Happy Birthday

There are some days in your life that stay with you. You relive them as if they just happened. June 23, 1996 is a day that stays with me. It was the day my firstborn came into the world.

Throughout the night, I kept getting up to go to the bathroom. And when Joe and I were getting dressed for church the next morning, I started to laugh and my water broke! Needless to say, we didn’t make it to church and the baby shower at my mom’s house that afternoon would go on without me. A thunderstorm came through and the power went out while I was in labor. I was feeling pretty good and wondering if I was truly in labor, until I felt the first big contraction. “Okay, I think I do need the epidural!” The generators kicked in so I was the last to know that the air conditioning was not working, and the ice was gone. I was grateful for a box fan that my sister brought from home, but when the doctor told me I needed a C-section, the mood changed. I wasn’t prepared for a C-section! That was going to be covered in class next week!

I remember being wheeled into the operating room and seeing box fans around the room. I was trying so hard to not panic and grateful for the amazing doctor who calmed me down and explained everything that was going to happen. It felt like someone was jumping up and down on top of me when they were pushing the baby out and before you knew it, Julian was lifted out of me with a head full of crazy, black hair, screaming as if to say, “Put me back in!”

Joe cut the umbilical cord and they laid Julian on me. I thought I was suffocating and needed oxygen. No, it was that feeling of love at first sight. I was so overcome by love that I couldn’t handle my emotions. When they took Julian to the warming table, Joe went with him and started singing the song he sang throughout my pregnancy. Julian immediately stopped crying as if to say, “Hey, I know that voice!”

Into the wee hours of the morning, I was lying very still, waiting for the feeling to come back from the epidural and also to keep cool and Joe and I talked non-stop. When I was holding Julian the next day, I looked at him with amazement. “How in the world have I been blessed to have this amazing little creature in my arms?”