Author: jenschuyler

     Today is my first daughter’s birthday.  She’s ten years old.  This has to be worse than myself turning 40 (though I haven’t yet).  I specifically remember the events of the day of her birth as if they just happened  yesterday.  I awoke with some pain that worsened quite quickly.  I remember calling my friend who told me “Oh, go on a walk it’s gonna be a while still).  When I hung up though, I couldn’t stand up. I sat hunched over breathing into a crocheted pillow in our livingroom.  I did, however, manage to get up and into the bathroom to put on my makeup.  People have made fun of me over the years on this point, but hey, I knew there would be pictures taken and kept for all time, seemed logical to me (more on this topic of logic later).  2nd man got me into the car and we raced to the hospital, well more like zipped around the corner since the hospital was only like two blocks away. 
    Labor was coming fast and I was freaking out even faster.  I remember them giving me some kind of drug to slow things down just so they could give me the epidural.  My motto here was that I would pop it, smoke it or inject it, but I wanted no pain.  Of course this is all said tongue in cheek, but really, they give you no trophy for all the painful stuff and you get to take the kid home either way, so let’s skip the pain and get to the celebration.  However, I did have to endure some pain for a while until this medication kicked in.  I couldn’t sit up or still enough for them to even give me an epidural.  At which point all logic went out the window.  I was suddenly hit with the reality of  the fact that I was about to have a baby.  I’m not quite sure how to compare it to the previous months of just enjoying being pregnant.  It seemed like my mind suddenly went “No way! unt uh!”  I looked at my husband and told him “I want to go home.  I don’t want to do this.”  Somehow this seemed like a legitimate option at the time.  The next thing that happened is a source of debate still to this day.  2nd man vehemently defends his position and I equally oppose it.  It’s really the only thing we’ve totally disagreed on in our 13 year marriage.  Well, he looked me straight in the eye during my loss of reality and said, “millions of women have done this, you can too.”  zpppppppppp. music stops. time stands still. I thought to myself “WHAT!?  How is that helping me? I don’t care what they’ve done. aughhhhhhh!”  Now, in his defense, I will say that he sincerely thought it was a helpful statement of encouragement, and he was right there fore me for the rest of the duration until the arrival of our precious firstborn. 
     She was so perfect and beautiful!  I couldn’t take my eyes off of her until I finally had to move them to look at the nurse who had just informed me that I had to  feed this child every two hours!  What?  I read all the books, and I knew I’d be up in the night, but every 2 hours?  Somehow I felt the first pang of parent guilt at my ill response to this thought.  It seemed like she, my perfect and new daughter was suddenly against me.
     I was so thrilled when my mother walked through the door of the hospital.  She was scheduled to fly in a few days later, but had felt a need to come earlier.  I was supposed to go pick her up at the airport.  Instead, we had to call one of 2nd man’s cousins who didn’t even know my mother to go pick her up and bring her to our town.  We live about an hour and a half away from the nearest airport.  She said, in order to help him identify her, that she would be holding a giant stuffed moose.  Sure enough, she held to that promise and  came bearing the giant antlered stuffed toy.  She stayed with me that first night as I was suddenly flung back into my childhood need of having my mommy with me. 
     My life has never been the same, nor would I want it to be.  She and our following children have filled our lives with blessing, grief, worry, laughter and guilt.  Psalm 127: 3  Lo, children are an heritage of the Lord; and the fruit of the womb is his reward.