It was a Friday night, fifteen years ago. The rain poured down as hard as the thunder clapped. I'd been inpatient at a local maternity floor for three days, impatiently awaiting his arrival that wasn't scheduled for another month. But he had other plans. At 5:02pm, the first of many more contractions to come signaled his intentions. By 5:45, my obstetrician confirmed that he was just an anxious as I was. She broke my water at 6:15, and by 7:00, I was teaching my unborn child his first of many life lessons - how to cry like a little girl. Fifteen minutes later, the anesthesiologist was pumping medication into my spinal canal, and I was seriously propositioning his eighty year old ass out of sheer gratitude.
A little while later, relief. Which did nothing to quell the excitement I was experiencing. In fact, not having to be preoccupied with the pain gave me nothing else to do besides argue with medical personnel that I would be willing to take full responsibility for any complications that might arise from me drinking a few cans of ginger ale (that they ultimately never allowed me to have), and pick a name. A few weeks beforehand, MFH and I had written down several suggestions on little pieces of paper, folded them up, and scrambled them inside a white Panama Jack hat, hoping that we'd blindly pick a winner. But it simply wasn't that simple. Whoever thought it a good idea to market a book with ten thousand possible suggestions for a moniker geared toward pregnant women was obviously A.) high. And B.) Of the male species. But it's safe to say that we narrowed it down to about twenty five at that point.
By 8:30, my delivery nurse declared me to be at ten centimeters. I was ready for my close-up. A team of staff began prepping the room. The real drama of childbirth doesn't commence until the bottom half of the pretty and comfortable bed you are resting on suddenly disappears and stainless steel stirrups spring up in it's place. After pushing for what seemed like an eternity, my efforts proved futile. Apparently, too much epidural really can be a bad thing. Junior's heart rate was declining, so Doc implemented plan B. I'll spare you all the gory details of a birth via vacuum extraction, but I will say this: when delivering a baby who is positioned face down, and the doctor asks mid-crowning if you'd like to stop for a minute and touch the baby's head, there is never any shame in telling her she's on fucking crack. Even though Doc had ceased counting, MFH continued. I'd never given birth before, so I went with it. I wasn't quite in the mood to question him, being as I had a human head lodged half-way out of my vagina. Like Dr. McCoy, I gave it all I got. One. Last. Push. And suddenly, at 10:17pm, it was a boy. I had a son. In one push, I went from being a me to a we. And he. Was. Amazing. Five pounds, nine and a half ounces, and nineteen and a half inches of holy shit! Perfection, with ten fingers and ten toes.
I bought and read every parenting book known to man. I subscribed to the perfect parent magazines. I sought the advice of every mother in a forty mile radius. I even watched The Miracle Of Life, twice. But nothing in this world can ever prepare you for that moment. And that moment can never be duplicated. It can't be caught on camera. There aren't even any words. It just is. I will never understand how it's possible to unconditionally love someone you just met, you just do. I knew that by the time #1 checked out of Utero de Momma, he'd probably steal a few towels, as well as my own personal supply of iron and calcium. But I never expected that he'd take my breath away.
We didn't get any amount of time longer than it took to snap the traditional, seconds-after-birth, commemorative, new family Polaroid to hold him. In reality, he was five weeks premature, making his lungs that much immature. He ended up requiring five days of c-pap oxygen following his birth. But that instance of our gazes intertwining was enough for me to know that he wasn't an Xavier Kaejtan. He was so much more. And so we decided otherwise, six days later as we readied to bring him home.
Fifteen years have passed since those cherished and fleeting days. Fifteen years. In fifteen years time, I could have become a neurosurgeon. I could have ran for and accomplished two presidential terms of office. I could have done a lot of things. But I could not imagine not ever being #1's mother. If I ever doubted any decisions I made in my lifetime, this is most definitely not one of them. And if I had the chance to do it all over again, labor and all? I would. In a heartbeat. Because a heartbeat is all it took, from that day to this. Suddenly, I blinked, and he was taller than me. I turned around, and he turned fifteen. I am becoming acutely aware that one day, I will have to surrender him to another woman to hold. But I secretly wish that he will always find his way back to my arms.
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