Giving Birth

I was a sophomore in college at University of North Texas, partying like a rock star, maintaining a not-so-respectable 2.0 GPA, barely keeping myself off of academic probation when it happened. The stork came, tapped me on the shoulder, and told me I was pregnant. Well, I couldn't be pregnant. Didn't God know that I had plans, that I had to finish college, get a job, and get married first? In that order?! I've always heard that if you want to hear God laugh, make plans. I think I actually heard thunder that day from Him rolling around, clutching his side and cracking up.

For the next nine months, I did everything my obstetrician told me to do. I laid off the sweets, walked at least a mile every day, swam in a bikini that was not designed for maternity wear that showed my constantly expanding belly, took my vitamins and scrubbed parts of my body roughly that were never meant for anything other than tender treatment. I also moved back near my family and continued going to classes at Sam Houston State.

My pregnancy was textbook. I was nauseous for the first trimester, but after that it was bearable. I gained twenty-five pounds. I craved spicy food. My blood pressure remained normal, and the baby and I were perfectly healthy.

At about 9:30 the night before my due date, I started feeling the baby move more than normal. I had broken down and eaten a couple of chocolate chip cookies with some grape juice, so I figured it was just on a sugar high. After about thirty minutes of hip-hop dancing, though, I went down to my neighbor's house just in case. My husband and brother were out fishing. While I was at my neighbor's, she timed the "dancing." The dance moves were five minutes apart, and they were starting to make my palms sweat. I went back home, haphazardly packed my bag, paged my husband, called the doctor and my family, and allowed my friend to drive me to the hospital, which I was still unconvinced that needed. I had read all the baby books about Braxton Hicks contractions and first births. I was quite sure that the contractions weren't real. Wouldn't they have hurt worse?

We strolled into the admissions area to find my brother and husband waiting for me. They had been twenty miles away and I had been five, but they beat us there. The nurses placed me in a wheelchair, which I tried to refuse. After all, I wasn't in real labor. This was false. I saw my doctor, who fortunately, was the doctor on call that night. He laughed and said, "What are you doing here?" I told him it was just a precaution, I had no intention of having a baby tonight.

I got settled in a room that resembled the Hilton and the doctor checked my dilation and my contractions. I was hardly dilated at all, but the contractions were quickly getting longer and closer together. He told me to start walking the halls. We walked down to the waiting room, which was full of my husband's family by this time. I had to use the restroom, so we went back to my room. I had lost my mucus plug. The doctor checked my dilation again, and at that point I was at three centimeters. Only ten minutes had passed since the last time he'd checked. Maybe I was going to have a baby, after all. It was about 11:00 when they broke my water.

The next few hours were somewhat blurred, but very quick. I was progressing so rapidly that the pre-ordered epidural was almost impossible. I actually had to hold the baby in, waiting for the half hour that was required for it to become effective. At 3:30, it was time to start pushing. I knew that the faster and harder I pushed, the quicker the pain would be over. The nurses rolled a huge mirror in front of me so that I could watch the baby being born, but I vehemently told them to take it away. "I can see just fine from up here," I said. Pain has always been visual for me, so if I don't have to see the source, sometimes it's easier to bear. I pushed for thirty minutes, yelled once, didn't cuss anyone out, and had a beautiful, healthy, 7 lb, 11 oz baby girl. I cried so much harder when I saw her. The pain was forgotten like a discarded sandwich crust. She was the most beautiful creature I'd ever seen. Where I'd heard God laugh at the beginning of this experience, I felt him beaming on me at that moment. Nothing else mattered. Not my plans, not my age, not my intentions. Only her.

From the time she'd started "dancing" to the time I delivered was a little less than seven hours. I was only in hard labor for five, and this was my first baby. She was born early Monday morning (exactly on her due date), I got out of the hospital on Wednesday, and I was back in class on Thursday. I was so lucky. Textbook.

My daughter, Dominique, was and still is completely healthy. There was no jaundice, no colic, no nothing. I breast fed her for almost a year, and she rarely got sick. She slept through the night for the first time at two-and-a-half months. She is an only child, because I believe that if you hit perfection the first time, why tempt fate? And fourteen years later, she is still the most beautiful creature I've ever seen, and I still feel God beaming on us.