10+ negative home pregnancy tests
1 in the doctor’s office, negative urine pregnancy test
1 negative pregnancy internal exam
1 negative pregnancy blood test.
All the while I insisted I was pregnant.
My doctor mentioned that I might need to talk to someone and I told her that I needed to talk to her about which pre- natal vitamins to take because I was pregnant no matter what she and all the tests said.
She mentioned something like ......
“girl you are not going to like a straight jacket so please stop!”
Finally, by way of an ultrasound, my pregnancy was confirmed!!!
You know I was petty and told my doctor “I told you so!”
She said she had never seen anything like this before.
I told her this wasn’t about her.
I swear I started to “show” as soon as my pregnancy was confirmed. Sometimes you can’t tell a woman is pregnant unless you see her from the front. Ummmmm you could tell I was pregnant from the front, back, side, top and bottom. I was a 5ft 2in ball of fluid, baby and ice cream.
I developed Pre-Eclampsia and was so full of fluid I was pretty much unrecognizable and couldn’t wear shoes.
Labor was induced because they feared I was going to end up with toxemia. Someone came into my labor room and told us they were doing a photo shoot for some article about epidurals and asked if I would be willing to have pictures taken during mine and if so they would give it to me right away. I immediately signed the release forms and they piled in with nurses, a photographer, a light crew and an anesthesiologist. It was a full on, professional photo shoot. Somewhere in some medical journal is a picture of my back and butt crack. I really hope they were kind and generously air brushed those photos.
The epidural did not last. I could feel things they swore I couldn’t.
I was stuck at 7cm for hours and the baby’s heart rate was not happy. My doctor told me she was going to perform a C-section and they would be in soon to take me down to surgery. The second she walked out of the room I felt a whole lotta pressure and told the nurse I needed to push.
She told me no I didn’t.
I told her she better check.
Lo and behold I was crowning.
My doctor came back in loudly expressing her suprise.
I was like, girl you never listen to me, get your catcher’s mitt and shut up already!
We didn’t want to know the baby’s gender ahead of time and we hadn’t decided on a name. We were, however,100% certain that if the baby was a boy we were NOT going to name him Ricky after Jeff’s brother who passed away in 1991.
In the middle of me with my knees pinned to my ears, pushing a baby out, my extremely handsome husband felt a little overwhelmed and stepped out of the room to get a drink of water. The entire room stopped counting and expressed concern for him!!! Seriously! A human was trying to come out of my body and these women never saw a hot guy get woozy before? Was this their first delivery? My panting and requests (screams) for someone to hold the leg my husband dropped brought them back to their senses. Jeff got it together and resumed his leg holding duties.
A few more pushes and grunts and the baby was born. In a split second all the energy in the room shifted and those ladies went from laughing, joking and keeping it light with us to full on serious, business mode. The baby was silent, blue and lifeless. That baby just hung from the doctor’s hands as she yelled NICU!
It sounded like an army of people crashed through the door and amid the chaos I could hear them saying “clear”.
I was screaming, demanding to know what was happening and Jeff was sobbing telling me not to look at them to just keep looking at him. I was howling, asking “why isn’t the baby crying?” I didn’t even know if it was a boy or girl. All I knew was that a little, lifeless, blue baby came out of me and they were jump starting it with the tiniest defibrillator pads ever.
Jeff told me the baby was a boy and to stop trying to get up. You know I wanted out of that bed and to be over with my son! I remember praying to my brother-in-law. In my mind, saying over and over “Ricky, let him be ok, let him be ok!”
After what seemed like an eternity the baby took his first breath, opened his eyes, cried, peed and pooped all at once.
We say he exploded into life!
As soon as we heard the baby cry I looked at Jeff and said “name him Ricky!” Jeff declared “I already did” and I smugly responded “good then I’m naming the next one.”
We joke that they gave Ricky one jolt too many because it took him 4 years to sleep through the night. He was a ball of energy that kept us on our toes for the first 18 years of his life. I would always say that his personality would serve Ricky well as an adult. I hoped and prayed I would survive his childhood and teens to see my words come true.
We survived, he thrived!
Humor and unconditional love are two of the most powerful forces in the universe.
That tiny, never slept longer than twenty minutes at a time, baby is 25 years old today. He lights up every room he enters. He is kind, smart, generous, loyal, loving, funny, handsome , hard working, responsible and about a million more amazing things I don’t have enough room to write about. He makes my heart happy and I am so grateful I was chosen to be his mother ♥️
