Birthday

Today is J1's birthday.  I did well all weekend, through the two parties (one kid one grown-up).  I did well making the 36 cupcakes into Pokemon Pokeballs to take to his class.  I did well saying happy birthday to him this morning.  Then while driving J2 to school I got to thinking about Jeff and the tears just flowed.

J1 brought so much joy into our lives.  It really was the happiest day for Jeff... up until J2 came along :-)  But really, there is nothing like your first child.

I went into labor at 8:30 on a Sunday morning.  I woke up and was walking downstairs to ask Jeff if we were going to try to make it to church.  It was late for the first service but we had tons of time to make it to the second service.  I was three stairs from the bottom when my water broke.  I said "Jeeefffffff?" in a trembling voice.  Then, "Jeeeeeffff, I think my water broke!"

Jeff came running, already in full panic.  Ok. Stay there, he ran and got towels.  I wandered over to sit at the kitchen table in shock.  Shock, see because this was early.  Only three weeks.  But we weren't ready.  I'd just had my baby shower the day before.  Boxes were piled up in the dining room.  There were tons of things to buy (like a car seat).  We weren't even packed. 

First we called the Doctor.  Waiting for the call back, Jeff called my mom to tell her not to go to church.  Got the call back from the doctor and since I'd just had my strep test on Friday and they didn't have the results back yet, I had to go to the hospital and labor there while on antibiotics. 

We called both sets of grandparents and told them we were on our way to the hospital.  But first, I took a shower.  Then we had to pack (thinking we had a long day of labor ahead of us).  Jeff then drove like a race car driver to the hospital.  We got to the hospital to discover that my parents had beaten us by about 20 minutes.  Talk about excited for the first grandbaby.

Jeff and I checked in, then went to labor triage.  Once there, my Doctor came in and said "Well, this is going to be a long day!"  Then she wanted to take a quick peek.  I'll spare you the details.  But she immediately said "maybe not".  She'd felt a butt and not a head.  So she grabbed an ultrasound machine and verified that J1 had never turned himself around.  So, bang!  C-section. 

At that point, Jeff ran downstairs.  Our hospital bag was with my parents.  He ran down to tell them we were having a C-section immediately.  He got back upstairs to discover he'd forgotten the camera.  He ran back downstairs to get the camera.  He ran back upstairs to discover he'd forgotten the box for the cord-blood we were going to bank.  He ran back downstairs.  He was panting, excited, and freaked out all at once by the time they wheeled me into the operating room.

Jeff then cooled his heels while they prepped me in the operating room and did the spinal block.  Once my spinal block was in and they laid me down the nurse went to check on the baby and suddenly all panic hit.  J1 had crashed.  Jeff barely got into the room before the doctor had me opened up and J1 was out.  Literally 2 minutes had passed from when the nurse couldn't find J1's heartbeat to when he was out and screaming. J1 was born 3 1/2 hours after my water broke.  Talk about a whirlwind!

The doctor had Jeff announce the sex (J1 didn't show us his parts at his ultrasound so we had no clue if we were having a boy or a girl).  Jeff looked over the drape said "He has a thingy!  It's a boy!" and suddenly we were parents. 

Jeff didn't know where to go, he wanted to be with me while the Doctor sewed me up.  But he wanted to be with his baby.  The baby won, I told him I wanted pictures.  So Jeff took about 300 pictures of everything as they weighted and measured J1.  We did a lot of talking.

I can still see his face: the shock that my water had broken, the calm of driving to the hospital, the panic of running up and down the stairs 3 times, the worry when the baby crashed, the elation when he was out and screaming and perfectly healthy.  That elation didn't go away, not even as we became more and more sleep deprived.

Jeff was destined to be a father.  It breaks my heart that J1 has now had a second birthday without Jeff.  I wonder how I have gone from breaking water to shedding tears in seven years.

Sincerely,

Jeff's Wife