What a surprise! (or Happy Birthday Senior Son)

It was almost 22 years ago to the minute when a perplexed doctor came into my room and said, “It appears that your contractions won’t stop.” Dear, who had been with me hours earlier when I tried to tell them I didn’t need a “practice run” of labor because I was already in labor just turned to me, grinned his cute little grin and said, “What a surprise!” (Not!)

It seems that everything I do I like to do in a rush. I drive fast, talk fast, write fast, and eat fast. I even labor fast. For that matter I don’t even stay pregnant for 40 weeks. This time around it was about 34 weeks, give or take. All along I had told them I felt things happening too early, and all along they had insisted, “You’re just a first time mom. That’s not really what you think it is.” Well, I’m here to tell you that I WAS in labor and the baby WAS coming and no, it really wasn’t a surprise to us, despite what the doctors had said.

This news from the doctors elicited a phone call to my MIL who was at our house. She was there because I had been on bed rest and let’s just say I’m NOT a good patient. Anyway, when I left that morning very early she told us she’d bake a cake so we could celebrate a healthy baby who would be able to survive labor when I came home from the stress test. The first phone call to her encouraged her to eat a bit of the cake. As the day wore on and we continued to phone her with updates the cake continued to dwindle a bit at a time.

By 2:30 we called with the best of news. We had a beautiful son. He was a “whopping” (NOT!) 5lb. 3 oz. and just 18.5 inches long. He was a teeny little guy, but we thought he was beautiful. Due to his prematurity the first words I heard from the doctor were “Said good bye to your baby.” Now, they meant because they were taking him to the NICU, but I thought he was not going to make it. I did finally get to see him later. They had shaved the front of his head and inserted an IV there. He had heart monitors, was in a special bassinet and I couldn’t even touch or hold him. I just ached to hold him! When all the other babies were brought to their mothers for feeding I got a machine. I joked that I was like a dairy cow hooked to a milking machine. In reality, that was about the truth of it.

We were blessed in that Senior Son was able to come home on Friday, just four days after he was born. My MIL had baked another chocolate cake for us as she and Dear had finished off the first one. Dear and I proudly brought home a beautiful son and celebrated with my in-laws with a wonderful meatloaf meal (one of my favorite things in the world to eat) and the cake!

Happy Birthday Son… it’s been 22 years since we first saw your face and we feel very blessed that you are growing more and more to love the Lord, have a servant’s heart, learning the value of hard work, lessons learned and perseverance. We love you!