I am pleased and proud to introduce you to my first great grandchild, Gage. He was born on Friday, January 13, 2017 at around 4pm. He weighed 8lbs 6oz, about half of which is hair, and he’s 21 inches long. He is healthy and hairy and beautiful, the spitting image of his mother.
My granddaughter was a trooper, even when she didn’t want to be. She had one little seizure just as she was going into push mode but before it really got started. The nurse didn’t recognize it, but I’ve watched that child seize all the way from a brief faraway stare to Grand Mal monsters where she is gripped for many long minutes and occasionally stops breathing, I know one of her seizures when I see one. I placed my face in front of hers and talked to her softly and after about 30 tense seconds I saw her pupils move and her eyes focus on mine, and she started crying (a good sign in this instance.) And she passed out for several seconds during pushing, I think she might have hyperventilated trying to get her breath between pushes. But she popped right out of it ready to have another go at it.
The birthing process produced a bit of a conehead, which will dissipate over the next couple of days until it takes it’s true form, a boxhead. I’m proud to say that his boxhead comes from me, I’ve always been known in our family as the original boxheaded baby. All my baby pictures show a set of giant eyes set in a shiny porcelain box. This phenomenon was skipped in my own children, but reappeared in baby Gage’s mother, whose also had a set of giant eyes in a beautiful porcelain box, but with a lot of dark fuzz to highlight it. My mother always said that giving birth to my boxhead was the most painful of her three births, and my daughter-in-law reiterated this when my granddaughter was born. It takes a lot of work to get that big box out of that tiny roundish hole. And so it was for my granddaughter. When the doctor said he was developing a cone and he must be holding on by his fingernails because he couldn’t feel what was holding him back, I said, “uh oh, he’s a boxhead.” The doctor cocked a quizzical eyebrow at me and I yanked my hair back and pointed to the corners of my boxhead. He nodded wisely and said, “we may have to go to the forceps.”
So when the doctor said “we may have to go to the forceps,” my granddaughter grabbed the inside of her knees and yanked them forward, took a mighty breath, rolled herself into a ball, jammed all her force down and screamed at the mound of black hair protruding from her, “GET OUT OF ME! GET OUT OF ME NOW!” At which point the doctor whipped his finger out of her vagina, pointed it at her and shouted excitedly, “Do that! And keep doing it!” And so it came to pass that my granddaughter screamed her baby out and into the world, while a roomful of doctors and nurses plus Baby Daddy and me and her momma all screamed along with her. Four more good screams overcame the tension and his head was finally freed, the rest of him slid right out like clockwork.
Wanna tough bairn out? Shout him out!
Her older sister, standing in the hall right outside the door through all this, says she’s never going to have a baby, not after all that screaming. I kinda believe her.
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I want to thank all the folks who came by to rec and comment in my diary Thursday morning, and for all of you who did what I couldn’t do in those two days of helping my granddaughter become a new mommy. I rested well yesterday, too tired to do anything but read and rec diaries and comments. I’m sorry to say that by the time I got back to that diary, it was too late to rec any of your comments or make timely replies, but just know that I appreciate all the concern, support and well wishes from each and every one of you. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in this life it’s that the difference between despair and finding your fighting spirit is often as simple as knowing someone cares. Knowing someone cares won’t put food on your table, but it can help you find the strength to get out there and scratch for it. I’ll be ready to resume scratching my congresscritters bright and early tomorrow. Count on it.
Thanks again, from the bottom of my heart. My heart is so full right now, I love you all, even those that piss me off on the regular. Enjoy this blissful moment, it won’t last long. ;-)