Please allow me to introduce ....

my son Billy, to you.

Oh where shall I start? From the beginning?

*Noooooooooo not that far back!* you are thinking. *T.M.I.!!* hahaha

No, I won't go quite that far back. But I do have to go back to one point in the pregnancy, because what happened is part of what helped make him the son he is.

When I was in my third month of pregnancy, I got really sick. And I mean SICK!

Imagine yourself losing 40 pounds in 30 days. How sick would you have to be to accomplish that?

Yeah. I was that sick. The only thing I ate that month and had it half-assed stay down was a jar of baby dill pickles, that I polished off in a week, early on that July. Sure, I did the craving thing when whatever hit me hadn't hit me that hard just yet. Had to have those baby dill pickles. And they were sooooooooo good and went down sooooooooooo nicely lol And they were all mine !! I wouldn't share them, not even with my husband of not quite two years hahaha.

Ever since I was a teen, whenever my tummy got the butterfly thing going on first thing in the morning, the only thing to help settle it was a cup of tea. With milk and a bit of sugar thank you. But that month? It was my enemy. Probably the milk, but I don't like tea without milk in it. I would drink apple juice, non-cola pop, cola pop, gingerale .. anything to try and keep something in my tummy, or at worst, something besides stomache acid when it came back up. By the end of the month, I was drinking Kool-Aid for the sugar, to keep whatever energy and strength I had left, which wasn't much.

I went to the hospital emerg room three times that month. First time because I was spitting up blood .... my throat was raw and irritated. The second time, they gave me an IV of saline solution and sent me home. The third time, they kept me a week and then sent me home when they needed the bed. But nobody could figure out why I was so sick. Not even the family doctor took it seriously. Never mind I was losing weight at an alarming rate. Would just be told to 'eat'. Kind of a waste of time to eat when anything came back up just as fast.

I was so weak and even with all the stuff I was drinking and hoping it would stay down, I was becoming dehydrated. My husband would come home from work, run my bath water, help me get in, help wash my hair and rinse it, and then almost have to stand inside the tub to help me get back out. I had almost nothing left to help myself.

The family doctor had his office on the second floor of a 3 story building and no elevator. So I almost had to be carried up the stairs to see him.

And yet, the only ones I could convince how sick I was, was my husband and his family. Not the doctors at emerg. Not my family. Was going to say something about my mother's opinion just then, but that's a whole 'nother story lol.

Let's just say, I came thisclose to losing the baby I was carrying, and I wasn't far behind. Twenty-three years old and I really thought 'thats all she wrote folks'. Never mind accidents or major illnesses like cancer taking me. Just one pregnancy gone awry.

Know what it took to convince a doctor of any sort that I was that sick?

The whites of my eyes went yellow.

Yep. I'm paler than usual from being sick, not looking healthy at all, and then I'm staring out at the world with yellow eyes.

One quick urine test and I was shipped off to the hospital PDQ ! Hepatitis they said. Stuck in my own little emergency room cubicle for a few hours until a bed became available upstairs. Stuck in Enterec Isolation (all body fluids monitored .. blood vials sealed and handled with care when leaving the room). Nurses coming in gowned from head to foot so that I only saw their eyes. Food trays, dishes, utensils were bagged when leaving my room. No visitors. The doctor coming in to say that they would have to abort the baby. Was a very scary time for me, all in all.

Then a doctor that specialized in liver diseases came to see me and told me he needed to do an ultrasound of my liver to see how badly damaged it was and go from there. The only problem was, the ultrasound didn't get done until the day I was being released. The IV they gave me got me feeling better. The yellow tinge to my eyes faded. Sure, I was feeling better, but now I'm afraid of the big bad world out there. I was safe and not feeling sick while I was in there. I wanted to stay there. But nope. No can do. I would find out what the ultrasound determined by my family doctor during my next visit.

So I called my father-in-law to please come get me. First thing I did was grab a glass of milk at his house. Yep. I had fallen in love with milk again while at the hospital and it had stayed down there. But it sure didn't outside of the hospital. Up it came. Within a couple days, I was back at the hospital emerg department. Stayed another week. My mom finally came down to see me while I was in that time.

And that's when I learned it wasn't Hepatitis. It was something that will give Hepatitis tests a positive result. The specialist said that my liver was normal and healthy and just tickety-boo. The ultrasound, by accident, showed gallstones in the bile duct.

Enter the surgeon. He says unless I get really really sick (wasn't I already? ... No, if you get like that again) he won't do surgery until after the baby is born. I would have to go on a special diet so I don't trigger another attack like that. No dairy products whatsoever. No fats. Just lean meat if I eat meat at all.

And so went the rest of my pregnancy. Certains smells made me nauseous. Stayed away from all dairy stuff. Except for a tiny bit in my tea lol. I took a leave of absense from work. And slowly gained back twenty out of the forty I lost.

I had three 'due dates'. (doctor couldn't make up his mind? lol) Mid-February ... early February ... end of January. My father-in-law had circled Valentines Day on his calendar. (this baby was going to be their first grandchild and they were both proud as peacocks lol)

When I went to bed on the Sunday, I had only been asleep a short time when I felt labor pains. Ohhhhhhhhhh cool. Grab my watch and trundled off to the living room to time them.

Hold it. Something isn't quite right. They varied in length and time between. Call the doctor's answering service, they called him, he called me back. False labor he says. You're not ready yet.

bummers

Go through Monday without a hitch. Until I went to bed. Then the false labor pains started again.

geeeeeeezzzzzzzzz

Now that was the week that we were getting new living room furniture being delivered Wednesday morning. My husband was going for a driving test with a trucking company for a job the same day (about a 2 hour drive from where we lived .. main office). The plan was, I would be home anyways when the new furniture was being delivered, and I could tell the men where to put it. 'And don't you dare try to move it yourself' I was admonished. lol

A new flavour of potato chip had just come out. Sour Cream and Bacon. At it was soooo good. Yep. On the Tuesday, I was craving those things and asked my husband to grab me some please. So while I was lying on the floor eating those chips and watching tv, my husband and his brother lifted the furniture over me as they took the old stuff outside. Hindsight being 20-20, that was probably a dumb move on my part to park myself where I did, but I trusted those two to not trip on me or drop something on me hahaha I was 24 and the world wasn't looking half bad by then. I had survived the previous summer after all.

Head off to bed about 11ish. Again with the false labor pains. Out to the living room I go and get into the swivel rocker that used to be my grandmothers. Figured I would just doze off there and spend the night.

I wasn't asleep very long when the labor pains changed. They were now coming in rhythm instead of erratic. Each one lasting slightly longer than the last and slightly closer together. Time them for a bit, then called the doctor's answering service, who called him, who called me. Get yourself over to the hospital he says.

So, I trundled down the hall to wake my husband and give him the good news.

What does he say??

"I just knew it would happen today of all days and you would wake me up at 3 in the morning."

He wasn't mad or upset. He just shook his head as he headed off to shower first. (he had a job interview to go to after all lol) Out the door we go. He stops at a coffee shop and grabs a coffee ... 'want one?' ...'Nooooo' as I stare at my watch faithfully lol

Gets me to the hospital, checks me in. Waits until I'm in the birthing room before he runs off. Stops at his mom's house to grab his sister .. whisks her away to our house to wait for the new furniture ... then heads out to the company he's hoping to get a job with.

By the time he gets back to the hospital (forgetting to get his sister and take her back home .. she ends up taking a cab), his wife has had her water broken by the doctor, an IV in her arm that induces labor (even though I already was in labor), an epidural in her back, fetal heart monitor strapped to her belly.

The baby had never dropped into position.

I'll spare you details, but when said wife complains she has to go to the bathroom and a nurse says "How you going to get there because I'm not carrying you?" triggers a check and sure enough, I'm fully dilated.

Puuuuuuuussssssssssshhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Yep. Maybe by pushing, I could push the baby into position and out.

Fiddle and fool around doing that for a bit and there was no progress at all.

Then bells and whistles go off. Hospital staff spring into action. Check the fetal heart monitor.

Baby is in distress !!

Gurney shows up from out of nowhere and I'm wheeled down to an operating room. Eyes staring at me as I'm strapped down.

Give her a local or knock her out ? The anethetist opts to knock me out.

Count backwards says a pair of eyes.

I awake briefly in the recovery room. The attending nurse asks 'what did you have?'.

Don't know.

Check your wrist band she says. So I do.

Awwwwwww I had a boy. And promptly dozed off again.

Wake up in a hospital room upstairs. Husband comes to see me. A healthy baby boy he says. Weighed 8 lbs 2 ozs he says.

But

He has a hole in the roof of his mouth they'll have to fix.

My son was born at 2:59 p.m. and he was six hours old before I saw him for the first time. He was beautiful and pink and had dark eyes, that soon turned brown. Soon found out he didn't have any suction though. Not for his mothers milk. Not for a regular nippled bottle. Had to have a special nipple .. a lambs nipple they call it. A bit longer and a bigger hole for the milk to come out.

They said the cleft pallate was because the roof of the mouth closing is the last thing that happens during the first trimester. Everything else is done and formed by that point. And with me being so sick that third month, it impeded the roof of the mouth from being finished.

Sure. I felt guilty for that. Very. I knew before he was even born I would love him with all my heart and soul and I did that to him. So innocent, and yet he would have to have surgery before too long. (as it turned out, they wanted to schedule him the day of his first birthday and I said no, so he had surgery 5 days after his first b/day)

So, between the new furniture coming, a new job (yes, he got the job and started there 3 weeks later), and a new baby making his appearance, Wednesday, February 15th 1984, will go down in history and repeated time and again how I picked that day to have a baby. hahahaha

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Sorry I got so long winded with this. Just be glad I didn't put part two (or part three? lol) here too hahaha. But stay tuned lol

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(for Dave, Snow, Spaceeagle, and Sue)