No really, I did.
Last Sunday, May 26.
The person on the other end was obviously in pain, breathless, trying to get the words out.
"Mom," the person said "I'm in labor."
2,000 miles away and I'm getting the call we having been waiting for. Well again, because a few weekends ago she was also in labor and I was telling her, that night, to go to the hospital. It was kind of absurd, like something out of a movie. I'm 2,000 miles away listening to her describe her symptoms and me saying "You're in labor. Go. to. the.hospital!"
She was reluctant, having appeared there many times before in false labor. But you are given little wiggle room with high risk pregnancies, and this was high risk.
But now, at 3am on a Sunday morning my daughter, kossack TattooedLiberal, was again in labor. Her first child, our first grandchild, my parents first great grandchild was finally on the way.
We weren't there. It was hard. We waited.
Unlike a few weeks ago she was not doing real time birth blogging from the hospital this time. But a few weeks ago she was on facebook from her hospital birthing room. It had wifi and we learned that her room had a jacuzzi to help women relax in the birthing process.
a jacuzzi?! sniff
On facebook we older mothers regaled each other (and her) with tales about how the only thing we had to help us relax was a strip of leather to bite on, walked 10 miles up hill in heavy labor to get to the hospital, etc. LOL
I mean .. a jacuzzi?!
In between contractions we were told she was laughing hysterically.
But the labor stopped, completely, and she went home for another two weeks.
So we waited . . . any news we were constantly asked? No, no baby, not yet.
Then at 7:07pm my time, May 26, 2013, my first grandchild, a granddaughter to be exact, was born! Weighing in at 6lbs 11 oz, she weighed in at exactly the same as her mother had at birth. My granddaughter though is taller at 19 inches. For the purposes of this dairy I will call her Amelia (not her real name).
She has already begun to make her preferences known. Like her mother, Amelia hates being swaddled (it's a myth that all babies like swaddling, only one of mine, my last of 4 did). When I would remove the swaddling from TattooedLiberal she would expand her arms and legs so they hit the sides of the hospital's plastic bassinet, as if to say, "I've got space to stretch out now."
Sunday night, an hour after Amelia's birth, was the first night I was able to take a deep breath in months. I worried every single day of TattooedLiberal's pregnancy. For her digestive issues she's chronicled here, other abdominal issues and for her birth defect that normally puts some pressure on her heart and does not allow her to take a real good deep breath.
She has pectus excavatum or "sunken chest."
[It] is the most common congenital deformity of the anterior wall of the chest, in which several ribs and the sternum grow abnormally. This produces a caved-in or sunken appearance of the chest.[2] It can either be present at birth or not develop until puberty.
-wikipedia
Her's was present at birth and it sent me, the first time mother, to the hospital several times within the first weeks after her birth. It scared me, and unfortunately I don't remember the doctors telling me what the problem was. The diagnosis came from my family, because my cousin had a sunken chest. Had the doctors told me instead of just saying "she's fine" - because clearly she wasn't, with every breath cycle her chest seemed to be sucked into her backbone - I would have relaxed more.
And I wouldn't have continually tried to put her on her stomach, which is what they wanted you to do back then. I always had to do it in her sleep and she always would wake crying. I didn't do it much and abandoned it all together when she could roll.
If she wanted to be in that position she could get herself in and out of it, herself.
But as she got older it affected other things. So profound is the lack of space and give on her chest that she could not allow her beloved cat, Tribble,* on her chest without terrible pain.
In pregnancy a fetus normally displaces and pushes organs upward. With this pregnancy, especially since TattooedLiberal carried high, the displacement would have graver and more uncomfortable affects. The pressure on her heart and lungs might even be life threatening.
So I worried. . .
. . . it was high risk from beginning to end . . .
. . . but I had confidence and some peace of mind that if the pregnancy went south, if my daughter's life was in danger an abortion would be preformed. She would not die from this pregnancy.
Her husband, her family, and his family supported this decision too. If the decision had to be made, her life, was more important. They could always try again.
But now little Amelia is here and still tiny enough that she can lay on her mother's chest and listen to her heart, at least for a few more weeks.
She will be an only child as the physical dangers of this pregnancy, make it unwise and unsafe for TattooedLiberal to be pregnant again.
In a few weeks we will also be there to see, and coo, and celebrate the newest edition to the family. She is so cute.
We are glad that TattooedLiberal was able to make it through and bring a child into the world.
We are also grateful that she lives in a state that still believes that abortion is a necessary part of women's health care.
Because it is.
TattooedLiberal, husband and baby Amelia are staying at the in-laws for a few weeks. TattooedLiberal is doing well. Oh and baby Amelia has a not only 2 sets of grandparents, but at least 2 sets of living great grandparents, at least 1 living great-great grandparent.
* Named "Tribble" because he was a little ball of fur as a kitten and I made the comment, "He looks like a Tribble with legs." and the name stuck.
He tipped the scales at 16 lbs and if you walked behind him you noticed he looked like and walked like a pot bellied pig.
