Twenty-one years ago today, I was being prepped for surgery. The c-section was planned. Being put under was not.
As I lay on the gurney waiting to go to surgery and without my glasses, they came to tell me that I would not be awake during the procedure. It was too risky to do anything with needles to my back. The doctor was concerned about my VonWillenbrandt's and didn't want any bleeding in my spine from an epidural. It was a last minute precaution decision.
I started to cry. I couldn't see them when they were talking to me as they had taken my glasses and I was blind without them. Your father had been shown to the area where he was suited up for being in the operating room. They said he could not come in now that there was not going to be an epidural. I asked that they get him. I needed to tell him what was going on. Mostly, I needed to tell him something else.
Your grandmother, my mother, and her sisters all have a low acetacholenestrace (sp?) problem. She doesn't wake up from anesthesia. We all were tested after her incident. They took the tube out only to have to reintubate her when they found she couldn't breathe and was turning blue. I have the same problem, as do you and your brother. I truly believed I wouldn't wake up.
They brought your father to me and I was sobbing. We had been discussing names. I didn't know if I was having a boy or a girl. I didn't want to know before the actual birth. I wanted to be surprised. We had picked out a girl's name. Well, actually, I picked out a girl's name. The whole pregnancy I knew if I had a daughter I wanted to name her Bethany. Your dad would tease me incessantly about simply naming our baby "First"... as in First Church of whatever...
"You don't have to name her Bethany, if it's a girl," I sobbed into his chest. We had never decided on a boy's name. I brought the name books to the hospital so we could look through them if we had a boy. We had no ideas other than he said that he didn't want a junior.
Your dad smiled at me and told me not to worry. Everything was going to be fine.
They rolled me away and into the surgery room and moved me off the gurney and onto the table. It was so cold my teeth were chattering. They heaped warm blankets upon warm blankets on me as the tears streamed down my face. Lying there, my doctor came to the head of the table and took a tissue to blot my tears. He stood there for the longest time silently... simply catching my tears. Then he spoke of how it would all be fine. It would all be ok, he intimated. Not to worry.
They called him to the other end of the table as they put me to sleep. I heard him say to a woman next to him, "Keep doing this until she falls asleep and stops crying." Oh how he cared for me!
That OB doctor had done so much for me my whole pregnancy. It had been a difficult one in the beginning. I was so sick that the first six weeks I lost thirty pounds and was in the hospital on IV's for dehydration twice. Each time he comforted me with his strong confident manner. I loved that man for taking care of me. God bless you, Dr. Edlund. You are what a doctor is supposed to be...
Due to their concerns for the anesthesia, at least this is what I'm assuming, they started cutting me before I was totally under. They didn't know I was still awake and could feel it all. I screamed but nothing came out. I couldn't move. I couldn't do anything. They didn't know.
The searing pain to my belly was horrifying. I don't know how long I was able to feel. I passed out shortly after that cut. But I will never forget it.
Waking up in recovery, I asked what did I have. A girl. Healthy. Beautiful. Perfect on their scale scoring. Born at 11:16am. you weighed seven pounds and 11 ounces, 19 inches long.
They brought you to me then. I cannot describe the complete love and joy I felt the first time I held you. My whole life all I wanted was to be a mother. It was all I ever dreamed of... all I ever needed to be whole and complete. Holding you finished the puzzle piece to my soul that makes me who I am. My core was complete.
Today, my baby turns twenty-one.
You are vibrant, intelligent, stable, motivated, healthy, honest, trustworthy, loyal, loving, beautiful on the inside as well as the outside. You are more than I could have ever asked of in a little girl. You are more than I ever dreamed you'd be as a woman.Happy 21st birthday, my beautiful Bethany... I didn't think it was possible to love you more than that first time I felt you inside of me. I was wrong.
You make me proud -- always...
I love you,
Mom
