2nd day on the job

[alexnumb]

Holy crap

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Happy Birthday Alex

[djklaugh]

Tomorrow, July 23, would have been my son, Alex's, 32nd birthday. Every year on his birthday I use to tell him the story of the day he was born. About how he was to have been born at home, about the midwife being with me during the day as we strolled around the neighborhood, did breathing exercises, talked. About how, once full labor started, it was not progressing as fast as a 2nd childbirth was expected to. About having to call an ambulance as complications developed. About me telling the EMTs that if they didn't allow the midwife to come with us I was not going! About how wonderful midwife Kate was as she coached me saying "don't push, don't push. If baby is in trouble you're the best incubator we have on board" and instructed the EMTs (they said they learned a lot from her that day about managing an unmedicated delivery in the back of their rig) during our dash toward the hospital 25 miles away. About realizing before we got there that baby was coming N-O-W! About the ambulance pulling over to the side of the road and seeing a sign out the back window that read "Hospital next right". About feeling that my mother, who had died 6 months before, was present in that ambulance and having me lean against her as I pushed. About pushing twice and hearing this little "yowp" as he was born breathing and healthy in the back of the ambulance on the side of the Washington DC Beltway! (we called him the Beltway Bomber for a while when he was little). About getting to the hospital and seeing folks along the corridor looking at me oddly as I watched my son and laughed as we went down the hall because every time we'd go under one of the big ceiling lights he's squeeze his eyes shut tight and then open them wide when we were not under a light. About the nurses being appalled and bemused with me sitting up, talking, laughing, asking for food, food, and more food, calling everyone I knew to share the news ... they thought I should be lying down resting. About waking at 2 in the morning knowing he was awake and going up to the nursery just as he was getting his first bath (being born outside the hospital meant he was a "dirty baby" so they stuck him in the NICU with the premmies .... lol his healthy 6.5lbs made them look even smaller). And about taking him off to a side room to nurse him .... and scaring the doctor cuz I fell asleep with him tucked into my arms carefully wedged into a big cushy armchair and the doc had to hunt me down. And about being discharged that same day to take him home to Reston Virginia where his brother Jay, aunt Beth and cousin Jesse were waiting to play with him. Each year we'd read his birth certificate where it said "born en route to Fairfax Hospital" and lists the attendants at his birth as midwife Kate and the 2 EMTs. And tell him about how, when he was 2 1/2 just before we moved to Oregon, we went to the fire station and saw "his" ambulance and met the 2 EMTs who were with us that day and he got to climb into the back of the rig and see where he was born. And I'd remind him ... and we'd laugh ... of how his 3rd grade teacher did not believe his story of the day he was born until she called me and had every word confirmed.

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