The one that was supposed to be sweet, maybe funny, and ended up being serious and requiring tissues ... Sorry about that.

As Valentine’s Day approaches, for some reason it makes me think of when The Minion was born. 

Possibly because at this point in the pregnancy I was miserable and ready for him to be OUT.  I was also starting to have blood pressure issues and some serious fluid retention, so it was beyond the point of uncomfortable.  I maintained minimal weight gain for the whole pregnancy until that last month where I gained like 20 pounds in fluid alone.  It was brutal.

We have the video somewhere of the day he was born, but we’ve never watched it, and I doubt we ever will.  My water broke at 4 AM, and I didn’t have him until 8 that night.  It was a s-l-o-w labor, basically sitting there at 2 cm all day long, until about 6 PM when things started happening very fast.

I don’t think about it too much because it kind of freaks me out.  See, in my mind, things happened very quickly.  Maybe 5 minutes from starting to push to him being whisked away.  But it was longer than that.  Much longer.  Even though I know the details now, it still seems so fast in my mind, and it makes me unsettled to realize that so many things were going on that I was completely unaware of at the time.

It’s all pretty much a blur in my mind, but there are a few things that stand out in my memory.

I remember the doctor yelling that she needed help with shoulders and then it seemed like people started pouring through the doorway out of nowhere.

The Minion was stuck.  And he was blue.  My mom was there, filming with the video camera, and at this point, when she realized what was happening, she lowered the camera.  I don’t know if she kept recording or not, and I don’t know that I could handle hearing all of it, much less seeing any of it, even now, five years later.

I remember nurses grabbing my legs and slinging my legs back so my feet were way behind my head.  I am not a small girl.  This amount of bending and flexibility, especially with a big pregnant belly, doesn’t seem physically possible.  Honestly, I am amazed I was able to walk afterwards.  I remember feeling pressure and screaming.

That’s when the doctor decided not to wait for help and shoved both hands in around his shoulders to yank him out.  My mom said the scream was like something she’d never heard – like I was being ripped in half.  I don’t remember the sound, just that somewhere in the back of my mind I knew I had screamed.  And then he was out.  Thankfully my doctor was a tiny little thing with small hands.  But even with that, I still had quite a bit of tearing internally from her yanking him free, and I was bleeding a lot.  Still, she probably saved us both, and that is awesome.  One of my favorite pictures is of her holding him at my 6 week checkup.  I vowed then that I would not have another kid without her, and if we do get lucky enough to have another one, I hope I can keep that vow. 

From there, it seemed like things were boom, boom, boom.  He was born, he cried, they brought him over to me, he was taken to the NICU.  But I guess there was a lot more time lapse than I really realize.  I know that I heard him cry.  And I remember the doctor saying “she’s throwing clots” and feeling needles jab into each thigh.  And I know she was down there, for a loooong time, sewing me up and getting the bleeding stopped.  I do remember cracking a joke with her about something.  At the time, she probably thought I was crazy.  But I really had no clue that things were as serious as they were, or that either me or The Minion had been so close to some serious crisis.  And I definitely remember her telling me that if we did this again, we were totally doing a c-section.

The nurse brought The Minion over for me to see him. I looked at that sweet little face, and I looked up at POF all happy and “look what we did”.  He was pale and a little shell-shocked looking.  At the time I thought it was kind of funny, him being all shocky.  I assumed it was just the whole childbirth thing in general because he does not do well with blood or me being hurt.  I had no idea that he was pretty much on the verge of a freak out because he’d just spent the last half hour standing against the wall while all hell broke loose, wondering if he was going to lose me and/or his new baby boy.  We don’t talk about it.  The emotions there are too raw and deep and scary, and I don’t think either of us really has the ability to go there and not lose it.  Still, after five years.

The hospital policy has all the dads take the babies to the nursery and get them checked in, so POF left to take The Minion down to the NICU for some tests and observation.  I was STARVING.  I had been without food for about 24 hours.  Mom had come in that morning about 7 AM with biscuits from Hardees.  As soon as they allowed it, at about 9 PM, I grabbed one of those biscuits and inhaled it.  I did not care that it was 12 hours old.  It was delicious.  My stomach immediately rebelled, but I kept it down and within half an hour they had me up and walking.

I was ready to move to a room on the nursery floor.  The Minion was still in NICU, so they took me down there first so I could see him.  They had removed the IV from my hand, but I was just out of it enough not to really realize that my hand had been bleeding, and I guess no one noticed.  The sheet that was under me had blood all down the side from my hand, and when I lifted my hand in the NICU, it had blood dried all over it.  So, first they had to clean me up, then I got to see the kiddo for a minute before heading to a room.  He finally came up about 2 AM, and I kept him with me pretty much the whole time.

And POF jumped right in.  I was out of commission for a good two weeks or so afterwards, having to stay off my feet, so he really had to take charge and be the primary caregiver.  And watching him with that tiny little bundle of cuteness was just about more than I could take.  Emotion overload, every single time.

He was a great baby, sweet, cuddly, hardly cried.  He was born on Monday, we went home on Wednesday.  I was breastfeeding, and I had concerns because I wasn’t really having the feelings I was supposed to have.  The “lactation specialist” told me that sometimes it took a few days for the milk to come in, that everything was fine, he was getting everything he needed from me.  That was totally NOT true, but I had no way of knowing that.

So, we came home, and the next day when he went to his first pediatrician appointment, he was severely jaundiced and had lost almost a pound.  I had what can only be described as a slight nervous breakdown in the doctor’s office.  My baby was starving and I didn’t know. I should have known.  I was a horrible mother.  He was sick and I let him get that way.  I was a MESS.  They popped a bottle of formula in his mouth and he sucked it down in about 5 seconds flat.  He was fine.  He was going to be fine.  I wasn’t a horrible mother.  I wasn’t failing epicly in the first 72 hours.  It was gonna be ok.

But there were more tests.  He had three heel pricks in as many days, and his cries when they did it just shattered me.  POF was an emotional wreck.  Worried about me, worried about the boy, watching him get shots and being poked and prodded, watching me have hysterics over it.  I don’t know how he managed to keep it together because we were definitely in a code red stress situation for about three days.

The Minion was going to be fine, but we had to but the special light blanket thingy on him for the jaundice.  He had that for a couple of weeks or so.  We called him the little glow worm.  He became a formula baby and I continued to breast feed as a supplement.  My milk never really came in, and he weaned himself to strictly a bottle by 5 months.  He gained weight back quickly and became a chubby happy baby.

I spent the first several months on constant alert, paranoid about every little noise or movement or poop that could maybe possibly mean something might be wrong.

And I had a lot of internal tearing, so I was in pain.  I dreaded going to the bathroom because I knew it would hurt so badly.  I had my muscled clenched so hard, so tight, all the time, that when I did need to pee, I couldn’t.  The only way I could was to get in the shower, with the water running, and basically hop up and down from foot to foot until the pee basically fell out.  Then, once I started to go, I was fine and could go.  But I could not go willingly.  Even after my 6 week check-up, when I was given an all clear.  It took me probably 8-10 weeks before I could force myself to unclench enough to pee like a normal human being.  I was taking probably six showers a day.  It was ridiculous.

I fought the first poop too, and that was practically an out of body experience.  It’s a wonder I didn’t rip the countertop right off the vanity.  But I survived it, and slowly things got back to normal.

Looking back, I think that maybe the whole almost traumatic birth experience is probably why I dote on him the way I do.  Why I coddle him, why he’s such a Mama’s Boy.  And definitely why I don’t really leave him with anyone, even now.  If I go somewhere, he’s with me, or he’s with his Daddy.  We keep him close.  I know that eventually he will get big enough that he won’t want to be up under us 24/7.  Some days I can’t wait for it, and some days I dread it.  This mama’s heart will definitely break a little bit the day my baby boy decides he doesn’t’ need to be attached to my hip quite as much.

So, on Valentine’s Day, I think about having my sweet little Tiny Terror.  How close we came to losing him, and me.  And how lucky we are to be together.  Our little family is pretty awesome, and there’s no place in the world I would rather be.

The Minion wants a brother.  And I want another little Minion for him to terrorize.  It hasn’t happened yet, but I am hopeful that one of these days, it will.

I did the I Am Woman, Hear Me Roar thing and had a natural childbirth.  Although the thought of a C-Section is even scarier to me, I know that’s the plan if we have another.  I figure I will have 9 months to obsess about it, so by the time it happens, it will be no big deal.  And the idea of watching The Minion corrupt the new addition with his master manipulation skills just warms my little black heart.

So, whether you are married or single ... in love or heartbroken or have a heart cold as ice ... This year, on Valentine’s Day, love everyone.  Give hugs.  Kiss your mom, your kids, your best friend - if she will let you (mine has a strict rule of only escorting her by the elbow once she's blind and senile).  Celebrate the joy of life and love.

And be thankful that you can pee without having to stand in the shower dancing a jig.