Seven years ago, today, I gave birth to Sullivan. He was our miracle baby, right from the start. He had an honest to goodness knot in his umbilical cord and according to the doctor, he should not have survived the vaginal birth he had, due to the cord tightening and blocking his oxygen. We were so thankful to have him with us and to apparently be unharmed by his experience.
His birth went much like his sister’s, which I wrote about two weeks ago. With him, I woke up in the morning and rolled out of bed to use the toilet. No sooner had I stood up than my water broke. Lucky I wasn’t in bed at the time, eh? There was a bit of a gush at first, but then it slowed to a trickle. I roused Toph out of bed with the news, and then went about getting dressed, getting my daughter dressed, and letting my father in law know that we were heading for the hospital so he’d be in charge of Jillian. We lived with my inlaws at the time, so there was no need to overly upset Jillian’s routine, except that she was excited to spend the day with her grandpa.
Labor and delivery took about six hours from the time my water broke to the time of delivery. I remember at one point, rocking in a rocking chair in my room and having my water break for the second time. We had a lake surrounding me and the rocking chair then. It was pretty amusing at the time.
I had a paper bag over my face during transition, rather than the oxygen mask I had worn with Jillian. I think I preferred the oxygen mask. 
At one point the doctor turned the overhead mirror to help me see what was going on DOWN THERE. I screeched at him for that. Turn that damn thing away from me! Seeing what’s going on makes it hurt more! i didn’t even want to put my hands down to feel the baby’s head emerging. No thanks!
He was 8lbs 7oz. at birth, and 20 inches long. He had a head of blondish, brown hair, not dark like his sister. He was beautiful. He was a champion nurser…he knew what he was doing right away.
Alot of the happy memories of his birth are shadowed for me now. The events that took place when he was 5.5 weeks old make those first 5 weeks a blur in my head. I tend to remember the pregnancy, which was hard on my body. The first three months were spent sick as a dog and dehydrated while the OB’s office ignored my cries for help until I resorted to the General practitioner’s office to get me the help I needed. (I was admitted to the hospital for rehydration at that point and did much better afterwards.) I lost a lot of weight in that first trimester. (ah pregnancy. The easiest diet plan I’ve ever been on! )
The last trimester was punctuated with odd sleeping spells and learning that I had gestationally induced impaired glucose tolerance. It is a precurser to gestational diabetes. Although my OB was totally unhelpful on these counts (his advice was simply not to eat the things that made me sleepy/passout, which would have been difficult since just eating a regular meal would do it to me) I did see a dietician who helped me get things under control. It was a lesson in self control and self preservation.
In any case, my Sullivan, with his blue blue eyes and his curly blonde hair, was a beautiful baby boy. He was much loved even before his birth and we cherished all the time we had with him. I remember this day with both happiness and sadness. It was the beginning of the end of my age of innocence. His birth began a journey to a world where I could no longer drift by in a haze of blissful happiness, satisfaction with life, and with the knowledge that “IT” could never happen to me. I learned in a very hard way that “IT” most assuredly could happen to me and my family.
Happy Birthday, Sully boy. I often dream of what you would be like now, had things not happened as they had, or even what you’d be like if you’d continue to live despite all of the things working against you. Every time I see a little boy about the age you would be, I get sad and wistful. I never have understood how The Powers That Be could make you endure all that you did, nor how they could punish our family for simply wanting to have you with us to love. You were born of love and died surrounded by that love. Whatever way you exist now, I hope you know that we loved you with everything we had, from beginning to end.
