Happy Birthday Ethan

It seems like just yesterday. My due date was never accurate because I got pregnant while on Depo Provera. But the doctor thinks I was almost 42 weeks when he was born. It was February and I was in agony. For some reason I was against being induced because it went against my hoped for natural childbirth experience. So the days came and went and I was still pregnant. Then at 3:00 in the morning on February 9th I woke up in pain and went to the bathroom. After days of false labor, this was the real thing. I went to my scheduled Dr. appointment that morning after having contractions for 6 hours. I was only dilated 1 cm. I was sent over to the hospital for a non-stress test and then I was sent home because I still wasn't dilating.

Sometime around noon my contractions started intensifying and I started really doing my Lamaze. I stayed at home by myself all day. I painted my toneails, shaved my legs, even cleaned our apartment...all in between contractions. When Cody got home that evening I couldn't talk during contractions anymore. So we left for the hospital and that 15 minute drive took an eternity in my mind. I couldn't walk up to labor and delivery because I was in so much pain. When I finally got checked the nurse said I was only 3 cm!!! WHAT???!!! I thought I was already in transition. But because my contractions were so intense and so painful they admitted me.

For about 2 hours we walked the halls and I sat in the whirlpool tub. I thought I was going to split in two each time a contraction hit. The nurse kept asking me if I wanted an epidural and I kept saying no. But in my mind I really did!! I still was not progressing at all. Finally the doctor convinced me that if I got an epidural it might relax my body and help me progress. I finally caved after 18 hours of agony. To make a long story short, the baby's heart rate dropped drastically each time I had a contraction. It would go from 140 down to about 50 and contractions were right on top of each other. So after much consideration, the doctor made the decision that a c-section was the only safe thing for mommy and baby. I was utterly devastated. After 9 1/2 months of pregnancy and 21 hours of labor, this is how it was going to end. That surgery was one of the worst experiences of my life. I don't remember a lot from the surgery except a lot of screaming, shaking, and throwing up.

But I did hear his first cry. That angelic, screeching, nasally, beautiful cry was the most awesome thing I had ever heard. He cried and he cried! And if I hadn’t been crying already from the nightmarish ordeal I know I would have shed fresh tears myself. In a matter of seconds they wrapped him up and brought him over for me to see. My entire face was terribly swollen from a reaction I had to a medication and my eyes were small slits, just barely wide enough to make out the soft white hat on his teeny little head. I stroked his face with my finger and in an instant, my entire life changed and I knew I would never be the same. Right there in that operating room there was not just the birth of a baby, but also the birth of a mother. I had entered the hospital that night as a naive and sheltered girl, yet I would leave as a mother bear protecting her fragile cub. I was a woman suddenly aware of every danger and evil that lurked in the world. I was in charge of this little person for the rest of my time on earth and my heart began to swell so large that it felt like it would burst from my chest.

Right then I fully understood why a person would throw herself in front of a speeding car to save the life of her child. Without a second thought, I would have gone through the entire pregnancy again. I would have suffered the four month long campout on the bathroom floor as my stomach turned itself inside out. I would have gladly experienced the unrelenting heartburn brought on even by drinking water, or the swelling in my feet that magically increased my shoe size from a seven to a nine. I would have suffered with the hemorrhoids so painful that I could barely sit at times, or the leg cramps and night sweats that kept me up night after night. I wouldn’t have thought twice about going through twenty one hours of labor so painful that no book on the planet could have prepared me for. And in the end, I would have undergone major surgery that would forever leave a battle scar on my once flawless belly. I would have endured it all again just to have that one precious moment with my son. I had done all of the research on ways of getting a baby into the world, but nothing could have conveyed to me the unspeakable love that would instinctively poor from my heart to my baby. Ethan Gilbreth had made it, all eight pounds eight ounces and twenty two inches of him. It was 12:37 a.m. on February 10, 2004 and I was beat.

(I should add that I am going to write up Hailey's birth story and post it like I meant to do on her birthday last month. I did not forget about her, I was just really busy.)