Grace…

I had a vision of what Grace’s entry into the world would be like. How I wanted it to be, HOPED it would be.  I was so excited, and couldn’t wait to feel those first contractions, the gathering up of last minute items, calling the doctor and heading off to the hospital, and on the way we’d call friends and family and tell them “It’s time!”  But that didn’t happen. Instead, 4 weeks before her due date, I was laying on my couch, with my face in pain, and feeling sick to my stomach.  I called to Scott and couldn’t stop crying, it just hurt so bad and I just felt so sick. I remember telling him “My face! It hurts!” and then “OMG, I think I’m going to be sick” and throwing up all over the living room.  Scott ran and got a bucket for me, and some water and Tylenol.  I spent the day on the couch sick, and hurting.  The next day I was still sick and we called my OB, and he sent me to the ER.  There they pumped my full of anti nausea drugs, IV fluids and sent me home after I was able to keep down some graham crackers and ginger ale.  Only to have me return two days later when I was still throwing up.  This time they kept me, and had me stay in L&D so they could run tests and monitor the baby.  Everything looked fine, and all the tests came back normal, so why was I in pain, and why couldn’t I stop throwing up?  They checked my gallbladder and saw some gallstones, but in the end that wasn’t it.  I ended up staying in the hospital for a week before they decided to induce labor.  What a way to start my journey, but it was happening and it was almost over!  So I sent Scott home for my hospital bag, and I called my family and friends, and we waited.  Then the other shoe dropped and all hell broke loose.  At least that’s how it felt.  I didn’t get the vaginal birth I had hoped for, instead I had a last minute emergency c-section.  I didn’t get to hold my daughter in the first minutes of her birth, instead I had to wait an hour.  And I didn’t get to spend the five days with her on the maternity ward, I, instead, was transferred to another hospital the next day and had to wait another whole day to get her back.  And instead of going home after just five days in the hospital, I was again, separated from her when she was just a week old and had to spend another week in the hospital.  I didn’t get to dress her in what I had planned cause she was too small for it, and I didn’t get to buy her the proper size clothes for her to wear the first few weeks of her life cause I was in the hospital and unable to.  All I wanted was the rushed beautiful excitement of my baby’s birth and I got the crazy start to life after her birth.  And now, I will never get the chance to know the crazy rushing around for a birth, cause, if by some grace of God, I do get pregnant again, I will have a planned c-section and it will all be calm, and we'll prepared for.  Such is life.

Be well all.