Happy Mother's Day

Five years ago today I became a mother. What a fucking ride. Baby Girl's pregnancy was difficult. The first 12 weeks spent praying that she's stay inside of me. I remember the fear of those weeks, the elation of finally getting to that magical 12 week mark.

I progressed rather uneventful in the pregnancy for the next 14 weeks. Then all hell broke loose. My blood pressure went through the roof, I started spilling protein and damn I was bloated. And not the normal-pregnancy bloated, but the my-liver-doesn't-like-this-baby type bloating. Alas, bedrest was my destiny for the next 12 weeks.

And you know, I love my OB, but several times a week, she'd snarl at me that I'd be lucky to make it to 30 weeks. To 32 weeks. To 33 weeks, and so on. That weighs heavy on your mind. First I was a failure to keep so many babies in my uterus at the beginning, now I was going to be a failure to keep one in for the full 40 weeks; I just couldn't do this pregnancy thing right!

And there we were. 38 weeks. And Baby Girl was HUGE for a 1st baby. They kept testing my blood sugars to make sure I wasn't diabetic. But I perplexed them because while she was thriving, I was losing weight. I was labeled pre-eclamptic.

One of the effects on a baby during preeclampsia is IUGR (intrauterine growth retardation or a small baby). My running joke was maybe Baby Girl WAS iugr, think how big she would have been otherwise.

I went in on Mothers Day evening to start my induction. Sleeping in the hospital sucks. I never really slept, they kept checking my blood pressure through the night and monitoring the baby. Gumby can sleep through a war, so he was fine.

Many hours of induction the next day, 2 failed epidurals and I had her. Delivery was fairly easy, but then she was floppy. And the Neonatologist was a douchebag. I wanted to get up and slap him, even with my OB sewing up her handiwork.

But there she was. A full head of hair. Beautiful. And OURS. We actually got to take her home. Some fool, somewhere was trusting US to be her parents.

And everyday she makes me laugh. She's such a girl. And so much wants to be "grown up" already at 5. Much too independent for my liking, but still my Baby Girl.

So happy birthday to her. Happy Mothers Day to me. I can't wait to see what our next adventure is.