Happy Birthday!

Today is my oldest son's 18th birthday. Now this is certainly a difficult concept for me to wrap my brain around, that I have been a mother for 18 years. I cannot believe that I have an adult child now. June 22, 1988, I guess it was a long time ago, but I do remember the course of events very clearly. I worked until the day before my due date, which was June 11. After sitting around at home for 4 days, I was all done with the cleaning and chores, and ready to have the baby. However, he was 11 days late. Those 11 days were excruciatingly long and boring - I had no baby, no kids, no job and a clean house. I was not in any condition to go out and party or play a game of squash or inline skate. So I sat home and waited and answered the phone which every time it rang the question was "So did you have it yet? Is anything happening?" No! Waiting for your first baby is long enough, adding an extra 11 days was a torture I would not wish on any other expectant moms. But he was worth the wait.

The labor was a success in that my driving dedication to the concept of childbirth without drugs paid off in that I had the natural childbirth I had obsessively planned and worked toward. I actually had a cheat sheet of all the reason why I did not want to take drugs, to read to myself when the pain got really bad. And really bad it did get, but I had a determination to stick it out. I also had a wonderful nurse who was able to help me through the worst of it. It was surreal as I was in the final stages of labor, and I could look out the window at the rest of the world going about their day, going off to work. It was like I was in a completely different reality than they were. Along with preparing for the pain, I also prepared not to be in love with the baby right away. I had read that babies tend to pop out ugly, and red and to be prepared for that. Well my son came out looking honestly like a cherub. He had dark curly hair, big blue eyes, angel red lips and ivory skin. The shock was that something so beautiful came out of me!