Happy Birthday Nicky!

Seven years ago today, I had one of the biggest scares of my life. The real­ity that some­thing could go wrong dur­ing a birth. I had 2 pretty nor­mal preg­nan­cies and births with my first 2 kids. My preg­nancy with my 3rd was pretty nor­mal too other than being really REALLY tired. But his birth was by no means “normal.”

Nicky’s Birth Story

I was hav­ing con­trac­tions and the doc­tor wanted me in the hos­pi­tal because I was about an hour away and my past his­tory showed that I am slow to start, but once I start, watch out! He fig­ured bet­ter safe than sorry. We went to the hos­pi­tal late in the evening on the 12th, the nurses got me all hooked up, got a bed set up for Jason, gave me a sleep­ing pill and told me to relax because noth­ing was hap­pen­ing that night. I wasn’t very far at all, but they weren’t send­ing me home. They turned the lights out and closed the door. Jason fell asleep and my sleep­ing pill slowly kicked in and we were both off in lala land, prob­a­bly for the last time in a few weeks.

I don’t know how long I was asleep, it felt like only min­utes. The nurses came RUNNING into my room scream­ing “turn her over, turn her over.” I had no idea what they were talk­ing about and to whom they were talk­ing. Jason jumped off the cot and I have no idea what he did. I was freak­ing out because they were try­ing to get me to turn over, but I was drugged so not really “get­ting it.” It was prob­a­bly a mat­ter of sec­onds, but it seemed like hours. They got me on all fours and were doing all sorts of things to my stomach…pushing, prod­ding, pok­ing. Then they got me a shot of some­thing. Then finally things in the room calmed down and they told me that the baby had stopped breath­ing, but they got a heart­beat after the shot, but it was slower than they’d like.

I vaguely remem­ber them on the phone with my doc­tor while all the turn­ing over yelling was going on. Then I looked up and he was stand­ing there look­ing like he just rolled out of bed (which he had done since it was about 2am). They decided to do an imme­di­ate c-section and not take any chances.

It turns out that he had the cord wrapped around his neck 2 times. I think often about what could have hap­pened that night. If my doc­tor hadn’t insisted on me going to the hos­pi­tal, that would have hap­pened at home, but I wouldn’t have known.

Nicky’s First Birthday

Here he is on his First Birth­day. I was already 6 months preg­nant with my 4th on his first birth­day. The early years were tough. Nicky has always been such a charmer.

Nicky’ 3rd Birthday

Nicky’s lucky num­ber is 3. He was born on 3/13/03 at around 3:10 in the morn­ing. He is the 3rd child. The num­ber 3 always pop up dur­ing his life in var­i­ous ways. Here he is on his 3rd Birthday.

Today

Now I have a healthy and happy 7 year old boy. This was this morn­ing as he was open­ing his presents.

Happy Birth­day Nicky! I hope you always keep that smile and your pas­sion for what­ever you are doing. It also means you pas­sion­ately dis­like the things you don’t want to do which dri­ves me batty.