built to birth no babies.  I have all the right parts, they just weren’t put together in proportions that were ever going to make pregnancy and/or delivery, an easy feat, let’s just get that out of the way right now.  Some women glow, and look radiant, and have great hair, skin, nails, blah blah blah!  I am quite happy for them, of course, but if ever there was a problem pregnancy, this was one.  I knew I couldn’t just stay at home and get fat, and live in my parents’ house without doing something productive, so I went to the local vocational school, now known as “community college”, and I enrolled in the only class that wasn’t full, two weeks before school started in September, cosmetology.  A two year course, with a maximum number of days you could miss, in the entire program, and still graduate.  The school was wonderful in allowing me to take all of my allotted days, in that first year, because of my “condition”.  To flip back to the “problem pregnancy” I mentioned, I developed gestational diabetes, high blood pressure, toxaemia  you pretty much name it, besides morning sickness actually, and I had it.  I was in and out of hospital a couple of times, mainly from the blood pressure, and on bed rest when I was.  I can remember very distinctly, we had practical, hands on training, in the mornings, on our feet, and the instructor making me do our written lessons, with my feet up in the facial chair, every afternoon.  The girls all got a kick out of, or creeped out by, watching my belly move from one side to the other, or little elbows or knees poking out when I sat still that way.

In “those days”, they wouldn’t tell you if you were having a boy or a girl, but by Christmas break, my baby was the class “mascot” and no one expected to see me back, without a baby in tow, when classes resumed in January.  My due date was the sixth, but I was massive!  I gained weight absolutely everywhere, and tipped the scales over 200 pounds, nearing the end. Total weight gain : 75 pounds!  I did come back to class, but only for a day or two, as my next doctor’s appointment had me admitted, to the local small town hospital, on bed rest, again.  My blood pressure was through the roof, you could press your finger into my ankle, and the imprint would be there for hours, and did I mention, I was massive!  I was there for a few days, and they decided to do an X-ray to see if they were looking at having to do a C-section.  They determined there was little chance that my pelvis was big enough to deliver a large baby, and as they couldn’t cross match my blood, for one reason or another, they sent me, by ambulance, with no attending physician, to a teaching hospital in Halifax, The Grace Maternity.  The “no attending physician” will become very prevalent, momentarily, believe me.  It began a lifelong fear of male doctors, I still maintain, to this day.

When transferred from one hospital to another, in a non-emergency capacity, at least at that time, you had to endure all the admitting procedures you may have previously gone thru, in the prior hospitals.  It took hours to get in to a room, and I had to explain my whole medical history, over and over and over, to one nurse/resident/doctor/cleaning staff/dietary aid, after another, or so it seemed.  Of course, being eighteen and not realizing I could refuse to answer repeated questions, and eventually, people coming with gloves on, to do yet another internal exam, I got to a point that if I saw a rubber glove, I almost went in to hysterics.  It was a nightmare, plain and simple.  It still makes my heart race, and my eyes tear, even twenty-eight years later!  Well done!

The day after I was admitted to the new hospital, and on my Dad’s birthday, I started spotting, and was told to start walking!  I roamed up and down the hallway, and officially started having contractions, during an episode of Another World, which at that time, ran from 3-4, which is why I know exactly when labour started.  It was a long night, for everyone involved.  My parents were there, and “The Sperm Donor” as my ex-husband is not so fondly referred to, arrived from work in record time.  My blood pressure spiked to the point where they were very afraid of me going in to a coma, and I was hooked to more IV drugs then I have any way of deciphering, monitors, and an epidural.  I will tell those of you who may not know, that the toughest thing you can do while in hard labour, is hold still enough for them to feed a needle, then a fine tube, into your back.  I had no idea, at the time that I was at any risk, you see, my parents had to sign all my medical forms and give their permission for everything, because the age of consent in Nova Scotia, is nineteen, and I was six months away from that.

Contrary to popular belief, or maybe I was just that “lucky”, but pain is not obliterated by whatever drug is coursing into your spine.  I continued to feel every pain, significantly reduced, my blood pressure was taken every 20 minutes or so, I was turned from one side to the other, every thirty minutes so one leg wouldn’t freeze more than the other,my water was broken, and one after another person in a rubber glove, monitored my level of dilation, all night.  I also listened as women in the same state as myself, or maybe slightly worse, screamed and hollared and cried.  I never once raised my voice to say anything, except occasionally ..eee that was a good one!

Anybody remember what that X-ray told the whole crew of them?  Very little likelihood that I could deliver a large baby.  So, the question has always been, why did they wait until 10 AM the next day to decide to do a caesarean?  I am not sure the official explanation, but I did dilate very quickly to about 8 cms, the required being 10, for those uninformed.  They kept saying, all night, while my Dad spent his birthday in that hospital, let’s just try one more hour….

My father was in the Navy at the time, and early in the morning of the  eleventh, he had to return to his ship, shower, report for duty and come back.  After all those hours of labour, it took relatively no time at all for them to have me in an operating room, sliced diced and out came this absolutely perfect, and BIG baby.  8lbs 14ozs, and just 20 inches long, head perfectly round.  I am not one of those people that believe all babies are cute, because, seriously, some of them really are NOT, but he was.  (His youngest son is even cuter, but don’t tell him I said that!)  Everything I went through, to that point, disappeared, and none of it mattered.  Becoming a mother at eighteen wasn’t what any of us had planned for me, but it has been one of the biggest blessings of my life.  It hasn’t always been easy, but I had a lot of support.  I look at young girls who are teenagers, and having babies, and I think to myself, poor girl.  I frequently forget, I was there, I got through it, I thrived, and I helped raise an incredibly good man, husband, and father.  That has to be the true measure of success, right there, if you ask me.

Happy Birthday Daniel, I may not say it often enough, but I am extremely proud of you, and who you have become.  I hope you always know that. xo