Eleven years ago, I was hooked up to pitocin and laboring away with my second child. My first child, David, was born via cesarean and I was hoping for a VBAC (vagnal birth after cesarean). I had labored all day and all night. The doc came in at four in the morning and tried a couple of tricks, but nothing worked.
Lauren was born via cesarean and after my husband said, "It's a girl," that was the last thing I remembered. Despite my birth plan of staying awake and not being tied down, the anesthesiologist refused to allow one hand free and he ended up drugging me through the rest of the surgery. I woke up in recovery two hours later shivering, breaking out in hives from the epidural and feeling terrible. What should have been a joyous time with a new daughter got off to a rocky start.
It became even rockier for several months-- what was diagnosed as the "baby blues" was actually post-partum depression. You can read more here: What You Need To Know About Post-Partum Depression.
Thanks to a VBAC support group, I was able to work through my feelings and enjoy my baby daughter. Today, Lauren is celebrating her eleventh birthday. She's a girl after her mother's heart-- a budding writer and a lover of books. She recently taught herself to knit and has discovered volleyball, a sport that I played for many years.
Lauren was born with hearing in the normal range and when she was four, she became sick with a high fever and ended up with a moderate-to-severe hearing loss at the same time her two-year-old brother, Steven did. For Lauren, this was a hard blow. She quickly became frustrated because she couldn't hear her friends on the phone. There was a long period of adjustment, but today, she's a happy kid who learned to use the phone again (love that Captel!) and regularly runs up the phone bill yakking with her friends. She loves email and IM, and uses the videophone to chat with her deaf and hard of hearing friends.
So Happy Birthday to my Pumpkin!
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