I never really wanted to have kids. They were kind of messy and I was a teacher, so I got my fill of kids at school (so I thought). My husband and I even married with the expectation that there might not be any little mini-me's running around. That was to the distress of my mother-in-law who gave me a "you don't know what love is until you have kids" talk before we got married. She is a great-mother-in-law, so she never pushed, but she tried hard to convince me of all the joys I was going to miss out on.
I guess that all changed in my later twenties. Seeing everybody have babies and being married for six years, I started to want someone around other than my hubby (and I mean that in the nicest way). Being very practical, my husband and I talked about all the things we wanted to do before the kids came. So he joined the army and I went to law school. In hindsight, it seems more like we were gluttons for punishment than fulfilling our dreams, but that's another story.
My plans were solid. Finish law school, have kids, then go on to have a fulfilling career while raising wonderful/perfect children. Well, it didn't happen quite that way. I was so stressed from both working and going to school full-time that getting pregnant was not the easiest thing to do. I even went to a fertility specialist. She told me to try for one more year and then sent me away. "You should have lied so she would give you the drugs!" my spouse half joked. That's O.K. because after I passed the bar, I got pregnant. Two even! Wow, talk about hitting the lotto!
After trying for so long, of course I was going to make this the Perfect Pregnancy. I ate and ate and ate (and gained 80+ lbs). My sisters took me to eat at weird hours of the night (thank you, K and C). But I was in great shape for someone with two. No lack of iron deficiency, no pre-eclampsia, nothing really. The doctor put me on bed rest not because I needed it, but just so I can relax before the chaos of kids. I waddled a lot and went to the pool a lot so the weight would be bearable. I also used about a gallon of cocoa butter lotion to try and prevent stretch marks (didn't work).
At 38 weeks, nothing seemed to be happening. I was just gaining more mass and starting to resemble Jabba the Hut lying in bed. So the doctor told me I should be induced. They were pretty much full-term. Leaving them in might cause more problems, he warned. So I agreed and went to Cedars-Sinai at midnight on March 26, 2004.
All I can say was that it was a l-o-n-g night. I was drugged with whatever it is they use to get babies to come out. But the drugs also caused me to have high blood pressure, so I had drugs to try and lower it. I personally think it was that combination that made NOTHING happen. I tried to push, but as the morning was turning to the afternoon, all I wanted to do was take a nap (which I couldn't because I was giving birth). So the doctor said let's do a C-section. You mean, I can just lie there and everything will be done? O.K.!
And so they were born. S at 6 lbs 15 oz and N at 17 lbs 1 oz. Wonderfully big babies that didn't seem affected by any of the drugs (they usually come out in a stupor, was what the nurse said). They let me hold N while my husband held S. N was crying, but stopped when he saw me. He recognized me! All the mommy-child bonding stuff they say is really true! And at that moment, I was the happiest mommy in the world.
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