Febuary 23, 2004

Nine years ago, my belly was large with my first daughter's growing baby body. I could feel her feet in my ribs and her hiccups would bounce my protruding uterus. I  loved my newly curvacious pregnant body, I felt like a walking miracle, I was making a new human being  inside of my expanding self! I was one of those freaks of nature who truly loved being pregnant... I was blessed not to have to go through many of the complications that I've watched my friends and family go through.



On Feb 22, 2004, Jon and I played a game of Skipbo in our Caldwell Idaho home. I had been having contractions, but I couldn't tell if they were more Braxton Hicks or if these were the kind of contractions that pushed babies out of their Mothers. So we went to bed. I couldn't sleep. So I walked around...we'd left our card game spread out all over the kitchen table..oh well. I ran a bath. I remember laying in the tub watching my belly go from somewhat squishy, to standing tall and rock solid...it didn't hurt though...so this couldn't be real labor. I walked around some more...most of the night had passed, I tried timing my contractions but they were never exactly a certain amount of minutes apart... so I tried sleeping off and on but I couldn't. At about 4 am I woke Jon and informed him on how my night was going and that I thought I should probably go to the hospital. We gathered our bags that we had prepared and headed to Boise. I was at 4 cm when I arrived, and relieved to know for sure that this was real labor and our daughter would be born that day. I labored  until Noon, it was getting uncomfortable so I got an epidural at around 7 cm, blessed relief. My heart was skipping beats and causing some concern so the nurses attached me to an EKG. Then my daughters heartbeat began to beat irregular so ( and I have no real recollection of this, pictures and  my husband are all I have to go on)   a nurse reached up there and screwed a monitor of sorts into Morgan's unborn scalp. I have a picture of  Morgan with a screw thing sticking out of her head... I asked Jon what it was...so this is how I know. Why couldn't they just strap a heart monitor on my stomach?  Eventually the urge to push the full grown creature from body became very strong... it was a surreal moment. I only had to push for about 15 min before I laid eyes on the most beautiful newborn baby I had ever seen. I don't think I cried..something about living in a surreal moment maybe. She was placed on my stomach and I loved her...I'd loved her in some way before she was actually born...but this was different. My husband held her and I could see that he loved our new baby girl and my love for him was overflowing. I'd made him a father and I knew he would be great. To this day Jon and Morgan have a very special bond.

My first night at home with my precious little girl was one of the worst of my life up to that point. I'd stayed an extra day at the hospital to have a lactation consultant help me with my reluctant nurser...but it didn't help. I was going on day 3 with almost no sleep and Morgan wouldn't nurse, she tried hard enough to leave me a bloody, scabbed up mess but she was hungry and I couldn't feed her. I wish I would have had a bottle on hand, but I thought nursing was so natural...surely it would come naturally. I was prepared  for sleep deprivation, crying, diapers...but I wasn't prepared to have nursing be so painful and in the end impossible. After several weeks of trying and failing and the baby not ever seeming to get enough, Morgan cried out of hunger and I cried out of pain and frustration...my husband couldn't stand to watch the suffering any longer and went to Babies R Us to get a pump. It was a heaven send. Morgan would drink a whole bottle and sleep for hours. My scabs healed, we had survived our first trial of parenthood. A few months later I felt like I was nearly getting the hang of things, when life handed me a new trial...I was pregnant again..but that is a story for another time.

P.S. I plan on adding pictures of Morgans birth-day eventually, but I wanted to get the story written and saved today...hopefully that 'eventually' doesn't turn into a 'never'...it's happened before.