DU parents--tell your baby stories

[Lyric]

I love hearing birth/adoption stories. Here's mine:

I had a relatively easy pregnancy, although I did develop gestational diabetes during the last part. I was crazy thirsty all of the time until my OB/GYN found it and got it under control. Because of that, my baby was huuuuge! My due date was May 30th (year 2000), and when I went to the Doc for an ultrasound that day, he told me that the baby was somewhere between 10-13 lbs! He scheduled a c-section delivery for the very next day--the 31st of May.

I went in at 10:00 am and was taken upstairs. They got me gowned and IV'ed and ready. ThinkBlue1966 was in scrubs, because she was going to come into the operating room during the actual "birth" part--I had a spinal block done, so I was awake for the whole thing. I remember a lot of tugging and pulling, and ThinkBlue1966 was right there by my head, holding my hand. I heard the doctor say "Here he comes!", and then after a moment, we heard him cry. I almost cried myself. He APGAR'ed a 9/10, healthy as a horse, and just about as big! It only took about 2 minutes for the nurses to do the initial checks and wipedown, and then they brought him over to me wrapped in a pre-warmed blanket so I could see him. His cheeks were so red, his head was round and perfect, and he was hot! They told me that was because he had just been inside my 98-6 degree body, and hadn't been squeezed out a birth canal, which left him still as hot outside as I had been inside, and without the typical baby "conehead" that can happen during a normal birth. His birth weight wound up being 10 lbs, 11.6 ounces, and he was 20.5 inches long.

The nurse gave the baby to ThinkBlue1966, and she carried him out of the OR to go to the nursery for a real bath and a more in-depth checkup. My Mom was waiting out in the hall, so she got to see him as they walked together. After the doc finished putting me back together, I went to the recovery room and they brought him to me there. I started nursing him right there in recovery, and it was just the most magical moment of my whole life. I was still numb and paralyzed from the waist down, I was utterly exhausted, and all of that just disappeared the moment I finally had him in my arms.

So what about you? Tell me your story.

[AlCzervik]

1. ok mine.

When i was pregnant my 2 favorite people were Ben and Jerry, i gained like 85 pounds, that will matter later on. Ok so it's a thursday and i have to go to the obgyn and i'm sitting in the waiting room, i'm kind of crampy which i attributed to the entire can of refried beans i ate the night before, i go in, assume the position, they look "Oh you're in labor, you need to go the hospital" ok, that explained the cramps. I kept my bag in the trunk of my car so i drive up to the hospital and check myself in, i call my husband who was in a meeting, they put me through "Honey, i'm in labor, i'm at the hospital so after work just drive here ok?" al i hear is a giant thump (phone dropping) and running footsteps and that was that.

Everything was fine, feeling ok until they took me to the ultrasound, the minute i laid down a major contraction started and i'm like dying, omg this is what labor feels like, they manage to get me back up, into a wheelchair and back to my room, my sil shows up and proceeds to drive me crazy so i beg her to please get me something to read, in the meantime the nurses come in and hook me up to an iv, sil comes back with every tabloid that was printed in 1994 and the nurses tell me "Walk the floor, it will speed things up" ok, no problem, walking the floor, reading about OJ, husband shows up and looks like he needs a nitro pill "It's fine Hon, take it easy go get some food" so off he goes and i'm walking the floor, contractions are getting a little closer together and the day turns into night and i'm still awake.

My husband is now sleeping, it's about 3:00am and i'm in the bathroom, i somehow knock the iv out of my arm and few minutes later i'm getting lightheaded and then i look down, "wow, thats a lot of blood, wow thats my blood, thats not good" so i start yelling and my husband finally wakes up, looks at the blood and almost passes out "A little help Hon, call a nurse please" so the nurse comes in hooks me back up and i sit for a while and have some juice and then start walking the floor again.

Now i was a good trooper, no yelling or complaining but around 7:00am the nurse comes in and tells me my obgyn could not deliver my baby, i have to have Dr. Bruno and thats when the good trooper in me left the building. "I will sit here with my legs closed until Dr. Richmond comes back, Bruno is not delivering my child, no, no, no!" ok. 10:00am "Can i get that epidural now?" i had nothing up to this point, not even an advil "No, you're too far along now" "What, are you fucking kidding me, what the hell, should i go outside and give birth in the field, what the hell century am i in?" i got nothing.

11:30am in walk Dr. Richmond, the moment he walked into the room and i saw him my water broke, they got the leverage bar and away we went, 20 minutes later i had a baby girl, my husband was crying, i was exhausted but happy, "She weighs 7.6 and she's 18.5 long"

"7.6?! so the rest of this weight is me??!!" "Yes"

[Lyric]

2. Omg!

"7.6?! so the rest of this weight is me??!!" "Yes"

:rofl: :rofl:

I kid you not, I came out of the hospital weighing thirty-three pounds less than what I weighed when I went in. Like you, I'd gained a ton--but in my case I had a babysaurus rex and after he was out--along with his amniotic fluid and his monster-baby placenta and a whole freaking ton of retained water--I came out feeling like I'd been carrying around an anvil and finally got to put it down. ;)

"The leverage bar"--OUCH. ThinkBlue1966 has a daughter that will be 19 years old this January, and she had to have a forceps delivery too. The epidural stopped working around the time the doctor was sewing together the massive TEAR that happened when the forceps brought the baby too fast. She practically strangled him until he called for a nurse and a big old shot of Demerol.

[AlCzervik]

3. lol!

i asked to see if they missed another baby, "did you get eveything, sure there isn't another baby up there, huh, please?"

[Lyric]

4. Ben and Jerry are evil, despicable men.

ThinkBlue1966 and I seriously considered moving to Vermont a few years ago--not because of the civil union thing, but because we heard that if you work at the Ben and Jerry's factory, you get a free pint of ice cream every day. We later heard that this isn't true, but--yes, we almost made a life-changing decision based on our mutual adoration of Phish Food and New York Super Fudge Chunk. :9

I felt disappointed that I didn't have any noticable "cravings", other than just being really hungry at odd times. I remember waking ThinkBlue1966 up at 2:00 am because I was starving and a sandwich just wasn't gonna cut it. She made me roasted pork chops and mashed red potatoes in the middle of the night. I also remember waking up at about 5:00 am once and desperately wanting chili dogs, cottage cheese, and plain Lay's potato chips to scoop up the cottage cheese with.

I did have an aversion, though--fish. If I so much as smelled a vague hint of any kind of fish, I'd get violently sick. I went to breakfast with a friend and she got a bagel with cream cheese and lox, and I practically spewed in her shoes. To this day, I *still* cannot tolerate the smell of smoked salmon--bad association, I guess.

[AlCzervik]

6. the smell of bagels made me sick when i was pregnant, me a jewish girl.

also coffee and i live it, my god if i even got a whiff of it i'd start gagging. The last 3 months i ate a grilled cheese for at least 2 meals a day and every night i ate a pint of "Chubby Hubby", gawd i looked like a barge.

[Lyric]

8. My baby's father is Jewish too.

He damn near freaking KILLED me when I was newly-pregnant with this stuff he eats that involves pickled herring, curdled cream and onions. It comes in a jar and I swear to God, it is one of the foulest-tasting things I have ever tried. We split up before the baby was born, which is probably for the best. If he'd have come near me with that stuff on his breath, I'd probably have punched him, THEN puked. :puke:

[Heidi]

5. I'm not a parent, but I'm adopted*. So here ya go:

My birth mother was a drug addict and alcoholic, but perhaps her biggest problem was her addiction to male attention of any sort. As a result, my little sister and I spent the first six and five years of our lives having the crap beaten out of us (among other things) by her and her various boyfriends; completely alone and hungry for days at a time; or as wards of the state. One of my most profound memories is of giving my little sister a glass of warm water from the sink to stop her stomach from growling.

One morning, a gold Oldsmobile Malibu pulled up in front of the little house where we were alone, and my aunt (my biological mother's younger sister) rushed in, with her new husband (two weeks stateside after a "tour" of Vietnam) trailing behind her, and scooped my sister and me up in her arms, and told us to hurry up and get in the car. They drove us to a drive-in several towns away to get something to eat and then all the way across Oklahoma to a new home and a new life.

So, if anyone ever wants to know what it's like to wake up one morning and feel like your life has been saved, I'm the person to ask, I guess. I am incredibly fortunate.

*No sympathy, please. As noted above, I'm incredibly fortunate. Empathy, though, is due to the many, many children in this world who've not been so fortunate.

[AlCzervik]

7. Wow!

i'm so glad you had them and that memory about your sister, that makes me want to cry.

[Lyric]

9. That's just...wow.

I'm glad you were fortunate enough to get away. :hug:

[hippywife]

10. I know you don't want sympathy but

I will just say thank goodness for your aunt and uncle. You've turned into a truly wonderful and wise person from what I've seen. I'm so glad you and your sister were spared an entire lifetime of that abuse.

[Arkansas Granny]

11. Oh, Heidi. I had no idea. You are indeed fortunate. So many

children who have similar beginnings in life never find someone to save them and live in those conditions for the rest of their childhood. I'm so happy someone found you.

:hug: