For those of you who don’t know I am the extremely proud Mother of 2 wonderful children.  I have a son Aidan who turned 4 today and a beautiful daughter Isabella who just turned 2  in June.  I feel like it was just yesterday that Aidan was born.  I honestly can’t believe it.  I’ll never forget the day I found out I was pregnant.  To say I was shocked was an understatement….especially considering I was on birth control!  Go 1% !!!!

Fast forward to August 20.  All 9 months of my pregnancy Aidan was a mover.  He was always kicking and moving around.  But 4 days before my due date after a long busy day as I was about to lay down to go to sleep I realized that he hadn’t really moved much that day.  I thought possibly I was just so busy that day I hadn’t noticed.  So I hopped in the bath….ok so I sort of plopped like a massive 9 month pregnant woman.  I sat there and did what the doctors had been telling me to do.  I relaxed and began counting his movements.

An hour went by and nothing, then a second hour and nothing.  So I got worried.  By then it was almost 11pm and the hospital was 30 minutes away.  Ben and I made the GENIUS decision to head down but with only 1 of our 2 bags we had packed (for all you NON kid peeps – you pack bags for the hospital a few weeks before you are due so when you go into labor you can grab them and go)  we figured if we only grabbed one it wouldn’t be real???  not really sure.  I can blame prego brain, not sure what Ben’s excuse is!  LOL!

We arrive at the hospital and they put me in a room and strap a monitor around my MASSIVE belly.  Immediately you hear what seems to be the heartbeat of a tiny crack child.  Baby’s heartbeats are so incredibly fast, it’s crazy!  The totally annoyed nurse informs me it’s policy to keep me there on the monitor for 20 minutes and then leaves the room.  Now releaved of all worry Ben and I sit back and relax.  Ben notices on the monitor that there is a change.  So he stands up and starts to watch it.  He looks over and informs me I’m having a contraction.  Since this was my first child I had never really been sure if I was having actual contractions or Braxton Hicks.  But they weren’t too bad so I didn’t think much of it.

Later the nurse came back in and asked if I was ok, mentioning to me that I seemed to be in labor and having some pretty good sized contractions.  Well aren’t I getting this first time Mom thing off to a great start, I”m in labor and cool as a cucumber!  She leaves the room and Ben and I start joking about how I was going to breeze through this.  How funny it was that I had been debating epidural or no epidural all the while I’m in labor and don’t really hardly feel any pain.  Then he looks at the monitor print out again and says “hey babe, looks like you are having a really long contraction, it just keeps going on and on”  so I OBVIOUSLY replied “ya ok Dr. Bagwell, just because you came to some lamaze classes with me doesn’t mean you are an expert.  I think I’d know if I had some rediculously long contraction!”  sure enough as soon as the smart ass comment left my mount in runs two nurses tossing me from side to side.  Now let me stop this for a second.  I am not your typical hollywood stick thin pregnant chick.  I was a flippin whale!  I had gained close to 100lbs by this point so these poor nurses were gettin a work out!  Finally I realized the crack like heartbeat we had gotten used to hearing this whole time was no longer pounding on the speaker.  I realized they were searching for his heartbeat.

Once they got his heartbeat back on the monitor they told me they were going to call the doctor but that they gave me medicine to stop my contractions and that they assumed the doctor was going to want to do an emergency C section.  Ummmm WHAT?!?! ok???  Ughhh you see we took every class available to us EXCEPT the ones covering a C Section because duh I was sooo not having one of those. Because I’m in control right?  oh wait what? parenthood means loosing all control and living in utter chaos?  wait, I didn’t sign up for that!  I was planning on giving my husband the whole having a baby, miracle and tears experience, not the whole surgery clinical type childbirth.  We took 6 weeks of classes learning how to breath and all the terrible things to expect during child birth for NOTHING!?!  wonderful!  ok and wait what my baby is in what? distress? like as in not doing ok?  ya no I don’t think she just said that!

Sure enough the doctor comes in and tells us I was having some fancy word for really long contractions (yeah yeah there is an “I told you so” coming my way) and Aidan wasn’t doing so well during the contractiions and his heart was stopping for too long.  He basically tells me there is a large risk of brain damage and all sorts of other  complications so he wanted to do a C section right away.  So we of course said yes.  Not sure why but I expected some sort of waiting period.  Again, not sure why, maybe because everything that has to do with doctors and hospitals involves a few sentenses from a doctor and a large amount of waiting.  But not this time.

Ben gets on the phone calling the family.  Two surgical nurses wheel another bed in and tons of bags and tubes and start poking me in all sorts of places and two other nurses start spouting off things about laying my baby on his back to sleep and car seat safty blah blah blah and sign here sign here sign here.  Then just as I lift my arm to sign I notice I have an IV in…where did that come from??  wait I have a net on my hair? where are my glasses? holy crap what is going on?  We immediately start heading towards the opperating room.  Is this really about to happen?  I flash back to the last thing the doctor had said to me “You will be parents in less than 20 minutes”  WOW the fastest 20 minutes of my life.  I was so terrified but I remembered in every book I read about not stressing out because it makes it harder on the baby.  So I just kept trying to keep calm and not freak out since he was already in trouble.

We get to the OR door and they tell Ben he has to wait outside until after the spinal is done. They wheel me in and I am greeted with a cold, very bright room.  David, my now very well aquanted surgical nurse slides me onto the worlds smallest table I’ve ever been on.  Then introduces me to my anastesiologyst.  This man was NO JOKE the Asian OB doctor from the movie Knocked UP!  David then tells me to touch my chest to my knees.  I of course asked him if he had the right patient.  I haven’t seen my knees in 6 months!  Once the spinal was done they let Ben in.  Right as that happened the spinal really took effect.  They had strapped my arms down and out and I couldn’t move or feel anything but my face.  I started to take deep breaths in an attempt to not have a total panic attack.  Right then Dr. Knocked Up snaps at me “no breath deep make you dissy!” Ben immediately starts right in trying to calm me down telling me cute stories of what it will be like to walk Aidan around our park and how wonderful he is going to be.  But this whole not being able to move thing was freaking me out.  I am a control freak and NEVER done drugs of any sort in my life so this was a whole different experience for me.  My OB tells me he has made the insision and I’d feel some pressure.  Man was he right.  The most odd feeling in the world.  I won’t describe it so I can stay PG here.  But wow so wierd.

I was so nervous, I just wanted to hear him cry, some sign that he was ok. Sure enough the doctor says he was pulling him out.  HOLY PRESSURE, it was like a vacuum had entered my stomach.  and still no cry…. I was so scared.  Then I heard this small, soft cry and immediately I burst into tears.  He was alive.  Ben stayed by my side the whole time until the nurse asked if he wanted to cut the cord.  He was so supportive and didn’t want to leave me so I had to tell him it was ok to leave me.  But Aidan was still crying so I was ok.

After what seemed like an eternity they finally brought him over to me so I could see him for the first time.  I didn’t have my glasses so everything was so blurry.  I got one in focus glimpse and then they placed him right on my face.  Not kidding, on my face.  So I’m literally only looking at one of his eyeballs.  It’s a miricle the kid was not screaming.  I’d be terrified if I were him!  But I just closed my eyes and enjoyed the feeling of his cheek to my cheek.  The first time I felt him outside of my belly.  The amount of emotion and love you feel when you see and touch your child for the first time is honestly the best moment this world can give you.  Everyday that goes by I fall more and more in love with my children.  Since that day we have had such a wonderful time creating and building this family.

That day changed my life forever.  I saw my Husband like I’ve never seen before.  Before he was amazing but in a different capasity.  After he was a Father, a Father like I”ve never seen before.  He was just wonderful.  Aidan changed the both of us forever.  He gave us a better purpose.  From that day forward he has brought so much joy to our lives.  Yes he is crazy, yes he drives me up a wall, but for all the craziness and all the frustration he tripples that in the love and happiness he has brought to our lives.  I can not believe it has already been 4 years since that crazy day.  But I’m thankful for every moment.

Aidan was such an easy infant.  So well behaved, hardly ever cried.  That was so not good for me because it just filled my ego!  I thought I was the BEST Mom ever!  I’ve got this Mom thing NAILED!  then around 8months he starts walking.  Oh boy!  watch out!  He was a terror from that day on.  Aidan has always been filled with so much life and energy.  He loves to climb, and wrestle, yell, and have fun.  He is always on the go and always enjoying every moment.  He has opened my eyes to the whole “boy” world since I am 1 of 2 girls.  My older Brother is 9 years older than me so I didn’t get the whole “boy” experience with him. Aidan has always been HILARIOUS!  He always has some smart mouthed thing to say to make us laugh hysterically.  I can’t believe how fast these 4 years have flown by but I am looking forward to watching him change and grow for many many years to come.

I tried to gather a handful of photos from the last 4 years….