You Survived!

My sweet baby boy,

You made it! You turned five this week, and I am pleased to say that you are still alive. It was touch and go there for the first few years. Your father and I truly had no idea what we were doing, and got the bulk of our information from Parenting Magazine.

When I look back over your years, I have very mixed emotions.  I had just turned 18 when you were born, and I didn't know what I was doing. I wish so badly that I had known the things I know now. I feel so horrible about the unnecessary pain and fear you endured because of my lack of knowledge. I let the doctors induce me with Pitocin when you were 8 days "overdue", because after an ultrasound they said that the amniotic fluid was low. The next day my water broke, and then the contractions got painful. After 5 hours of crying through contractions I decided to get an epidural. Then I spent the remainder of the afternoon playing rummy with your dad and my mom. When it came time to push late that night, the doctor kept pressuring me because your heart rate was dropping (I remember it dropping, my mom remembers it raising - I don't know which version is correct). It was a very stressful time, and I pushed for over an hour laying on my back with 3 people on either side of me holding my legs back as far as they could go. The doctor gave me an episiotomy without saying a word, and eventually I pushed you out. Knowing what I know now about childbirth, I am amazed that you came out at all with all of the interventions that were in place. Under those circumstances, I should have had a c-section, but I lucked out. When they gave you to me, all clean and wrapped in a blanket, I felt nothing. I didn't know what to feel. I was so tired and everything had been so surreal that I felt outside of myself.