K's BIRTH day

Now that K is 7, I feel really old. It seems like just yesterday I was pregnant and anxious to greet my baby! I feel a little like reminiscing, so here goes.

I discovered I was pregnant in January. Then we had a bit of a scare, and we thought I might have lost the baby. I was devastated. I rested for a couple of weeks, and then had an ultrasound at the 7th week to find out if I still had a baby in there. Happily, I did! And she looked like a tadpole. LOL

The next few months were mostly uneventful. I didn't have much morning sickness and I felt pretty good overall. I gave up caffeine, and THAT was hard! I drank Ovaltine instead of coffee in the mornings :-) I also had cravings for hamburgers. Normally, I don't eat much red meat, so this was a pretty bizarre craving for me. It turned out that I was really anemic and my body was telling me I needed iron.

During my 6th month of pregnancy, I became HUGE. I mean, so huge that as I was walking to work one day a car pulled over to ask if I was having twins. When I said no, they asked if I was due really soon. Again, I said no, and they drove away. *sigh* It was summer, and I was HOT all the time.

I was teaching a short session at the University. My students were all excited for me because it was the year of the Dragon, and that was really lucky. I was supposed to teach an additional 3 week class in August, but my OB advised against it, since the baby was big and she thought likely to arrive early. I still remember telling my boss that I couldn't keep teaching. She said "I agree - you look ready to pop any second!" lol

I was really uncomfortable in August. At 36 weeks, my OB said K was big and developed enough to arrive anytime. So I started eating spicy food (Kimchi and BiBimBap) and walking on the sidewalk with one leg off the curb to try to coax K out. LOL

I had a dilemma, though. It was the first season of Survivor and I didn't want to miss the finale! So I ate spicy food on the weekend, then took it easy until Wednesday so I could see who would win on Wednesday night, August 23! At 6 am on August 24, my water broke, nearly 3 weeks early. What a considerate child! She didn't make me suffer through the whole 9th month, but she waited for the Survivor finale!

We went to the hospital, and waited. Although my water had broken, I wasn't actually in labor yet. They had to induce me. I didn't care - I just wanted this child out! Then I felt the pain. OY! I had no idea. I had fully planned on getting an epidural, and didn't really pay attention to the breathing stuff during our birth class. Then then nurse told me that the anesthesiologist was in surgery and couldn't come. I thought I might kill her! Pretty soon it became apparent that I would have to do this birth au naturale. Yikes! Good thing DH paid attention in class. Thankfully, it was fairly quick, at least for a first timer. So quick, in fact, that my OB nearly missed the birth, and the nurses had no time to put the bed together properly. When K is ready for something, she is READY! ;-)

K was beautiful and sweet from that first moment. She was calm and quiet, and darling. It was instant love. K had to stay under the little heat lamp for a bit, and I remember looking over at her, and she calmly stared back.

Oh, but we were so unprepared to parent! Once we were in our room for the night, the baby was ours to care for. At one point the nurse came in and asked me how many wet diapers K had had. Horrified, I realized that we hadn't checked! She'd been in the same diaper for some time! We tried swaddling K the way the nurses did, but somehow she always escaped, like a little Houdini. And I was deathly afraid of dropping her.

Somehow, we have survived 7 years together :-)

Below is a little slideshow of K's first 18 months. She was, and is, a little cutie pie!