Eight Years Ago

One of the two happiest days of my life happened eight years ago tomorrow. My Nanner Bean was born!

My ex-husband and I had decided that we wanted to have our children two years apart. I still remember how that played out. There came a point where I said, if we want to have them two years apart, we better get started. Not very long after that I carried the pregnancy test out with a stupid grin on my face and told him that we must be the most fertile couple in the world.


On September 19th, 2002 and two we became proud parents for the second time. He was actually born on his due date which surprised me. I had a doctors appointment that day, but after having contractions the whole day prior to his birth I doubted we were going to make it to that appointment. Sure enough, just before four in the morning my water broke. I jumped up from a sound sleep, said "My water broke!" and ran to the bathroom. Pretty much the same thing had happened with my older son as well. Except that with him, the contractions stopped after my water broke. This time, they kept coming harder and closer together. We had switched to a midwife practice after a less than pleasant experience with our OB-GYN and she had told us to call when my water broke. So, I called and told her what was going on. She told me I could come in whenever I was ready, but that I could wait at home until the contractions got closer together. We called my mother-in-law and told her to come and get our older son and then when she arrived I decided it was time to go. I was going to attempt a VBAC and I didn't want to take any chances.

Everything about my labor was pretty similar to the first, except I had an amazing midwife to help me through it this time. She almost never left the room, let me move around just like I wanted, and I was even able to get in the whirlpool tub. I was pressing on without medication pretty well, but at eight centimeters I got stuck. The same thing had happened with my first and that is when the doctor had decided to do the c-section. My midwife looked at me and said, "You are going to hate me, but I want you to turn over on your left side. It is going to hurt so much worse, but we need to get him out." At that same time she called the doctor to have him make his way in to the hospital. When she told me she was going to do that because she thought he might need to use suction, I was determined to get him out! I turned over on my side and the pain that had been bearable became so intense so fast I couldn't believe it. I gripped the bed rail so hard my knuckles were white! At one point, my ex looked at me and said, "You can relax, your contraction is over." I looked at him and said, "No, I can't relax, it is one BIG LONG contraction! I don't care what that stupid monitor says!"

The midwife had been right, I wanted to kill her, but it worked. I went from eight to ten in just a few minutes and then started to push. I suspect that medication gives the woman a little more control over the pushing part of delivery. I had no control. They had told me that even though it was my second baby, I might still push for two hours since I had never pushed with the first. He was out in fifteen minutes.


I remember looking down and seeing his little body but not hearing anything. I sort of panicked and kept asking if he was OK. My midwife said he was fine. I said, "Why isn't he crying?" She said, "Here you go." and he started right up. He got to stay in the room with us for all of his tests and to be cleaned up and I just watched him and marveled at how amazing he was. He was a champion nurser right from the beginning and thanks to the kindness of the midwives we got to go home with him the next morning.


So much has happened in the eight years since that day. He's the same height as his older brother, but outweighs him by almost ten pounds. He still loves so many little boy things like playing with trucks and just digging in the dirt. He loves to collect things and he is still such the momma's little boy. He still crawls up on my lap (only now he takes up way more than my lap) and he still tells me he loves me all the time. Him and his brother are my whole world and I never knew how amazing life could be until they were in it!


Happy 8th Birthday Nanner Bean!!