Guest Post: My Birth Story Told By None Other Than My Mommy :)

So there 70 more minutes of my birthday, and I am celebrating by posting this guest post by my mom!  I always put up our kids birth stories on their bday {ok, so Joey's only 1, and Sam isn't even here yet, but just wait, it's a new tradition} so I thought it would be fun to have my mom write mine!  Here goes....Hope y'all enjoy!  

My sweet Christina Kathleen was born on Friday, April 3, 1981, but that was not the day she was originally scheduled.  I went to the doctor the preceding Friday and he said the baby (we didn’t know what we were having because waaaaaay back then, insurance companies would only pay for sonograms if there was something wrong with the baby) was ready and he was scheduling the C-Section for the following Wednesday.  I asked him what date was that and he said April 1^st.  Well, I surely wasn’t going to choose  to have a baby on April Fool’s Day, so he said we would do it Thursday the 2^nd and I went back to work .  One of my good friends at work was so excited because April 2^nd was her birthday!  Then the doctor’s office called and said surgery was completely booked on Thursday, so I was re-scheduled for Friday.  Whew!  Finally, we were ready to go.

So, in those days, insurance companies didn’t worry about how long you were in the hospital, so they had me check in the night before so they could deliver the baby at 7.  I was lying in my bed, about to go to sleep when the phone rang.  The man on the phone identified himself as the anesthesiologist and proceeded to tell me what would be happening during the procedure.  At one point, he said, “Next you are going to hear a slapping noise, but don’t worry, because that is when they take your liver out and drop it on your stomach so they can get to the baby.”  YUK—TMI!!!!!!  Obviously, after that conversation, I wasn’t sleepy, so I took a walk around the floor.  I had just stopped to look at the babies in the nursery when a nurse came breezing out and said, “You didn’t lose much weight when you had your baby, did you?”  To quote Stephanie on Full House, “HOW RUDE!”  What if I had had my baby?  That would have really hurt my feelings.

The next morning, the nurse came to my room and told me they had had an emergency C-Section and I was re-scheduled for noon.  Great, more time to get nervous!  About an hour later, the phone rang and it was the anesthesiologist again.  He told me he had stepped out of surgery (stepped out of surgery?  Really?) to call me and let me know he would not be available for mine, but not to worry because his wife was going to do it.  I thanked him and hung up the phone.  It wasn’t until about 5 minutes later that I had this thought, “I hope she’s an anesthesiologist!!!!!!! “  Well, she was so the surgery was on.

The surgery rooms at Medical City are arranged on both sides of a hallway and they all have windows through which you can see the surgeries going on (only medical staff, of course, but still).  So they positioned me with my feet facing the window and then pulled my gown up over a metal bar at my head leaving me naked from the neck down for all the world to see.  As you all know, modesty goes out the window when you have a baby.  Then they all introduce themselves, like you are not lying there completely naked!  Man!

Next, they give me the epidural.  They wait a few minutes and the doctor makes a little nick with the scalpel and asks me if I can feel it.  Yowser!  I can really feel it.  He tells me that I will be able to feel it, but there will be no pain.  He waits a few more minutes and tries it again.  Yikes!  It still really hurts.  He runs his fingernail down my arm and in a very patronizing voice says, “Letha, you will feel it like you feel my fingernail, but there is no pain.”  I’m thinking they’re going to cut me open, not believing that it hurts and I’m starting to panic.  Then the anesthesiologist says,”Uh, Doctor, her heart rate is really fast.  I think she really is in pain.”   So, they doctor says, “Okay, we are going to put you out.”  That’s when I thanked God for that anesthesiologist and went to sleep.

Next thing I knew, I was waking up in the recovery room to the loudest noise I have ever heard.  My first words after having my baby were, “What the heck (might have been a stronger word!) is that?  Ray jumped up, pulled back the curtain and yelled, “She’s awake!”  It seems they were remodeling the recovery room and they were jack hammering the concrete floor in the stall next to mine!  They didn’t think it would hurt anything to keep working while I was out.  Geez!!!!!

Then, they took me to see my precious baby.  She looked exactly like her sister!  She was beautiful—C-Section babies don’t have to work to get here, so they are not all red and squished.

One last funny anecdote of Christy’s birth.  In those days, babies were not covered on insurance for the first 8 days unless there was something wrong with them.  Weird, huh?  So, we had to pay 100% of her hospital bill.  When it arrived, there was a stomach x-ray billed as well as $5.00 per day for television and telephone!  I called my pediatrician to ask if they had ordered the x-ray.  They said no and if the hospital had done one, I could probably end up owning the place!  So, I called the hospital and I guess we will never know if Christy had that x-ray because they said it was a billing mistake.  Then, I asked about the television and telephone saying, “I know she didn’t watch any television in the nursery because there wasn’t one in there and I’m pretty sure she didn’t use the phone, because if she had, surely she would have called her mother!”  Needless to say, they took the charge off the bill.

Finally, for those of you who have lasted through this long narrative, I want to say one more thing.  Everything I went through to get her here was worth it.  It is a privilege, a joy, an honor, and one of God’s great blessings to be Christy’s mom, and I am so proud of the wife and mom she is to Johnny and Joey. 

Thanks mom!  What a fun way to look back on my birthday since I don't really remember the original day as well as you do :)  I really appreciate all that you went through to get me here and I just love that you are the mom God picked for me!  I couldn't have asked for anyone better, I love you so much!  Night night everyone, and Happy Easter tomorrow....He is Risen Indeed!!!