June 28, 1998

At 7:15 in the a.m. on Sunday, June 28th, 1998, I was 4 weeks away from my due date of July 25th, and I was huge and miserable. I wasn't sure how I was going to make it 4 more weeks because it seemed as if I was growing by the minute. The following week I was to start my breathing/labor classes with PDaddy with plenty of weeks after that to rest and get my baby clothes put away one more time and refolded one more time. That morning, like so many others close to it, I was lying in bed (PDaddy was a police officer then and already at work) asking God to please let me make it one more day because I literally felt like the babe was hanging out of my bottom every time I stood up. To prove that point, I stood up to go use the restroom and proceeded to empty the fluid contents of my womb on our bedroom carpet. WHO KNEW THERE WAS SO MUCH OF THAT STUFF IN THERE....AND THAT IT KEEPS COMING FOR THE DURATION? ((Interesting side note: My water broke with all 3 of my angelic little bundels of happiness.)) Where was I? Oh, yes. The water runs down my leg, so I go to the restroom, do my business, and I am thinking that perhaps I just pee'd on myself. Wouldn't that just be lovely? Skipping over some not so pleasant particulars, I became quite certain that it was, oh yes indeedy, my bag of water. Hahaa...my bag of water. Anyway, I phoned PDaddy who was to meet me at the hospital and phoned Pearlie Sue next so she could carry me (not literally, I was so incredibly not carry-able) to the hospital. It is important to state that at this point, with the water gushing continuously from myself, that I thought I was in labor. Uhm. No. At the hospital, it was revealed that I was barely even dilated. Pitocin was the order of the day, and I declined an epidural because, after all, it didn't hurt...but I wasn't in labor, remember? At some point I started blacking out, I asked for the Candy Man to come and give me the good stuff, but the Candy Man had been called to another surgery, so I was told to wait. Oh my. I eventually got that epidural, along with an emergency c-section after 12 hours of retardedly hard labor and 2 hours of pushing. Poor Jackson Ryan's heartbeat started declining and not recovering after the contractions, so off to the ER and immediately zipped out he was weighing 8 pounds 10 ounces. He was the biggest "preemie" in the NICU of the hospital. Hehe. There were some complications due to his being early, and being a boy, his lungs weren't as developed at barely 36 weeks as much as a girl's would've been. He was also born with a fever due to the rough circumstances of the labor. We were discharged shortly after, but we were readmitted a day later because the child was a yellow as a banana with bilirubin levels going over 17--which is close to drain bramage level. We finally got to come home for good on the 4th of July. And the clock beside where I sit is very close to ticking to 9:22 p.m. The time my Jackie was born. Happy Birthday Jackson! Oh my gosh, I'm such an old woman!
((Ang, I have a photo of you and Amanda standing in the hospital hallway. Waiting. Hehe. Oh yes, you're old too!!! Hehe..)