Birthday Soup!

Today is my son's birthday. He is the big ONE! I can hardly believe it. Seems like only last week I was high on, what was it, Fentinil?! Obviously I would not make a great doctor. Those darn contractions were coming at me like an angry freight train at full speed. That pitocin makes labor a thousand times worse than natural labor. Now, don't think I did the whole thing natural. OH NO! I'm all about the epidural! I've done it once without (not intentionally), and I don't recommend it to anyone. But that's another post for another day.

Back to this labor, those contractions stunk! And the anesthesiologist was in a c-section and unable to attend to my need for an epidural at the point that I really really wanted one. The nurses told me she'd only be another 20 minutes. 20 minutes, my eye! After a half hour of waiting for the 20 minutes to be over, they asked if I would like Fentinil just to ease the pain until I could get my epidural. Sure! Why not! ANYTHING to help at this point!

NEVER again! Not only did it not ease any of the pain but it made me high as a kite. No joke! I was loopy. Ask anyone in the room. Between contractions I was saying things that made no sense whatsoever while falling asleep at the same time. Not that I had much time for sleeping considering that the contractions were less than a minute apart. At which point, I would yell, "Oh no! Not another one!" They felt just as painful as before. Now I was just incompetent.

Finally, relief! About an hour after waiting for the original 20 minutes to be over, I got my epidural. What a comfort! The anesthesiologist had to pump it all in really fast just to get it to catch up with the pain. It was pretty much go time!

So, I pushed a few times before the doc realized that poor little guy was being strangled by his own cord. He literally had to reach in and break the cord with his hands to get him out. SPLAT! Blood all over the doc! Sorry 'bout that.

When he was finally freed, they laid him on my chest but he wasn't breathing. He kept wincing like he was trying to breathe but never did. My mom, sister, cousin and of course my husband who were all in the room looked like ghosts. They were all very worried. Two whole minutes later, and still not breathing, they whisked him away to resuscitate him. My husband was able to go and be with him during the whole thing. Since there was nothing he could do physically and of course he was scared to death at this point, he threw his hat to the ground and just prayed...the only thing he could think to do at that point. And boy, am I grateful he did!

*My take on things with this weird drug in my system*
So while I complain about being high and loopy, it's probably a good thing I had that in my system. At the point that the doctor laid our first born son (fourth child) on my chest, I realized that he wasn't breathing but through all the loopiness, it didn't register as a problem. I remember looking up at my husband expecting the proud papa look to be on his face but was instead greeted with a ghostly white expression. My sister had her hand covering her mouth, my mom just kept rubbing my leg telling me everything would be alright, and my cousin was just standing in the corner crying. I saw all of this going on but it still didn't register that there was a problem. I couldn't understand why no one was excited. My newborn son had just arrived...HELLO! It wasn't until he was whisked away that it started to register. The medicine was also beginning to wear off at that point so it makes sense, right?

All of my husbands praying paid off. But not before a code blue (or some code) was blared over the intercom. But no one came to the rescue until it blared the second time. Then a nurse, who wasn't even supposed to be on the maternity floor, came and finally got him to breathe! Apparently she was very upset that no one from the maternity floor had come to help. I'm sure glad she showed up. The next step they were talking about was cracking his chest (not open).

*Sigh* And one year later...I'm so glad he's here and I'm so happy to have such a stinker on my hands. He sure is a handful. I think each birthday is another right of passage to some new personality trait. Today has been full of tantrums (which is not so new) but this time with the head whipping to go along with it. You know the kind of head whipping that is good for busting your lip open. Or, if not open, at least a good fat lip which I've had a couple of today.

So now I should probably get back to the real reason for this post. Or at least the part that pertains to the title of this post.

My three and five year olds asked if we could have Birthday Soup tonight for dinner in honor of their little brother's birthday. When I asked them what exactly goes into the making of Birthday Soup, the responses were this...

*three year old*
"Oh, it's just a little honey and some salt and some pepper."

*five year old*
"It has onions and pinados (tomatoes), carrots and celery."

Sounds great, right? I know what I'm having on my next birthday.