Happy Birthday to my Almost grown Son ! Birth Story

I wrote the twins birth story on their birthday last week so I think I will continue the tradition and write the birth stories of my children on their birth days to honor them on their special day. I am terrible at scrap booking but after reading Foster hood in NYC I think I need to get on it and make some type of life book for all of my children. My hope is that I can put these stories as the first page of their life books.

The age that we live in is so different than it was seventeen years ago. The world is almost another lifetime ago if we compare , inflation has increased many times over and the decline of the Western world seem inevitable, like the Romans we one day may crumble. Yea yea another thing that has happened in the last seventeen years is that my son Bader which means full moon have grown up together. Today he lives with his father 1000 miles away and there are many nights that I stare at the moon so full and bright and miss him. I know he needed this time with his father so I bury my feelings and my sorrows and wake up and smile the next day. I will I had cool photos to show you of my birth story , but all I have in the memoirs from my heart to type upon this page of what happened that changed my life forever seventeen years ago .

So about eighteen years ago I found out I was pregnant , it was a rough pregnancy and to skip right to the birth . I went in for a check up at 38 weeks and was told that I had preeclampsia and that I needed to be induced right away. My own mother lived in another state and my grandmother that raised me was very ill and on hospice . It was one of the most scary and lonely feelings of my life I just wanted my granny or even my mommy . Someone , I had my best friend , and I will never forget her for the calm before the storm that she helped provide that day. I had recently became very active in the local masjid so one of the my new friends had offered to see me through the birth. I quickly called her and told her that I was on my way to the doctor's office. My friend Stacey was with me and the appointment and she drove me to the hospital. The conversation was strange I mean we had been to Lolla in New Orleans the week before our last hoorah before my eminent doom which by late teenage standards was motherhood. I will spare some details as I realize my son one day may peek at this blog. Our conversation was mostly silent and we listened to 4 Non Blondes on cassette tape in her old mustang.

It was noon on the fourteenth of August I was admitted into the hospital and placed in a holding area with three other women who were laboring. The hospital was small back in those days and I was on medi caid for my pregnancy so that is what was offered. The girl next to me was HIV positive, and in those days that was a death sentence for her and her baby. It made me really nervous when the doctor came in and started yelling at her because she neglected to mention her status. In those days she would have been isolated no question about it. I feel this is of mention to this story because it shows how things have progressed especially HIV and AIDS.

This story is not about teen age pregnancy don't do it , although it may not be a good idea and I do not really advise anyone to get pregnant until you have given it a lot of thought and are completely ready to get over yourself and allow the love of your life to be chubby and bald. I would like to point out that women giving birth later in life instead of in their early reproductive years is a fairly new Western concept and if I had lived 200 years ago it would no big deal really. Birth is a natural part of living and I have always respected life and the right for what is growing inside to be no matter what , this is why as liberal as I am on some issues I am totally against abortion unless it really must be like mom will surely die.

So after waiting a couple of hours on a drip in the holding room my labor was induced. I was not sure what was going on or what to expect . I had not been so interested in reading " What to Expect When You Are Expecting", I did however play Counting Crows , slow cure on my Sony Walkman and Classical music on my Sony Walkman and let the little guy listen in the womb. So Bader if you are not the sharpest tack in my shed do not blame me I exposed you to classical music. I was induced and it was a good two hours before the crazy pain started. The pain was crazy I insisted that I wanted nothing and that I wanted and all natural child birth. Yea I was crazy even back then ! So I waited !

My bff was there and my friend/doula showed up and I was in some kinda pain no idea what a contraction was , told you I did not read the memos at all. So at one point my BFF who had an abortion only months before whispered in my ear that she told me I should have taken care of this at Planned Parenthood. I know that sounds cruel but it was just us and it made my resolve even stronger. I would have this baby without drugs....

Nowadays I see all these reality shows about teenage pregnancy and let me tell you it is not fun at all I wish I could have got my reality gig back when. Instead I had a shot gun wedding and a shower and now I was roughly 4 cm and it was the next day the 15th of August 1994. I dilated very little over the next eight hours and when I was finally begging for a epidural twenty four hours into my labor I was told that the only anesthesiologist in the whole hospital was in surgery and that I would have to wait. I remember saying let the person just die. Yea I was evil and in so much pain more pain than I have ever felt since. Finally 26 hours into my labor the doctor came told me to make my back like a shrimp and put the needle in my back. That was pretty painful in itself , but the almost instant relief that I felt was worth it !

By 2 a.m. on the 16th I was ready to leave the holding area and go into the birthing room. I was 8 cm and in more pain than I can even remember. My friend/doula was wonderful but I think I became to much for her many times over, she never gave up she stayed the course. Unlike modern birthing suites I was in a room with a couple of other young girls and had to listen to the sights and sounds of their struggle before they were taken away to delivery. So this was in no way the blissful birth tales that I get to read about ever so often. This was however happening , I had made a choice and I was excited and ready to meet my son. I was hours away from leaving childhood behind , my body was about to be altered forever , at 19 I just did not think of it that way at all. I look back and I think wow I did not know , I had not a clue what was happening, maybe I would have cherished the silence more , I guess in a way when we give birth it is a transformation something that changes who we are , the other person that we once were dies and with the death comes a mother , someone's mother and life is no longer our own. Our mere existence becomes a beautiful shared life and no matter our age a mother's instinct to guard her young takes over.

I spent a couple of hours pushing , and the pressure was like nothing I had ever felt before. It is so remarkable a women's body and the pains of childbirth that she must feel as her body prepares itself to morph into a mommy. I pushed and pushed , and I do not remember much about being finally taken to surgery . I do remember seeing my son and feeling comfort from his presence as I was wheeled past a few friends in the hall way to the recovery room. I wish I had more memories I just do not I remember pressure and the doctor's face and that is about all I can recall.

I woke up the next day asking for my baby and a phone to call Saudi Arabia , that is where his father was during this ordeal. I was given a telephone and I called a billed the at least 2 buck a minute call to my grandparent's home phone. The voice on the other end was not warm it was his mother screaming at me in Arabic. I was never allowed to speak to him and I left a message with his brother that they baby was born.I could write about baby daddy drama for days but I do not want it to take away from the of the birth of my baby. My blood pressure went up the nurse said no more calls and must have given me some knock you out drugs because it is to this day a blur. I do remember that I was alone and that feelings of lonely still pierces my heart and soul until today, I was so very afraid but I was trying to be so cheeky and hard. I thought I was a real bad ass giving birth and having a baby when everyone around me said adoption or abortion. At this point it was still not sinking in that there was a little person down the hall that would soon be the center of my universe. I named Bader which mean full moon in Arabic but his name should have been Sun in Arabic. The five months of colic let me know that the world truly did revolve around him.

The first time my child was put in my arms to feed he was a few hours old , he suckled my breast and all the pain of the birth and the heart aches of the past nine months vanished. Two days later I sat in a small lounge in the middle of the 4th floor still in the hospital overlooking the helicopter pad. I wondered what he would be like as a teen as he nursed I looked in his huge black eyes and it was pure bliss. I now realize as I sit here writing that the time that seemed so far off so many years ago was so close and that time is now.