Happy B-day Miss TS.

I think back to this day three years ago and I’m amazed at the person you’ve become. You are such a beautiful person inside and out; you’re smart and funny and have great empathy for everyone around you. I’m excited to watch you continue to grow and amaze me. I’m also sad when I think back to how fast the last 3 years have gone already. You’re no longer a baby or even a toddler, you’re a little girl, you would correct me and say BIG, but work with me here, I’m your mommy and as I tell you daily; “you’ll always be my baby.”

When TS was born I wrote down her birth story & scrapbooked a page in her scrapbook. (I crop in my free time; I just haven’t had any in the last 6 months or so. HA, HA, HA, HA, HA, HA, HA!) So in honor of her on her 3rd birthday I did a version of that here.

A Family is Born

I had a relatively easy pregnancy with TS. No morning sickness (although I some sinus issues that made up for that,) I actually slept better then usual, my skin was radiant, and I generally felt really good. During my pregnancy I attended pre-natal yoga twice a week. I attribute the yoga to all my good and restful feelings and I recommend it highly. I also attribute it to the hernia I acquired in the sixth month. I didn’t really realize what I’d done until the seventh month when TS “dropped” and put her head on the hernia—very uncomfortable to say the least. By the time I was nearing my due date the weight of the baby on that spot was really starting to wear me down. At 37 weeks Dr. B said TS was healthy and ready to go, so there was no reason to be that uncomfortable any longer, I could induce when ever I was ready! We scheduled the induction for May 24 starting at 6:00 AM. We were so excited our little princess was finally going to arrive. Once we had that date we suddenly found tons of things that needed to be done around the house. It was a very busy week. May 23rd we stayed up late getting ready. We figured we wouldn’t get much sleep anyway. As we were getting ready for bed I told DS how glad I was we were inducing because the baby suddenly felt a lot heavier and like I was carrying her differently. I finally fell asleep sometime after midnight. Then at 2:30 AM I woke up with a start, before I knew it my water suddenly broke! (Our little princess was actually a Drama Queen, she wasn’t being told when to make an entrance—she was calling the shots.) We called the doctor who told us to head to the hospital, she’d let them know we’d be early. As we were driving to the hospital (about 10 minutes away) we passed a fast-food drive-thru that was very busy. I commented to DS, “You know people are just heading home right now.” It seemed so surreal, that was us just a year ago. We got to the hospital and settled in. We didn’t call anyone since they were planning on coming to the hospital later anyway. While contractions didn’t really hurt they were getting intense and at 4 minutes apart would definitely be keeping me awake. It was at this point I asked the nurse if they could give me something so I could sleep through the contractions. I wanted to try and get some rest before everyone showed up. They gave me fentiol which just made me sleepy and slowed down the contractions to every 7 minutes. But they were just as intense! I’d start to doze off and then wake up every 7 minutes and glare at DS who had crashed completely in the recliner. (So Rude!) At 8:00 AM they agreed to give me an epidural so I could sleep. I was scheduled to start pitocin at that time and they expected things to get much more intense. I was only 2 cm at that point but I told DS “I’m not dying or anything yet, but if this is only 2 cm, this sucks!”

Oh heaven, no pain at all.
And I could still feel my legs!

I took cat-naps as various people came by to visit. By noon I was at 5 cm and they told us it would probably be another 5-6 hours. Then a couple hours later they came to check me and I was 10 cm already! The nurse called the doctor and told me to push to get things started. I did, and apparently I did so well she called the doctor again and told her to come strait over now! I pushed some more. DS and my mom helped me by holding my legs, and SIL videotaped. I had a mirror so I could see the baby coming out. I was very concerned about the epidural preventing me from pushing well and therefore having to be turned off or down. I figured being able to see what was going on would be me focus and stay motivated. Watching the baby in the mirror was actually very distracting; I’d start watching and forget to push as hard. But it worked out fine. I’ve had harder work outs (of course, I’ve never been hooked up to pain killers during a work out.)

At 4:50 PM ToddlerSpeak was born.

And so was our family.