A bouncing baby....whaaaaa???????????????
Today is Aislinn's 7th birthday. I didn't work last night so I wasn't awake to see the clock hit 2:22am, the moment she was born seven years ago.
I touched her warm, wet head as she crowned, an unforgettable feeling.
An idiot nurse had basically told me we were having a boy, though we were insistent we did not want to know the sex so, despite fights with the clinic, etc, etc, I had it in my head for the last few weeks of the pregnancy (as I lay alone in bed on bedrest d/t perterm labor) that we were having a boy.)
I can't even remember now what our "boy's" name was, but, of course, our girl's name was always going to be Aislinn. If Tristan had not been a boy, he would have been Aislinn, and this baby, had it been a girl, would be Aislinn. Our first, or our only girl...she just was going to be Aislinn. What better name for a girl could there be than a name that means, literally, "A Dream?" And, from the time I was in junior high, that was going to be the name of my first-born girl.
But I pushed on through 18 hours of hard labor, (no epidurals for me) knowing the whole time this baby was a boy and would be named......(isn't it funny how I can't even remember now?) I know we had a boy's name picked out. It was when Shaw was born that we would have been screwed had he been a girl because we had him under pretty-much emergency circumstances (vag. birth, but get the baby out in the next day or two or else!) we didn't have a girl's name picked out yet. Anyway, I don't remember what name Aislinn would have been. I just knew the little baby who had punched me and kicked me and kneed me relentlessly for months and months and had hiccups so predictably and violently for such long bouts every night that I was ready to knock my head into wall just for some other sort of physical stimuli to concentrate on (you know how at first it's cute, but then when there's a newborn-size baby in there doing it for hours on end it...gets...old?) I knew it was a boy. It wasn't the long-awaited Aislinn. It wasn't the little Aislinn who would have red hair and eventually freckle whom I just KNEW I would have one day from the time I was fourteen.
So I pushed and I touched the wet, strawberry blonde head and the crying baby was in the doctor's hands, and I fell back, exhausted, shaking, crying at the baby's cries and at simply seeing our new baby and the whole process of pushing a new life into a world and all the opportunities ahead of this new life. The baby was on my chest, all wet and new and giving out cries made its fuzzy strawberry blonde hair glow even more compared to its reddening scalp as it got angrier at the new world around it. Nurses warmed it up by drying off its back with rapid strokes with blankets.
Then Brent realized something.
No one had said, "It's a boy" of "It's a girl."
It's not something they say any more in this day and age everyone HAVING to know what sex they are having and NOT LIKING surprises. (My thought, in this world where what's left of surprises are usually the very bad ones, why not cling to the one basic, most amazing, happy one we've got left?)
And I, thinking I had been told the sex of the baby, hadn't given it one thought. But, in all the fighting, Brent had been told the nurse who had spilled the beans had done so in error, so he knew the baby was our Aislinn and he knew to look at me and say,
"Noelle, did you even LOOK at the baby to see if it's a girl or boy?"
"What? Well, it's a boy!"
"Did you LOOK?"
"It's a b....b.... It's not? It's....." And I pulled her blankets back and looked right between poor little Aislinn's legs, put the covers back, then pulled them back again and did a double take. "Oh, my God! It's our Aislinn! It's our Aislinn! Oh! My little Dream Girl!" And I cried and cried for the shock and happiness of it all.
Everyone outside in the hall, our family, got to hear that. They also thought we were having a boy and my mom, was listening on the phone. She also was pissed as hell that this dumb nurse had told us what we were having. She probably peed her pants when she heard me cry, "It's Aislinn!"
What a sweet little girl she is.
She truly is a dream.
Happy birthday, Dream Girl!
Mommy
I touched her warm, wet head as she crowned, an unforgettable feeling.
An idiot nurse had basically told me we were having a boy, though we were insistent we did not want to know the sex so, despite fights with the clinic, etc, etc, I had it in my head for the last few weeks of the pregnancy (as I lay alone in bed on bedrest d/t perterm labor) that we were having a boy.)
I can't even remember now what our "boy's" name was, but, of course, our girl's name was always going to be Aislinn. If Tristan had not been a boy, he would have been Aislinn, and this baby, had it been a girl, would be Aislinn. Our first, or our only girl...she just was going to be Aislinn. What better name for a girl could there be than a name that means, literally, "A Dream?" And, from the time I was in junior high, that was going to be the name of my first-born girl.
But I pushed on through 18 hours of hard labor, (no epidurals for me) knowing the whole time this baby was a boy and would be named......(isn't it funny how I can't even remember now?) I know we had a boy's name picked out. It was when Shaw was born that we would have been screwed had he been a girl because we had him under pretty-much emergency circumstances (vag. birth, but get the baby out in the next day or two or else!) we didn't have a girl's name picked out yet. Anyway, I don't remember what name Aislinn would have been. I just knew the little baby who had punched me and kicked me and kneed me relentlessly for months and months and had hiccups so predictably and violently for such long bouts every night that I was ready to knock my head into wall just for some other sort of physical stimuli to concentrate on (you know how at first it's cute, but then when there's a newborn-size baby in there doing it for hours on end it...gets...old?) I knew it was a boy. It wasn't the long-awaited Aislinn. It wasn't the little Aislinn who would have red hair and eventually freckle whom I just KNEW I would have one day from the time I was fourteen.
So I pushed and I touched the wet, strawberry blonde head and the crying baby was in the doctor's hands, and I fell back, exhausted, shaking, crying at the baby's cries and at simply seeing our new baby and the whole process of pushing a new life into a world and all the opportunities ahead of this new life. The baby was on my chest, all wet and new and giving out cries made its fuzzy strawberry blonde hair glow even more compared to its reddening scalp as it got angrier at the new world around it. Nurses warmed it up by drying off its back with rapid strokes with blankets.
Then Brent realized something.
No one had said, "It's a boy" of "It's a girl."
It's not something they say any more in this day and age everyone HAVING to know what sex they are having and NOT LIKING surprises. (My thought, in this world where what's left of surprises are usually the very bad ones, why not cling to the one basic, most amazing, happy one we've got left?)
And I, thinking I had been told the sex of the baby, hadn't given it one thought. But, in all the fighting, Brent had been told the nurse who had spilled the beans had done so in error, so he knew the baby was our Aislinn and he knew to look at me and say,
"Noelle, did you even LOOK at the baby to see if it's a girl or boy?"
"What? Well, it's a boy!"
"Did you LOOK?"
"It's a b....b.... It's not? It's....." And I pulled her blankets back and looked right between poor little Aislinn's legs, put the covers back, then pulled them back again and did a double take. "Oh, my God! It's our Aislinn! It's our Aislinn! Oh! My little Dream Girl!" And I cried and cried for the shock and happiness of it all.
Everyone outside in the hall, our family, got to hear that. They also thought we were having a boy and my mom, was listening on the phone. She also was pissed as hell that this dumb nurse had told us what we were having. She probably peed her pants when she heard me cry, "It's Aislinn!"
What a sweet little girl she is.
She truly is a dream.
Happy birthday, Dream Girl!
Mommy