Admissions of a Birthday Girl

Tomorrow marks another year closer to three decades of my existence on Planet Earth. Admittedly, there is, and always has been a strong contradiction between the number of birthdays I’ve celebrated, the age of my face, and the age of my soul. If everyone in the world forgot the year I was born, I would be very confused about my age.

A few months ago, I gazed in the mirror one day to see my first noticeable signs of aging. Before that, I had a face as smooth and white as a baby’s bottom. A baby face, that took at least five to ten years off of my chronological age. When I was pregnant, people gazed at me in shock and horror, as if I were a teen mother. I went to complete paperwork at the bank for my name change, and the teller was taken aback. “I swear, I wouldn’t have thought you were old enough to get married.” I got that, a lot.

Tick - tock.

Quite the oddity, I was actually excited to see the fine lines across my scarred forehead and around my mouth. I may be the only woman on the planet that was excited to see my face start to catch up with my chronological age! I despised my youthful appearance. I have never felt as if my chronological age fit, nor did I take it as a compliment when someone thought I was a teenager.

I will make an admission; I am one of those people that typically loathes their own birthday.  Yes, I find it absolutely pretentious.  Except, I do not detest my birthday for the same reasons that everyone else does.  As previously stated, I like the aging process.  I have always been excited about gaining more numbers.  My birthday just falls in a bad time of the year.

Growing up, I secretly envied peers that had birthdays during warmer months.  Pennsylvania has reasonable temperatures between March and November.  My friends would have all kinds of fun parties, because they weren’t all trapped in the house, buried in four feet of snow, and huddled around the heater in subzero temperatures.  Camping parties, pool parties, outdoor parties, indoor parties where we could run around the yard, parties in the park, and every other conceivable party I couldn’t have.

As an adult, the problem grew worse.  In the last ten years, I have had two nice days on my birthday.  My 22nd and my 24th.  Neither of those birthdays had anything planned.  I can’t plan a party.  Every year I have tried, I was doomed for especially bad weather.  My 23rd had to be moved to the weekend of Superbowl Sunday, when the Steelers were playing.  Living in Pittsburgh, the Steelers in the Superbowl is more important than anything.  When they win the Superbowl, the city gets shut down for two days, because everyone is too busy celebrating to go to work.  If they’re not going to work, they sure as hell aren’t going to my birthday party.

People don’t want to come out in January if they don’t have to.  I have been cursed with ice storms, heavy snow, and subzero temperatures.  So, I stopped planning parties.  I stopped planning anything, actually.  Because each year, I have been brutally disappointed.  Those disappointments mounted into resentment for that day.

Not this year!  I don’t especially care what the weather is like.  It does not matter if my friends or family notice the date on the calendar or not.  I like my birthday.  I am celebrating me, and everything my life has amounted to.  I am happy with myself, and all that I’ve created and become.  There is no need for anyone to justify my thoughts or emotions about me.

I love that it’s on a Saturday, because there are no expectations.  I don’t have to do anything I don’t want to do.  And, I have all of the time in the day to do anything I do want to do.  I will go out and have a lovely dinner on the house.  (I already have the voucher).  Then, I will buy myself the things that I actually want for my birthday.  No expectations, no disappointments.

This past year has been one of the harder ones, but not the hardest.  I have made so much progress in all aspects of my life.  I am managing my physical and mental health well.  My marriage is solid.  My career is taking root.  And my son is growing.  My family is happy and healthy.  I am happy and healthy.  Those are all of the things I’ve ever wanted. This birthday, I have them all.

The best birthday present ever is the pride that I have in myself.  I have walked through fire to get to this point.  I may not have done it all gracefully.  But, I made it out stronger, wiser, and better for it all.

Radio Silence Breaks

It’s been five days since my last post.  I realized the huge gap in posting and attempted to write something on the bus on the way to work quickly.  That ended in my phone crashing the app and me seething over lost work.  So, here’s an update on the RL that’s been eating my Lulu life.

Saturday, October 15, 2011
That was the day we held T.D.’s third birthday party.  The morning started out with a breakfast buffet at Eat N Park.  T.D. is an incredible eater.  What made the buffet worth it was the fact that I knew he would eat an adult portion, though C.S. and I may not have.

C.S. and I put T.D. down for a nap when we came home.  Then, we feverishly cleaned the house before our guests arrived.  It’s not as if we keep a dirty home.  In the past week, I’ve been sick, so the domestics got a little behind.  Really, we could have gotten it done in about an hour, but we opted for the deep clean.  I won’t bore you with the details.

T.D. had a lovely party.  His Grammy (my MIL), Poppop (my Dad), and his Grandma (my mother who he actually calls “Gram”), all stopped by to open presents and have birthday cake.  The rest of our guests weren’t able to come until later due to other obligations.  But that was fine.  T.D. considers our friends to be his friends, too.  He has his favorites, and they all managed to make it.  He really loved it.  And I’m so happy that he had such a wonderful party.

Saturday, October 16, 2011
This is my little dedication to the birth of T.D..

We all must have partied a little hardy and woke up later than usual.  We were sitting at the breakfast table when I noticed the time.  I said, “At this time, exactly three years ago, Mommy was hooked up to all over her IV’s.”

I had an induction with T.D. at 38 weeks.  My pregnancy was riddled with problems.  Most of them were normal pregnancy symptoms – acid reflux to the point of vomiting, migraines, etc.  When the doctor asked that Monday morning if I was ready to have the baby on Thursday, I was overjoyed!  There’s nothing I wanted more than to not be pregnant anymore.  My stomach was so big that I couldn’t even lean forward anymore, much less bend down.

I also had more threatening pregnancy problems.  I had placental problems and cervical dysplasia at the time.  Additionally, I’m a small woman.  There was an issue with narrow hips, and the question as to whether I was going to be able to deliver naturally.  On his last ultrasound, T.D. was about 6 and a half pounds and his lungs were fully developed.  It looked like we were ready to go!

A little later in the early afternoon, while relaxing with some television, I noted the time again.  I said, “At this time, Mommy got her epidural that didn’t turn out so well.”

The doctors and nurses urged me to schedule my epidural ahead of time so that I wouldn’t miss my window of opportunity.  Personally, I didn’t want to get it until it was absolutely necessary.  However, since I had to schedule, I had little choice.

They cleared everyone out of the room, and I panicked.  I begged for my husband to be allowed to stay, but it was hospital policy that no one remain.  Apparently, some had fainted at one look at the needle.  I was scared.  I tried to remember what other women had told me; “By the time I got the epidural, I was in so much pain I didn’t even feel the needle!”  But I felt it.  I screamed when that needle was shoved into my spine.  The nurse and doctor were jerks about it.  “It couldn’t have hurt that bad.”

We hung around in a silent room for awhile.  Finally, I asked, “Why are we waiting around?”  It was hospital policy that the doctor and the nurse administering the epidural wait for fifteen minutes in case something happened.  Nothing did happen, and everyone was allowed to come back in.

It wasn’t even ten minutes before something did go wrong.  I kept telling C.S. that I felt like I was going to vomit.  I was spinning and everything blurred.  A hazy black formed around the edges of my vision and enclosed in while voices seemed to drift away.  In my mind, I thought, “This is what dying feels like.”  I was brought back to with a shot of adrenaline.  The epidural caused my blood pressure to tank out and I lost consciousness for just a moment.

Later on, more toward the evening, I noticed the time again.  I mentioned, “This was the time that Mommy’s epidural wore off.”

My doctor and nurse expected me to have delivered around dinner time, and we had gone past that now.  I was in absolute screaming agony and begged that my nurse get someone to give me more medicine.  She told me to wait.  Wait?!  Wait for what?!  Finally, my screams attracted enough attention to get a boost of epidural.  It was a relief, but not enough to bring the pain down to a manageable level.

And this is where my memory gets a little fuzzy.

There was a clock across the room and a TV underneath of it.  I was keeping time based on both the TV programming and the clock.  I could have sworn that the doctor came in and told me around 10 that we were going to do some practice pushes.  I know that’s the time that they cut me off from the epidural.  But C.S. seems to think differently.  To say the least, T.D. was born into this world after between 45 minutes and an hour and a half of pushing labor.  They told me, “He’s out!  He’s out!”

“I know.”

They rushed T.D. off to the little cart. I didn’t hear him crying at first. I asked, “Is he OK?” They assured me he was fine. But, I didn’t hear him. It was the longest minute of my life, but I finally heard his voice.

Today, T.D. is alive and well. And my hips remained two inches wider.