Birth and Life

A year ago right now, AR became an official member of our family. I've spent the whole day mentally retracing the longest and most complicated delivery I had. Truly, from beginning to end it was a disaster. They hadn't taken me off Plavix early enough so the anesthesiologist wouldn't do an epidural, which meant I did natural childbirth while stuck in a bed unable to move because I was hooked up to a ridiculous number of machines monitoring my heart. I did natural childbirth with my first three and let me tell you that it really only works when you get to move, otherwise it is like being on the rack. All the pain, and nothing to help distract you from it or make the process move along more quickly.

I did have intravenous painkillers but 10 hours into labor things weren't progressing and I began to tell the doctors I thought something was wrong. It just didn't feel right, it felt like pain not contractions. Two hours later they finally listened to me and did an ultrasound. (Perhaps because I was begging Craig to make them stop, or maybe it was all the blood?  Yes, that was sarcasm.) Turns out AR was sunny side up and had his head thrown back instead of chin tucked down. In other words, he was going nowhere and the pain I was feeling was the placenta tearing away from my uterus. Can you say emergency c-section? Actually, by that point all I wanted was for the pain to go away so I was completely fine with it. They whisked me away from Craig and suddenly we were in an OR. At that point, they put me under general anesthesia, which, on top of the pain meds, made AR's breathing a little dicey so Craig got to wave hello to him as they then whisked him off to NICU for a check-up. He was born at 9:25 pm, but I didn't get to meet him until 1:30 am on the 3rd.

The funny thing is, despite all the pain and craziness, all I kept thinking all day today was how happy I was that we both were there to go through all that together. It seems so strange to remember that at 16 weeks my doctors were pushing for me to terminate or that I had a conversation with our minister about what we wanted from the church in terms of ceremony if we didn't make it to 26 weeks. A close friend officiated at Aaron's baptism and when talking to the rector of her parish said it was especially important to her to be present because there was a time when nobody knew if either of us would even be here to have that day happen.

Craig and I call AR our agent of change all the time, and he is. It was his arrival that led us to completely change everything about how we lived our lives. In part this was the fact of him, we simply didn't fit in our house any longer. But mostly it was all that happened before he joined us that brought about change. You can't go through an experience like that and emerge without taking a really good look at what is happening in your life and what your true priorities are. The absolute most common statement I got from other moms when I told them we were moving out to Warrenton was "my husband would never make that commute." And I get it, Craig wouldn't have made it for years either, but it was actually his idea that we look out here and he was the one who kept things focused when I periodically panicked. Apparently, as I told one mom, you almost lose your wife often enough and it's amazing what suddenly becomes doable.

AJ was our first and the one who made us parents, and AR is our last and the one who made us understand fully just what a precious gift that truly is. What could you possibly give a one year old that would match that?