12: part 1

Twelve years ago today, I slept late and awoke to a damp bed. It took a moment for me to realize the cause of the wetness. My water had broken. Thank the lord, I was thinking, because I was nine days over due and ready to get this baby out! We had been told in lamaze, that if your water broke, it was all systems go for a delivery. I was excited to say the least. I took a shower and called Landon to come home from planting. His response? "Are you SURE?" But he came pretty quickly and we were on our way. My mom got to the hospital before we did. His mom arrived a short while later. And the waiting began. We had been told that the baby probably weighed around six pounds because I was so small. Labor progressed, lamaze went out the window, and I finally asked for an epidural. Everything went downhill after that. First, the needle BENT when they tried to give it to me, then my heart rate dropped. They started flipping me from side to side, and gave me oxygen. Then the baby's heart rate was doing strange things. They decided to let me push. I would push and the doctor could feel his head, and as soon as I would stop pushing, the baby would go right back up the birth canal. Two hours later, the baby went into distress. Everything happened pretty quickly after that. There was a flurry of activity and we were moving onto an emergency c-section. Because of my reaction to the epidural, I was being put to sleep and Landon could not go back with me. Oh, there were tears of fear and disappointment. I mean, women have babies naturally every day. Why couldn't I? Next thing I knew the anesthesiologist was in my face telling me to count backwards from ten, and everything would be over soon. It was almost midnight. I remember thinking "this has taken ALL day". And I was out.