Single Parent (Pt. 2)

My first appointment with my OBGYN, I heard her heart beat, so exciting, I'm excited.

I lived with my brother and his then girlfriend and my niece, who was just recently born, throughout my pregnancy and for about a year after Jessica was born. I did have a girl, but more about that later.

I was worried a lot during my pregnancy because I never felt her move in my belly. Whenever I would bring it up to the doctor, he always reassured me that the baby was healthy. So, time came to get an ultrasound and I got to see the baby's skeleton. It was so awesome. She looked like she was laying down relaxing, left arm resting behind her head, her legs crossed and her right foot just swaying back and forth. But I still worried about her because I couldn't feel her move.

Most mother's-to-be get to see a hand or foot print from being kicked, but Jessica never did that. So, I worried throughout the pregnancy. But I still did my best taking care of her.

At home, I felt like I was losing my best friend. My brother worked nights at a restaurant, and my best friend, Bella, would come over to hand out with me, the two newborns and Luna, my brother's girlfriend. And when my niece was sleeping, Bella and Luna would too, and hang out at Bella's house, cause "you're going to be here anyways, right, Nikki?" They did that a lot, through my pregnancy and after Jessica was born. That was 20 years ago and I still haven't gotten over the pain of being left behind by them. Bella was my best friend and I feel like she left me behind because I wasn't "fun" anymore. At least that's how I felt. It still hurts thinking about it. I never understood why they just couldn't stay at our place and hang out with me. I never did ask them.

So, I'm now a week overdue, and I'm waiting in a hospital room for the doctor to examine me and see why I am late. It's about 10 AM. After he examines me, he says that I'm already starting to dilate and he'll have to break my water. It sounded like someone took a bucket of water and threw it on the floor. I get admitted into the Labour and Delivery department of the hospital. One of the first things I tell the nurse is that I want the epidural as soon as I can have it. Labour pains throughout the day weren't very bad, at least not until about 4PM in the afternoon. Then, they started to hurt, a lot. I got the epidural soon after, and it put me to sleep. I remember at waking up a some point a nurse was turning me over to 'make sure my circulation wasn't going to go bad'.

When it was time to push, just a little before midnight, I was still asleep and the nurse was waking me up. I didn't feel the contractions, but they had me hooked to a monitor and apparently, they should have been painful. I wasn't staying awake. The doctor then asked me if I 'wanted to do this awake or asleep?' I remember thinking "cool, I can do this asleep.' So, I said asleep. I did not; however, hear him tell the nurse to turn off the epidural. I woke up enough to start pushing and Jessica was born at 12:15 AM, October 31st. Yes, she is a Halloween baby. The full effects of the epidural wore off as the doctor was stitching me up. I felt THAT pain. I yelled at the doctor and he said he was almost finished. Fifteen minutes later and I yelled at him again. How long did he mean when he said almost finished? I found out later that day that the time lapse between his almost done and my '15 minutes later' yell was actually about five seconds. Oops, sorry doctor.

To be continued...

I'm going to leave this here. I'd love to hear your stories too.