Happy Birthday, B.B.

Tomorrow will be a busy day (possibly), so I'm going to post tomorrow's post today. Tomorrow my baby boy will be three years old. For those of you who haven't been here from the very beginning, or may have forgotten, B.B. does not stand for Baby Boy...it stands for Butt Backwards. That's what Uncle Gick called him when he was an infant.

At one of my later ultrasounds we discovered B.B. was breech. I was not happy to hear this news as both BabyGirl & #1 Son had been relatively short labors, easy deliveries, and short recoveries. Now I was faced with a C-section. I hoped and prayed he'd turn, but at my 39 week appointment he had not. Doc sent me downstairs for an ultrasound to confirm his suspicions. By the time we left the hospital we were scheduled for a C-section the next morning & I was mildly nauseous.

Having little time to prepare myself for what was to come, I was a nervous wreck. I only slept about an hour that night & felt like vomiting the rest of the time. I'd never had surgery before & the thought of being cut open while awake terrified me. We were supposed to be at the hospital at 5:30, but got there at 5 because neither Husband or I could sleep.

Much to my chagrin, as soon as we got there I was put on a gurney in a flimsy hospital gown, hooked up to the fetal monitor, catheterized (with no anesthesia...can we just say 'ouch'!), and left to wait until I was wheeled into surgery (scheduled for 10 o'clock). They had some changes in the schedule & I was taken in early.

After my epidural was in, I laid on the table shaking like a leaf. The anesthesiologist (Denny) asked if I was nervous...uh, yeah. Duh. I remember Husband coming in to set by my head & being told not to stand up (he wasn't happy about not being allowed to see anything). Doc came in and started the surgery. I immediately thought I was going to hurl. Denny gave me something to settle my stomach that all but knocked me out. I could hardly keep my eyes open.

Doc delivered B.B. and he was whisked away by the nurses to be cleaned up and bundled. To be honest, I didn't really care. I only wanted to sleep. Husband and the pediatrician (Dr.K) brought B.B. over for me to see briefly before they took him to the nursery. I looked at him and said, "Oh, you look just like your sister." Then I tried to go back to sleep. Dr. K said, "Don't you want to kiss him before we go?" Well, yeah, sure, if it means I can go back to sleep. Horrible mother, I know.

After a very groggy hour in recovery (with an old woman coughing continually in the bed next to me) I was taken upstairs to the OB ward. As they wheeled me past the nursery window I could see B.B. (or a bundle I was told was B.B.) laying in the warmer. I started crying. Busha, Bucka, and Husband met me outside the elevator. Busha petted my hair and said, "It's OK, honey. You'll get to hold him soon." That's not why I was crying, but I couldn't seem to explain that.

He was brought in to me after a few minutes & I laid in bed in horrible pain looking at this odd little person I'd been told was mine. This birth being so different from the last two left me feeling disjointed and unattached to B.B. I wasn't allowed to nurse him for 24 hours due to the drugs in my system. It all seemed very surreal to me.

MIL & FIL brought the kids to see their new brother later that afternoon. I was so out of it from the pain killers & anti-nausea meds that I couldn't talk to them. It terrified #1 Son (who was only 15 months old at the time), and made BabyGirl nervous.

It took me two or three weeks to feel like B.B. was truly mine and at least that long to feel like I could stand up straight. Looking back, I'm pretty sure I suffered from a mild case of PPD, but since it wasn't debilitating, I didn't think I needed help.

Now, three years later, I know that birth wasn't the hardest thing I'll go through with the wild man. He's a wild man to say the least. He never stops going. He gets into everything. He walked at 9 1/2 months. He learned to open the baby gate when he was a year old. He climbs up anything that's standing still. I'm sure some day I'll find him taking the toaster apart with his dad's tools. He's funny, he's determined, he's imaginative, he's busy. I love my wild man.

Is it a coincidence that he was born the same day Hurricane Ivan made land fall in the US?

Happy Birthday, B.B.!