My (Last) Baby Is A YEAR OLD!

Yesterday, my sweet baby girl became a year old. (There are a few more photos at the Caffeinated Kids website today.)

Hilariously, she woke up four minutes before her time of birth: 1:51AM Friday. Troy and I were watching television and had forgotten momentarily what time it actually was – and then we heard her wake up, heard her start to fuss, and realized that, obviously, she’d woken up for her birthday.

(Yes, we subscribe to the mushiest, most supernatural, most fantastical explanations for a lot of things; but if you knew us, I think you’d agree.)

My baby girl was born on a snowy morning in the coldest month of the year. It was dark outside and dim in the hospital room when it was time for her to arrive.

Once she was born, she would hardly open her eyes; everything seemed so bright, and she would rather just shut her soft little eyelids and wait for a better time. The on-staff pediatricians struggled with checking her eyesight, because she absolutely was not in the mood to look at anything, especially not when there was a bright light shining right in her face.

She nursed well, and she slept well for such a wee thing. She cuddled with me and she cuddled with her daddy.

Two days after she was born, I went under anasthesia for a routine no-more-kids-thanks surgery, expecting to wake up in 20 minutes and go home the next morning.

Instead, I woke up with a sore throat and blurry eyes four hours later, parked behind the nurse’s station with four nurses working on me. It took them an hour to find my veins so they could run simultaneous IVs of magnesium. I was swollen up everywhere and could hardly breathe through my throat or my nose (I have a chronically stuffy nose anyway).

I wanted my husband, but it was so late he had to go to his factory job, even though he didn’t want to. I wanted my baby, and they brought her, crying, once he had to leave. I couldn’t reach her. I couldn’t feed her. I had to lie there helplessly, pinned down by mag lines and a catheter, as they fed her a bottle of formula.

It took me several days to pull through, and aside from almost dying during the surgery when my blood pressure spiked, I started to drift away late that night, the magnesium having become – quite suddenly – far too much for my body to handle. I barely pressed the nurse call button, unable to wake Troy where he had fallen asleep across the room because my voice was so tiny and quiet. By the time the nurses got there, I was willing myself to stay alive.

Everything got quiet in my head, and pillowy soft. As the nurses flipped buttons and tapped my arms and face and told me to ‘hang on,’ I thought about the reasons I ought to stay. I knew in my heart that everyone would be okay without me, but I chose to stay. For them. For myself. For whatever it is I need to do in this world. I chose to breathe, to live, to stay alive.

I’ve never regretted my decision, and tomorrow I will celebrate one year of being alive by my own choice.

Yes, it’s hard here. It sucks and things are ridiculous and hardly anything is ever fair. But I want to be here just the same.

Happy birthday to my darling girl child, and happy alive-day to me.