2 posts tagged “happy birthday”
I had a great weekend and was treated like a queen. Saturday morning I slept in until 9:00, I proceeded to make a grocery list, and sor laundry. Chris and Jordan went to the grocery store they made supper and baked a cake. I got to clean out, straighten, organize my closet at my leisure while watching TV and doing laundry. Chris created a really yummy baked chicken recipe that was just too awesome.
I went to bed Saturday night and had my sleep interupted at least four times by the weather radio going off announcing severe thunderstorms and/or tornados in the county. None of them were within 20 miles of us, so I would promtly go back to sleep. Until the one that went off at 1:30---I proceeded to get out of bed to see if Chris was aware of the weather and walked in on him preparing my birthday/Mother's Day surprise. Oops. At least I didn't have my glasses on so I didn't see details. All I saw was a fish tank.
We got up early on Mother's Day because the plan was to go to Tupelo to pick up Chris's golf clubs from his folks house (they are in Boston visiting Annie, John, and the girls), eat brunch at IHOP, hit Kroger for some good quality steaks and then off to PetSmart for some Dragon supplies...now I got to pick some fish, too.
My fish tank is great! It is the perfect desk top size and I've got nine little fish in it, six guppies, two platies and an algea eater. I love it.
We got home, I took a nap while Chris watched some golf. He started fixing supper while I watched the Survivor season finale and talked to many relatives that called to wish me a Happy Birthday and a Happy Mother's Day. Supper was extremely yummy, the cake was delicious and I had a great weekend.
Jordan's birthday is tomorrow. He's turning 12. I've been thinking all day about his 'birth story' and the 'trauma' that surrounded his arrival.
I had a fairly easy pregnancy with Jordan: I had no morning sickness, I wasn't overly tired, I never got dizzy, or any of the "regular" pregnancy complaints, my feet didn't even swell and I was on them all the time. I did have one scare
at about 20 weeks: I was at work, and started having contractions. I tried sitting with my feet up, drinking water, all that stuff, but none of it was helping. One of my co-workers, Ellen, came up to me and just about had a fit when she saw how hard my belly was....she "made" me call my Dr. He said that he wanted me to come right in, and not to drive myself. I called Chris to meet me at the office and had someone else drive me to the office. Dr. Kennedy checked me over and sent me to the hospital for observation. They set me up on monitors, put in a catheter and an IV with some sort of medicine that made me really drowsy. Dr. Kennedy sent me home that night as the contractions had stopped and I was okay. The next few months passed uneventfully.
I was due on November 23 (Thanksgiving Day). I had plenty of sick leave and personal time built up, so I went on leave after Nov. 3. Thinking that this would give me plenty of time to get the nursery finished and some R&R time before delivery. I was "planning" on being late because he was my first and my Mom was always late. On Saturday the 11th Chris' Mom came over to help him hang the wallpaper in the nursery, she has carpal tunnel and cervical spondilosis, and other things so she was doing us a big favor to help. In the middle of the afternoon, I just got worn completely out and had to go take nap. Chris got irritated at me, but I laid down anyway. Got up a little while later feeling just fine and "helped" them some more. Mom went home and we had supper. Before I went to sleep, Chris and I "fooled around". He went back out to the living room to watch TV, I went to sleep. I woke up a couple of hours later because I was hurting. I laid there a minute and the pain came again; a contraction. I got up to get Chris, and had to stop in the hall because I had another one. Chris said that it was probably Braxton-Hicks and "made" me sit in a tub full of warm water; but they kept coming, stronger and faster. I begged him to "let" me call the Dr. He said: "I never said you couldn't" I called, and naturally it was my Dr.s weekend off...his partner, Dr. Willis, was on call. He said for me to go to the hospital. So, off we went. On the way to the hospital, the contractions just kept on coming.....when I wouldn't be having one I would tell Chris to slow down we have plenty of time, then another would hit and I would be grasping the door handle doing my breathing and saying: "Are we ever going to get there?" So, he'd speed up...then slow down...then speed up....then...well you get the picture. I was so scared that we were going to be in a wreck because we were on the highway between a "wet" county and a "dry" one, on Saturday night/Sunday morning right after closing time.
We got to the hospital and they put me in the observation room for just a few minutes, then I was in the labor and delivery room. The next while passed very quickly while they IV'd me(it took seven tries) enema-ed me, shaved me, and all that other stuff. Dr. Willis came in and checked me out, said that I could have the epidural whenever the nurses got done doing all the prep work. The anastegeologist (sp?) came in and administered the epidural...no problems there. It took effect immediately and we had to watch the monitor to "see" when I was having contractions. At about 5 AM Dr. Willis told us that it would be at least 4 more hours before I would be dilated enough to start pushing, and that he wouldn't bother calling anyone until after 9. By 7 AM I was done dilating and Dr. Willis told Chris that I was going to start pushing and that if we wanted anyone here, he'd better call. So, Chris went to make a few phone calls. It was about this time that I started asking for Dr. Kennedy and was told that he didn't live very far at all and he would be there for the delivery. I continued to ask for him every time Dr. Willis came in. I kept getting the same answer: Dr. Kennedy didn't live far and he'd be there for the delivery. Chris came back from making the phone calls and I started pushing. I pushed with every contraction for over two hours, nothing was happening, except I kept asking for my Dr. and they wouldn't call him. After about two hours Dr. Willis came in and checked me (again), he told them to turn the epidural off because I wasn't pushing right. That made me so mad!!! I was exhausted and he had the nerve to tell me I wasn't pushing right. Chris was so supportive, doing and saying everything that the classes had taught him. He kept saying...."Come on baby, you can do it." To which, after a point, I said..."No, I can't" then he'd say..."Yes, you can." What I meant and couldn't verbalize was that deep inside I knew something was wrong and I couldn't deliver this baby. So, finally about 10:30ish Dr. Kennedy came in. I was never so happy to see a man in my life....I may have cried in relief. He watched me through one contraction, during the next he had the vacuum extractor, by the third they were prepping me for a c-section. They turned the epidural back on, and shaved the rest of me....wheeled me down to the operating room. Chris had gone to scrub up and when he came in I had trouble figuring out which one of the men with blue scrubs, glasses, and mustaches was Chris. They checked me to see if I was numb; took a sharp little pin and stuck me with it over and over "can you feel this, this, this, this? Okay, she's ready." I was so excited (and exhausted and disappointed) Dr. Kennedy made the cut, and I looked over at the anastegeologist and said...."Am I supposed to feel that? I can feel that." Chris says I screamed. The anestegiologist said: "She's got feeling!" Then he gassed me and a big nurse drug Chris out of there. That is the last thing I remember: Chris being man-handled out the door looking scared and bewildered. The gas took effect immediately, and I was out.
Jordan was delivered at 11:01 AM November 12, 1995. 7lbs 14oz, 18 3/4 inches long, with lots of reddish blonde hair. The nurse went out and told Chris and the family that Jordan was born and the Dr. was closing, I should be in the recovery room in a few minutes then after about two hours they could go in and see me. Happy, happy, joy, joy!! Chris and his folks went to the coffee shop for a bite to eat and my folks left for a bite to eat. After about two hours the nurse came in and told Chris that they had been looking for him. There were some complications. When Chris asked if I was going to be okay he was told: "It's all in God's hands now." Seems, that I had pushed hard enough, long enough, and right enough, that I had severed an artery and Dr. Kennedy had trouble finding then getting the bleeding to stop. If he hadn't gotten it stopped when he did, he would have had to do a total hysterectomy. I received four units of blood on the table. The next thing I do remember was Dr. Kennedy saying..."She's coming around." and being so cold, I was shaking so bad that it took 4 Dr.s and nurses to hold me down. I was in and out several times before I stayed coherent. They had to use a blanket that blows warm air to get me warmed up and when I finally saw Chris, he looked like he had been through the wringer. He had to convince the nurses to let me see Jordan. Which they did, so I finally saw him about nine o'clock that night. My first words to my new son were..."Awww, how cute." said very dryly because he had this big red birth mark that started on his chin and went all the way up his head to the back of his neck. (He still has some of it.) It was very noticeable to me and to others when he gets sick or angry or upset.
I spent two days in the intensive care unit, Dr. Kennedy wanted to give me another unit of blood, but I said no. I didn't get the opportunity to breast feed Jordan until he was two days old but I never got any milk to come in even though I kept trying for over two weeks. Jordan was ready to be released on Tuesday, but they wouldn't release him without me, and I wasn't ready until Thursday. This gave him a few extra days under the "billi" lights as he was very jaundiced.
It wasn't until we lost Samuel that we realized the extent of the injury to my cervix. By that time the statute of limitations had run out and there wasn't anything we could do. Not long after this Dr. Kennedy ended his partnership with Dr. Willis. They both still practice, but not in the same office.
