Sunny's birth story is probably the most mundane of them all - the issue with Sunny's birth was apprehension. Since Little Man had been in the NICU, we were TERRIFIED of a repeat performance. Plus there's the whole issue of the more you do this the more you know about what can go wrong.
My pregnancy was fine - no sickness, no gestational diabetes, just the usual complaints, plus having to keep up with two preschoolers. Monday, March 15 we went into the hospital around noon, I think, and went for our c-section. Sunny was the only one of my kids that wasn't delivered by the glorious Dr. G., so it took a bit longer to get ready since there was a lot more to review with Dr. L. I was a little surprised when she asked me if I was interested in a tubal, since that was the first time it had come up, but since we weren't certain yet if we were done, we said no (and we all know how that turned out). I had arranged to have my friend J in the delivery room with us, since I knew from experience that BigDaddyFish isn't much help to me once the baby is out - he watches the surgery over the drape and then goes with the baby. The anesthesiologist was the grumpiest of all the ones I had, but he kept me pain free and didn't kill me, so I guess he did a good enough job. The surgery took a lot longer than all the others had, but Sunny came out crying lustily and was a perfect baby. It seemed to take forever to sew me up, though.
In recovery, I got incredibly cold, so they put me in this sort of weird air blanket thing that pumps warm air around the body - I looked like the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man, only with a Virgin Mary sort of slant, since it was wrapped around my head like the Holy Mother's veil/habit thingy (I am sure it has a name, but since I am a Bad Catholic, I don't know what it is). The nurse and my friend J helped me get turned on my side so I could nurse Sunny right away. And nurse she did. It was her favorite thing to do right from the start, so much so that I didn't think I'd ever get her weaned, and it took Mommy and Daddy going away on a trip just before she turned two to get it done. My favorite picture from her birth is her nursing away all wrapped up against me inside this goofy air blanket.
And that was it. We stayed in the hospital three days and came home. Nothing special. And everything special.
The remarkable thing about Sunny is that she's even here at all. We weren't planning on any more kids. We got rid of a lot of our baby stuff. I had always had long, long, terribly long cycles, like 40 and more days, so we were using natural family planning as our form of birth control. It had worked for a long time before so we had no reason to believe it wouldn't work again. I had wanted to have another child, but BDF only wanted two, and we were in the process of discussing our family size when I smelled a pop tart.
Yes, I said I smelled a pop tart. Someone in my office was making a pop tart in the toaster at work and it smelled - strong. Not bad, just really really strong. I asked the person what kind of pop tart it was, because my pop tarts never smelled like that. She looked at me funny and said "Brown sugar and cinnamon?" I thought it was odd - the only time my sense of smell was ever that sensitive was....hmmmmm.
At lunch that day I had a weird burping problem. I just couldn't stop belching. I thought it was odd - the only time I couldn't control my burps was......hmmmmm.
Then I realized I had been to the bathroom more that day than I did usually, and this made me think even more that something. was. weird. So I put one, two, and three together, and went home and took a pregnancy test, certain it would be negative and I would be expecting my period any day. It turned positive right away.
The first emotion I had was confusion - when the hell did this happen? I looked back at the calendar and the only way this possibly happened was on day 28 of my cycle. I was flummoxed. I had never had a 28 day cycle in my life. Ever. 48, sure. But never 28.
The next emotion was fear. BigDaddyFish had not yet come on board with wanting a third child, so I was petrified that the pregnancy would cause a huge rift between us. I called him on the phone at work crying my eyes out, saying "I'm pregnant! What are we going to do?!?"
"Um, we're gonna have another baby" he said calmly.
"But you didn't want another one. How are we going to do this?" I was absolutely freaked.
"It'll be fine. We're going to have another baby." Who is this mild-mannered reporter and what did he do with my husband? He was the proverbial calm, cool, and collected, and I was the proverbial basket case.
Wow.
She was my easiest pregnancy, my easiest birth, my hardest recovery. She is bright, happy, agreeable, funny, joyful, kind. She fights like crazy with her big brother and loves him to pieces at the same time. She loves to sing and dance and play dress up and dolls and family with her big sister. She dotes on her little brother. She's my little helper around the house. She loves to color and read with her Daddy. She is our Sunny girl and she is three today. Happy birthday, baby girl.
My favorite is when I grab her, lift her up and give her a big kiss on the cheek and she wipes it off and says, "Uncle ____, I dooon't liiiike kiiiiisses!!! Cause I know she's lying. :-)
Plus she thinks zerbits are icky (Her word.)
Posted by: Uncle Orca | March 16, 2007 at 04:19 AM