That Summer

She met the love of her life, the one who would love her forever, the summer she turned 21.

He was a small, squalling baby boy, blue in color. Her son.

Her grandma sneered that she was, “a baby having a baby.” Her own mom was supportive. As for the father, “don't be telling no one that is my kid,” was his reaction.

None of their reactions mattered to her. She has dreamed of becoming a mother for as long as she could remember. To create someone who would love her unconditionally and that she could love the same, was all she wanted

A son is a surprise as she was told she was having a girl. Her baby shower produced lots of pink. A son is welcome, someone he couldn't hurt.

Oh, she really believed that. That boys weren't abused that way. Her brother could have told her differently, had she thought to ask. They didn't talk about that though.

It wasn't a secret, not in their immediate family anyway. Not a secret, just not discussed. Keeping the past in the past was the idea.

He was the past, her son is the future.

She is in the water, in the lake. It is a hot summer day and the water provides buoyancy and helps support her body, swollen in the last days of her pregnancy.

The first pains are barely felt. Labor starts slow, gentle, drawing first time moms into a sense of peace.

“This isn't too hard.” Right! Just when you think that, it really kicks in and they start to understand why it is called labor.

She is no different. When the pain gets too hard to swim through, she exits the lake and her nervous stepdad and excited mom take her home.

There she starts to walk. Around the block, over and over again. They walk until the pains are five minutes apart.

“Bring her in.” The midwife says.

Hour after hour, they walk the halls of the hospital. She screams and cries as she labors to bring her child forth.

Transition. Technically, the part of labor that opens the cervix from seven to ten centimeters. In reality, the shortest and hardest part of labor.

She vomits, cries, and curses. Later she apologizes for all. At the time, there is nothing she can focus on outside the near constant pain. It is all encompassing.

“Breath baby. Just breathe.” Her mom tries to help. It is hard to breathe when the pain stills your breath. For a long time, she doesn't think she will survive it.

“You will not die. Everyone thinks that.” The midwife laughs.

Laughs! How can she laugh when her patient is dying?

Finally the pain changes, becoming deeper as she moves to stage two of labor, pushing.

Grunts and groans replace moans as she presses down as hard as she can. Catch a breath. Do it again.

After twelve hours of waiting and working through the labor, after years of longing, he comes fast. Almost to fast.

“Stop pushing!” Her midwife orders as they, her mom and brother including, hurry towards the delivery room. ( This was before woman labored, delivered, and recovered all in one room)

It wasn't something she could do. They move faster.

He is delivered early in the morning, moments after they arrive in the room set up for that purpose.

She sees him just for a moment before they rush him away. He was born blue, remember?

Her brother performs the first of his uncle duties and goes to find out what is wrong with his nephew.

She is delivered of the afterbirth and moved to a recovery room.

“I am a mommy.” She keeps saying to herself. It doesn't feel real, not without him in her arms.

Her brother comes in and reports that his nephew was, “just cold. He is moving his arms and legs and crying.”

They are all relieved.

They carry him in soon after and she officially meets her son.

“Hello Joshua. Hello my son.” She sobs.

He is placed on her breast and she is surprised by the contraction like pain that comes with his first nursing.

“It is always a surprise. Normal though. A way for your uterus to clamp back down and stop the bleeding.” The nurse explains as she watches in approval at the baby nursing.

She powers through it. Mothers are strong. She will soon discover how strong.

They come home two days later. That she is trusted to just walk out with her fragile child amazes her. He weighs less than a ten pound bag of sugar. She can feed him. Diaper him ( not that she will be using the disposable ones the hospital has him in. Cloth diapers are stacked in the nursery.

She had decided this during the pregnancy. Her choice is confirmed by her son's fragile skin. Before he leaves the hospital, he has a diaper rash from the paper and plastic he is diapered in.

Diaper rash cream and fresh cotton soon clear it up.

It isn't easy, those first few weeks. Keeping him in bed with her, where nursing is easier, helps.

He sometimes sleeps in the crib her stepdad and brother had set up, mostly for naps, but spends every night beside his mommy. The protective c curl kept him safe. Nursing and the smell of his mommy and her heartbeat add to his comfort.

All is going well until he gets a fever. At six weeks, it is unusual. Scary. At this time, she still believed doctors knew best. Wasn't as awake and aware as she would come to be.

He is taken to the hospital on the advice of his pediatrician. They first check his ears. Finding nothing, they draw bloods, Lord how he screamed! and take X-rays.

“I know it sounds scary but if it is meningitis, we need to know right away.”

The doctor wants to do a spinal tap. She thought it best, she really did.

They wrap him on a papoose. She steps out of the room not wanting to add her own stress to his. Outside the room, she stands and shakes as she hears her son screaming.

Finally, she comes back in and lifts him up. He slowly quiets in arms. Nursing helps. If he has meningitis, it will be worth it, she tells herself, as she looks down at her son's blood on the bed.

“An ear infection! But they checked for that first.”

The pediatrician shakes his head. “It is sometimes hard to see in one so young. Sorry.”

Sorry! Her baby boy has holes in his back and all he can say is sorry.

She will never know if it was the trauma of the experience or something else ( maybe the near constant ear infections that came after his first shots) If she could do it again…

Something though brought on his bi-polar, officially diagnosed eleven summers later.

Oh, the things she would do differently if she had it all to do again.