I was freshly turned 20 year old...unmarried...college student...who was pregnant with twin boys by her high school boyfriend...except one of the twin boys had passed away a couple weeks before...and I was in pre-term labor...so I had spent the last couple of weeks in the hospital...everyday when I would wake up I didn't know if something would go wrong that day and I'd have to have my little boy...since we (including the doctor's) weren't quite sure if it was better for him to be in or out.
So, this Monday rolls around and they schedule me for a complete ultrasound, instead of the biophysical profiles I'd been having everyday...they get the results around 3pm and come to me...it turns out the ultrasound showed that Baby A hadn't grown much at all in the last two weeks since the twin demise...that's a sign that he probably isn't doing well, but what did I think? After all they still weren't certain if little Baby A should be in or out.
My mom and I decided it felt like it was time...everyone gathered at the hospital...I got prepped for surgery...granted the c-section was happening a few hours later than they originally wanted to schedule because I had had a late lunch of Taco Bell...after all, I didn't know then I was having a baby today.
I walked myself into the operating room and hopped up on the table...they started the epidural...they were nice enough to let my mom stay in there with me for it since I'm petrified of everything...there are people everywhere in the room since they had no idea how well this little Baby A would be making his way into the world...
But there he was...2 pounds 3.5 ounces...and wouldn't you know his apgars were 9 and 9...they still whisked him away to the NICU across the street, but he did great...never on a respirator and downgraded to the Level 2 nursery and back in the hospital within 24 hours.
I hate to admit this next part, but for the first few weeks I didn't really get the whole motherhood thing. Here was this little baby that I got to open the window of the incubator and touch...and that was about it. What was I supposed to do? I'd watch my mom come in and animatedly tell him stories of the Radio Flyer wagon she would buy him one day and all the fun they'd have together. Then there would be me...his mom...who didn't feel much of anything.
I felt HORRIBLE...you know you're supposed to have a baby and birds sing and music swells and you're overcome with love...it hadn't happened...for weeks.
Until one afternoon I walked into the nursery by myself to see him. The nurse came over and took him out of the incubator and handed him to me.
HIM
Not a baby wrapped in three blankets with ten cords...he only had about four cords and the blankets were piled on top of us together. I finally felt my little baby boy and had my first moment of feeling like, "Maybe I am a mom".
I've been lucky enough to have that feeling a thousand more times with him. He has been so patient with my shortcomings and so loving when I don't deserve it. Secretly in my eyes he's magic...since he was that little two-pound baby he's had a way of captivating people...and I've gotten to watch it for the last ten years and I get to call him mine.