Gina's Whimsical World

and when she speaks

Saturday, August 11, 2007
12:02 AM

Happy Birthday Baby!

Ten years ago today I met one of the most amazing people to ever walk the planet! My DS2 entered this world ten years ago today calmly amidst the chaos. He is the one I call my heartbaby. My daughter always wants me to tell her I love her more than the boys, it's almost an obsession with her. One I can't support. Although I love my children all more than life itself, I love them differently as they are so very unique. Amazingly, drastically different. But my heart has triplicated itself because I love them all to the depths of my soul. The oldest is my dream baby, the youngest is my miracle baby ... DS2 - my heart baby.

He was the one that gave me the least complications and still holds tightly to that title .. the one that went full term and still commits 100%, to everything he does ... the one that gave me three weeks of contractions and still perseveres to the bitter end. He was the soccer player in utero that he is now. It's amazing how those characteristics persist. Any truth to it or just my fanciful thoughts?

The day he was born was anxiously awaited. Three weeks of your basketball belly tightening every 15 minutes is enough for anyone! I woke up at 4:00 am thinking something didn't feel right .. stumbling to the bathroom to find a light confirmed it. After a quick shower, lugging my suitcase to the car, waking up the DH to advise i was taking off to the hospital and would call him later (yeah, I scared the hell out of him), a kiss to the numero uno who was soon going to share the spotlight and I was out the door. Yep - drove myself to the hospital contractions and all. What else are you going to do with a 23 month old who never sleeps and is doing just that? So off I go in my hot rod Lincoln to the hospital. The same car that had been giving me fits electronically. Trust me - you have never lived until you have a defective car alarm going off at 5:00 am in the bottom of a concrete multi-level parking garage. Especially when you are 9+ months pregnant, doubled over and dragging a suitcase across a dark cavern. Pissed off doesn't do it justice! Imagine yourself with a body beyond your control attempting to turn intself wrong side out, while the car lights are flashing, horn blaring and the only way to stop it is to dismantle it. Do you pretend the piece of crap is not yours and just walk away? So there I am, squeezing back into the car (anyone who's ever dealt with a watermelon in their stomach squeezing through closely opened doors and under a steering wheel can relate), cranking it, hitting the panic button - nothing works ... so I do the only thing I can .. pop the hood, disconnect the battery and curse like a crackhead who's dropped his last rock - desperately! To this day, I wonder how many people hid inside those glass doors laughing at the pregnant lady working on her car. Poor kid patiently waited his turn, we got inside and admitted and proceeded to work on getting him here. The H manages to get himself up, toddler ds1 to daycare and tells them that today's the day and they can reach us at the hospital. The mil is in route as is my mom so back-up is on the way. Good thing as the H needs to finish his beauty sleep, proceeds to hit the couch in labor and delivery while I pace the hallways. Nothing like walking for miles down corridors, pushing your own iv pole and trying to keep a gown wrapped around an oversized girth that keeps moving! Things proceed smoothly, Mom arrives to march with me and soon it's time to have a seat .. the laps around the hospital have done the trick and my grasp on my vocabulary is slipping. Thankfully the L&D has a rocking chair which was the trick to my getting through natural childbirth! Those of you who know me are laughing now. I can't sit still and will rock in a straightback chair or sitting crosslegged in the floor. Which is also the reason I now have layers in my hair, but I digress. So back to ds' arrival.....

That's when I get the call .... what kind of idiot (rhetorical question by the way) calls a very pregnant woman in the delivery room to tell her that her sweet toddler has diarrhea and she needs to come get him? Immediately! Where did you just call me? Didn't you go through the switchboard and ask for LABOR and DELIVERY?

Oh sure, let me just disconnect the iv's, heart monitor, squeeze my knees around this bowling ball and I'll be right there .. as soon as I reconnect the battery and jump start my car you ass! ... I think the response I managed somewhere during the transition breathing was - deal with it, do what I pay you ungodly sums for and hug him extra because his life is altering beyond anything he can imagine in the next hour or two and someone will be there when they get there ... besides it's probably whatever concoction his father who is currently sleeping fed him in route for breakfast. Take into account he was snatched from the sleep he never gets, forcefed God knows what and dumped unceremoniously into your ever so comforting arms before daylight!

(I probably should have realized when we practiced holding baby brother what I was in for with two boys!)

Needless to say when my mil who probably should not have been at the hospital anyway considering my state of mind and her sleeping son arrived - she was dispatched for diarrhea duty!

The hysterical laughing at the audacity of the call got me through transitions and down to the real work. Bringing my heart baby into the world. I call him that as the moment I was pushing and didn't think I could to it anymore, he emerged. That state where you can look down and first see your child partially into the world yet still clinging to that safe universe that they will no longer occupy. When I felt like I could do no more, he looked at me and our eyes locked. People tell me they can't see that far and so one and so forth. I don't care .. that moment is so vivid, I can see it now. My calm, soothing child got me through his own entrance to a world of drama and trauma. We locked eyes and never broke contact until they swept him away. Two hearts really can beat as one. It was one of the most emotional, powerful moments of my life. They took him across the room to do his testing and we both cried. To this day, he is the one who senses when I'm stressed and will lock eyes and smile at me or walk by and pat me on the back. He is the one that gives my sarcastic sense of humor right back at me without ever cracking a smile. He'll take a shot and sometimes even I hesitate before I fall over laughing - not because I don't get it but because I am so in awe of his intelligence and wit. He is the one that puts up with the trials and tribulations of his sibs with a shrug and whatever. He is the one that breaks my spirit when he is sad and brings joy to the universe with one of his quiet little smiles. He doesn't like to express himself and mushy stuff is so not cool, but I'm sure I must glow from the inside out when he walks by and quietly whispers "ditto".

He's my ball player, straight A student and kid with an IQ off the charts. My cutie that brings a smile just thinking of him. He walks around with my eyes, my smile and my heart. Happy Birthday Baby! I love you.

Your thoughts?
2 comments
2 Comments:

It has been a priviledge to experience your story first hand.

By Riviera Mom, at Monday, August 20, 2007

Gina, you have a wonderful way of expressing your love and your life. What a woman to drive herself to the hospital to give birth. You are one of a kind. Carolyn H. in Kentucky

By Anonymous, at Friday, September 14, 2007

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