You can't be an awesome mom without first having an awesome kid. I guess I'm super awesome because I have two great boys. I guess I should start by saying that in my early 20's I was the girl that proclaimed to never want children. In a nutshell I could have easily been described as selfish. That way of thinking changed when I met my husband in the Fall of 2007. He's a good man and I suddenly found myself dreaming about (gasp) marriage and (double gasp) babies. This is the story of our first born....
My husband and I were married 11 months after we met. I didn't want a honeymoon baby.. I did want to be married for awhile before baby could make 3. Six months into married life we found out we were expecting. Fear, cold shakes and mass trepidation ensued. I was TERRIFIED. I just knew I was going to be a horrible mother and that I would somehow mess this baby up. However, I never even got the chance to mess that awesome kid up, I miscarried our first baby when I was ten weeks pregnant. Pain, sadness and tears replaced the fear. I learned that you could mourn someone you'd never met. Maybe I was mourning an unrealized dream and thats when I suddenly realized how much I REALLY wanted children. Once again fear stepped in.. This time it was fear of what would happen if I couldn't get pregnant. Suddenly, the girl who didn't want a baby wanted one more than anything and now had to deal with the fact that something could be wrong. After seeing several specialists I was given a clean bill of health. Something that more women should talk about is the fact that up to 25% of pregnancies often end in miscarriage during the first trimester. While nothing was wrong with me I couldn't shake the fact that I had lost a baby.
After a miscarriage you have to wait at least two months before trying to get pregnant to give your body a chance to heal. So of course the third month after I miscarried I was concerned that I wasn't suddenly pregnant. Being a mild hypochondriac and a googling queen I diagnosed myself with PCOS, unexplained infertility, and one day I was convinced I had prostate cancer... Just Kidding.... Kinda. At any rate.. NOTHING was wrong with me. (Side Bar: These maladies are no laughing matter.. and I was really convinced that something was wrong with me) I really thought that since I got pregnant so easy the first time, that my uterus was just a begging for another baby. It took SIX whole months to get pregnant.. (Second Sidebar: Apparently thats relatively fast in the land of conception talk.. but at 23 I was very, VERY impatient to get what I wanted.) I fretted and freaked for my entire first trimester. Thirteen weeks came and went and we still had a gorgeous baby growing. Then fear set in... "Holy crap.. We have a baby.. thats GROWING.. This is ACTUALLY happening..We're poor.. How do you put a crib together.. What in the hell is a freaking travel system".... These are all normal thoughts (at least in my world). My pregnancy was SUPER normal. I had horrific morning sickness, charlie horses and I suddenly had to pee every 6.8 seconds. Totally.Normal. Until it wasn't.
At 28 weeks I was measuring at 29 weeks... which is pretty normal. For two weeks I told my Dr. that I thought something was wrong. I called several times, I even emailed her telling her something just felt off. She went on vacation and told me I should do the same. At 30 weeks I was measuring at 39 weeks. Something was obviously wrong. I went into see a specialist, she couldn't give me any answers. Two days later I wound up at the hospital after blacking out. I was released after a few hours. Two nights later after dinner out with some friends I told my husband that something didn't feel right.. We went straight to the hospital and this time I wasn't released. My blood cultures from my first hospital visit were back and it turned out that I had a nasty infection and the baby had it to. Once again fear crept in. At first no one knew what to do with me. My baby was breach had massively compromised lungs, liver and diaphragm and there were no answers. So in a nutshell.. we weren't sure our baby was going to survive.
We were transported via ambulance to St. Lukes in The Texas Medical Center (Largest Medical Center in the World) and for nine agonizing days we went back and fourth on what to do. We'd wake up thinking that the baby would be delivered via c-section and after six hours of not eating they'd change their minds. This went on until I went into active labor on April 3rd 2010. I was 32weeks and 6 days pregnant. That day I knew something was different. My contractions were through the roof and this time they felt real. As it turns out they were extremely real. I was given a magnesium sulfate drip.. which if you've never had Mag sulfate.. just imagine the depths of hell coursing through your bloodstream and being unable to move because you're hooked up to an L&D monitor. I should have known it was bad when the nurse started wheeling in a HUGE cart of ice packs and wash cloths. I was literally covered in ice and still felt like my veins were on fire. My vision was blurry and I couldn't even speak without being in pain. The worst part of the Mag Sulfate was that it failed. After being on it for six hours I dilated to a 5. They only use it when you're dilated under a 4. After that I had the even more awesome procedure: an amnio fluid reduction. Basically they put a gigantic needle into your belly to try and reduce your fluid. The theory was that I was holding onto FOUR extra liters of fluid which in turn was tricking my cervix into thinking I was full term which in turn was putting me into labor. The dr drained four glass bottles of amniotic fluid. 20 seconds before she finished, My body gave up and my water broke. Pandemonium ensued and I was prepped for a late night emergency c-section That was at 11:20pm... At three minutes after midnight on Easter Sunday my amazing, awesome son made his way into the world. And for a minute the world stopped because he was blue. He was successfully resuscitated and intubated and whisked off to the NICU before they even stitched me up. After a month long NICU stay, Max was released.
I wish I could say that the day Max was released was also the day that I released my fear.. but that would be a lie. We're three years into his life and everyday I have fear. Am I raising him right? Can I be a strong enough advocate for my child? Does he even like me? Will a juice box with high fructose corn syrup be the end of the world... Legitimate fears y'all. But the thing is, is that once I stopped letting the fear define me I really feel like I became an awesome mom. My sons are happy (when they get high fructose corn syrup), They're healthy (because I refuse to give them high fructose corn syrup), but I feel like we make a great family. I'm super thankful that I conquered my fear of becoming a mother.. and even though my first pregnancy was hell.. I went back for seconds. My second birth story was a little uneventful and exceptionally normal. Motherhood is the most awesome thing I have ever done.. and most days I feel like I'm pretty terrible. But maybe one day my boys will read this blog and think.. "wow.. my mom is insane.. but she really is........
That Awesome Mom that we love."
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