monkeybox

12!

My boy is 12 years old today. I cannot believe it. The actual day he was born is still sort of a blur to me. He was scheduled to be born on August 31st, but after days and days of being induced and being sent home for the holiday weekend, he finally made his appearance on September 6th. One full week of going to the hospital at 7:00 am and then being sent home at 8:00 pm. No food or water for those 13 hours a day. Every night when they sent me home, I would stop the elevator on the second floor and hit the vending machine for a bag of mustard pretzels. I would dream of those damn pretzels all day. Seriously. A pregnant woman should not be deprived of her cravings for 13 hours a day. Forget cravings - a pregnant woman and baby should not be deprived of food and water for 13 hours a day.

Late in my pregnancy, my blood pressure was scarily high. But, they didn't tell us that. They kept me in the dark and kept people away, but never told me or my family that I was sick. Really, really sick, apparently. I believe at one point after he was born and my blood pressure went down, a nurse commented to my Mother that "she could have died." Uh, what? Hello? No one ever said that! They gave me massive doses of Patossin to lower my blood pressure and make me all mellow. Well, what you do to the Mama, you do to the baby. He came out all groggy and didn't want to cry or even breathe. The nurses carted him across the room and worked on him a bit. After a few minutes he cried. Thank God. They handed him to me and wheeled us out. My Mom said, "Why have you been gone so long?" I thought I had only been in there a few minutes, but I guess it was actually hours.

The nurse took him away from me, made everyone leave and left me lying there in the dark. I wasn't really ready to be left alone and not have my baby with me. (I think that is part of the problem I have always had with leaving him. No daycare, no babysitters, etc. No one can keep my boy. He's mine.) So, I had just had a baby and I was really drained and very tired and I really needed some rest. Really, really, really. But, did you ever get a song in your head and it just plays over and over and over until you think you will go crazy? And even if you wake up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom you realize you have that damn song in your head? Well, that was what happened to me. I had that stupid John Michael Montgomery "Sold (The Grundy County Auction Song)" on my mind, "She's an eight, she's a nine, she's a ten I know....." Oh my God, I didn't even like that damn song but it just played over and over and over in my head all night until I had a pounding migraine. I was not a happy person in the morning.

They took me to a private room since I was still in recovery all night. They brought me breakfast - a platter full of bacon and sausage and other breakfast-y items that I had to have removed from the room - I don't eat meat and the stench of bacon was not helping my "she's an eight, she's a nine, she's a ten, I know" migraine. So, I called to have my boy brought to me and they announced I couldn't have him. "'Scuse me? He's MINE? Why not?" Seems they thought he had stopped breathing in the night and was holding his breath and had to be watched around the clock. To make a long story short (kinda late for that, eh?) they ended up putting him on an Apnea monitor for the first YEAR of his life. And, after that first year, when they took the monitor away, it had not gone off one time and he had not had one single problem breathing. Apparently, that freaking Patossin drip that they had given me had made him slow and sluggish for the first few days of his little life, but nothing had lasted. Thank god again.

He had a birdbrain of a doctor - actually she was doing her doctorate and decided to use him as her case study. She seemed to think his head was "big and mis-shapen" Well, yes it was at the moment, since they had just attached a plunger to his head and drug him out. But, in his baby pictures, his head is perfectly fine. She got the readings from his machine one day and called me to say that he needed to be put on heart medication immediately because the machine said his heart had stopped beating several times in the past. I freaked out, called the home call nurse that helped with the machine readings and had her make an emergency visit. She came and printed out a reading and the stupid (insert fourteen foul words here to describe her) doctor had read the TEST readings that they do on the machine to make sure it works. The dates with the stopped heart rate were BEFORE he was even BORN. (I still don't know why I didn't sue her). She put him through MRI's and cat scans and battieries of tests. Not one test or anything ever came back with anything on it. He was PERFECT. I was a new Mother and didn't have my ('scuse me) BALLS yet to say, "LEAVE HIM ALONE". But, now I have big ones when it comes to DS. Thanks to a family friend with connections to the Medical Clinic, we got a new doctor after a few months.

I didn't really mean to turn this post into a medical history of the poor kid. It's just that he got a bum deal when he was born and I did too. But, we prevailed. He is a great kid. I know I say that here a lot. But, he is really a great kid.

So, tah-dah, drumroll please, In commeration of his birthday, I am going to change his name. You don't think that is a good idea? I mean change his name on this blog. I call him DS which is soooooo ordinary and not clever at all. I don't know whay I don't use his real name expcept I think there might be perverts and creeps out there. Actually, I know there are perverts and creeps - I just don't think any of them read this blog.) And he has a long name and I don't want to type it over and over. Although that isn't fair since the poor baby had to learn to write it in Kindergarten. Took him 4-ever to write his name. The cut each letter out of paper and connected them from the ceiling over their desks. His 11 letter name hung to the floor and everyone always tripped over it. I remember once he was envious of a classmate said, "I wish I was J.T."

So, here is his new name.

THE BEAN.

We have called him "The Bean" most of his life. Actually that is what we called him when he was still invitro. We read "Your Pregnancy Week by Week" and at some point - maybe seven weeks or so, it referred to the baby being the size of a bean. A few days later DH returned from work (he was a stocker at a grocery store) and brought me one lone pinto bean that he had found on the backroom floor. I will say, that to this day, that is the sweetest, most thoughtful gift he ever brought me. A bean. For the Bean. Awww.

Happy Birthday Bean! I love you! Love, Mom

(I guess I have to think of a name for DH now. One without expletives, I suppose?????)