Today's a big day around our house because my son turns 10. Neither one of my kids gets all that excited about birthdays, but this time around is different for my son.
The countdown started about two weeks ago, and ever since he's been calculating how many days until he turns 10. Clearly getting into the double digits is very important to him.
What he doesn't know is how much it means to us too.
My son, my second child, had a rough start in life, although he doesn't know this yet. We've never talked with him about the complications surrounding my pregnancy with him, how he came into this world at a really scary time for us as a family and how his first months of life on the outside were as challenging as his last few on the inside. He has no clue.
Does he need to know? Sure, someday. Today's not that day, but someday.
It's a long story full of twists and turns, but I'll summarize. I was about five months pregnant with my son when an ultrasound revealed a softball-sized ovarian cyst that was growing along with my unborn baby. Shortly afterward, when I was about 24 weeks along, I had surgery to remove it, which involved opening up the very area where he was growing.
A painful and scary 10 days in the hospital followed, waiting every day for the contractions to stop so that I'd get the green light to go home. Adding insult to injury, this was during the Clinton impeachment trial, so that's the only thing that was on TV on just about every channel for my entire hospital stay. A minor gripe in the bigger scheme of things, but at the time, it added to my misery.
I eventually got out, went home and resumed life as normal with only a few trips back to the hospital for pre-labor scares.
My son was born on March 10, 1999, just hours after his nearly 3-year-old sister was released from Children's Hospital. She had a febrile seizure that didn't respond properly to medication and required her to stay in the hospital for a few days. While we were there, worrying sick about our first baby, our second baby was on the way. I knew it, but held out as long as I could before heading off to my hospital for his birth.
One child recovering, one just born. To say I was overwhelmed doesn't do it justice. I think I was comatose. I barely remember my time in the hospital with my son because I was so sick with worry over my other one.
What I do remember clearly is the day I realized that my new baby, my boy, had colic. Serious colic. Serious screaming all day, screaming all night colic.
It was understandable; he'd been through a lot in his short life. Moms all around me would talk about how they wouldn't even take an Advil while they were pregnant; I was on morphine for days following the ovarian cyst surgery. What did I expect, a blissful baby?
Well, to be honest, yes. I felt we'd been through enough already and my husband, daughter and I were all already a tangle of exposed nerves. Add constant crying to the mix (and not just that of the new baby, I'm not too proud to say) and we were a puddle on the floor most days.
It took four months after his birth for him to stop screaming and probably another two months after that until we all started breathing again.
What I have today is a 10-year-old boy who made it through, never knowing it all happened and never looking back.
He's funny, a little quirky, very rational for a kid his age, the best gift we ever gave his sister and many, many other things I love and treasure every day.
He's celebrating his 10th birthday today, but the gift, I feel, is all mine.
