I had always wanted children and I was overjoyed to be pregnant with my first child...my precious baby boy.
My pregnancy did not go well.
My pregnancy did not go well.
I was hospitalized three times with pre-term labor and a host of other problems.
There was hardly a day that I wasn't sick from morning till night and just the sight of meat or marinara sauce made me violently ill.
It's funny now...I don't eat meat at all anymore!
It was all worth it though and I would have gone through it a thousand times over just to have my sweet baby boy.
We lived on Whidbey Island in Washington State and although the weather was usually mild (perfect all year round and beautiful), as Mother Nature would have it, we were in the middle of a winter ice storm.
I went into labor Monday night, November 23, 1998 just as the storm was nearing it's peak.
By the time I made it to the hospital on Fidalgo Island Tuesday morning, the power was out all over the islands, roads were closed and the ferries were not running.
The hospital was operating off of generators, so only part of the lights were working.
My water broke right after I got in my room.
There was not an anesthesiologist who could make it to the hospital, so after holding out as long as I could, my obstetrician administered my epidural (it took him six tries)...oh, did I mention it didn't take?
I managed through the rest of the day and then it came time to push.
After pushing for two and a half hours, I ended up with an emergency c-section.
After almost 24 hours, my precious baby was born at 9:23 p.m.
As the doctor was trying to deliver him, Julien was sucking on his fingers, which of course gave the doctors and nurses quite a laugh!
He weighed in at 8 pounds, 12 ounces and had a head full of dark hair!
He was beautiful!
I knew right then, there was no greater joy in life!
We brought Julien home on Thanksgiving Day...there was nothing else in the world that I could have been more thankful for!
I would say that I couldn't get any more swollen, but that is not a true statement. This picture was taken just hours after I was released from the third hospital admission. I was so incredibly sick, but I didn't want to miss my baby shower.
