MY First Born

When I found out I was pregnant the first time I was so young that honestly it seemed like a cool thing. Something that meant I was finally grown up. The only problem was that I was far from grown up and even father from acting grown up. In the first few months of my pregnancy I was very sick. I have morning, noon and night sickness. As the months passed it eased up a bit but I still had days where I was sick right up to when I gave birth. I think there was a part of me that enjoyed planning the childhood of someone else. I was in such awe that this little innocent life was going to be in my hands, my responsibility. Most of all I absolutely bathed myself in joy when I thought about the love I was going to feel for this child, the love I already felt for it as it grew inside of me. There was also great satisfaction in my belief that this child would love me.

As my pregnancy progressed I didn't really think much about the birth. I knew realistically that it would hurt but I just didn't think about that much. I was enjoying feeling the life grow inside of me and was having a blast preparing his space in our home and in our life. My husband and I, a newly married couple with only a few months of marriage before I got pregnant left us inexperienced but I'm proud to say that my husband took his responsibilities serious and began to build our life with the future in mind.

The day that I went into labor I woke up that morning with a back ache. I was due and my husband had to go to work so he took me to the home of a family member. I spent the day there and the back ache continued and around 4 PM I began having what we concluded were contractions. They were spaced apart fairly far so we weren't overly concerned. My husband came to pick me up. We believed that I was going to go to the hospital that night and we had no groceries so we go to the store. While there the contractions got much harder and much closer.

We stopped by the homes of two family members on our way to tell them that we were going to go home to take the groceries and then go to the hospital. We didn't have a phone so we told them to meet us out the hospital at a certain time. Well we get to our place and begin to put the groceries up when my pains just suddenly stop. We then think it was false labor. We finish putting the groceries up and then wait another thirty minutes or so before we decide that we are sure that it is over and I'm not in real labor. My husband is getting ready to go tell them we aren't going to go to the hospital. All of a sudden I have a contraction that nearly took me to the floor. So off we go to the hospital as we had originally planned.

I get there and I'm four centimeters dilated. They had me walk the hall for about an hour. They decided at 10 PM to keep me and told us that I was going to have a baby that night. I was suddenly scared out of my wit. I was scared of the pain but more than that I was scared of being a mother. I wondered if I'd be a good mother, did I know how to be a good mother. All I knew was that I loved this baby and wanted to be the best mother I could be. Back in those days others were not allowed into labor and delivery so I was in the room all by myself......all by myself with my thoughts running rampant in my head.

The contractions remained steady and I slowly began to dilate. Then it seemed as if I got to 7 centimeters and couldn't get any further. By 6am the doctors began to get concerned and came to speak with me. I was exhausted and so weak. They feared I was too small to give birth or that I didn't have the capacity to dilate to ten centimeters. They took me to x-ray and confirmed that there was no way that I was going to be able to give birth to this baby naturally. I had dilated all that my body would do and it wasn't enough to give birth. So they prepped me for a C-section and took me to the operating room.

I was scared for my baby more than anything. When they took me from the labor and delivery area to the operating room they allowed my husband to speak to me for a moment. At 9:45am my first child was born and weighed in at 7 pounds 13 ounces being 21 inches long. He was healthy as could be. I was so so happy. He was so beautiful. The first time I held him and I looked into his eyes I was mesmerized by the love I felt for this little human being. I was so proud of him and for everything he would become....this still holds true today some 27 years later. He is a wonderful father of his own daughter now and I couldn't be prouder.