Ten Fingers, Ten Toes and Chubby Cheeks!

If you have not been faced with this image before, pretend you are holding this stick and this response is boldly staring back at you and hollering, "Uh huh, that's right! You are definitely pregnant!" This test result can cause an absolute whirlwind of emotions you never even knew you had!!!!
This was the image I saw approximately 2 months after our wedding, and, even though, I fully understood it was possible, since we decided to start "trying" right away, it still shocked the hell out of me that it had happened so fast! I honestly felt like laughing and crying, and, I am pretty sure I did a little bit of both, especially, when I saw the mixture of excitement and terror on my new husband's face after I delivered the whopping news.

I was the ripe old age of 31 when I got married and was, somewhat, considered an old maid by several family members. I saw it differently. Marriage was not something I took lightly and I wanted to take my time and choose wisely, no matter how long it took. I had always wanted children, but, I never acted impulsively, and, was committed to never settling. So, it took me, maybe, a little while longer than others by their standards! So what!?! It wasn't a contest, right? My delay in marriage obviously did not effect my ability to get pregnant, and, we were suddenly expecting our first little bundle of joy.
So, our honeymoon feeling was short lived and my new husband spent the next long nine months watching me rapidly grow. I was huge and quickly ballooned so much that we had both started to panic about what I was giving birth to! I knew there was only one child in there, but, I gained a whopping 45 lbs and, literally, felt like a beach ball with legs. If it was possible to just tuck them in and roll me everywhere for the last three months of my pregnancy, I would have greatly welcomed it. I tried to enjoy this amazing transformation but it was hard to see beyond the vomiting and swollen ankles, and, oh yes, that ginormous belly of mine.
Despite the discomfort and awkwardness of my pregnancy, I always had an overwhelming joy everytime I thought about becoming a mother and that we were getting ready to welcome our baby, a part of both of us, into our family. So, when the day arrived, I was truly ready to start the process, no matter how painful, and, finally meet our child.
I was blessed with a quick delivery for a first child, as I was told by many, and it took six hours of labor, many pushes, and an episiotomy to get him out. There were several moments when I felt like I was trying to squeeze a bowling ball through a straw, so, it made sense to me when they plopped my rather large baby onto the scale and he weighed in at 9 lbs 2 oz.
He was big and it was difficult, but, he was absolutely beautiful and I was so proud of him and myself for getting him here! Ten fingers, ten toes, and chubby cheeks! He instantly won our hearts and our praises. Unfortunately, for me, the joy was short lived, as I started to heavily bleed and quickly lose strength.
My doctor and his nursing team swarmed around me with their concerned faces and the feeling of the room suddenly switched from celebration to concern as I began to hemorrhage. After a few nerve rattling minutes, he was able to control the bleeding and correct the problem, known as uterine atony, and bring me back to my joyous state.
So, if you have nine lives like a cat, I was stripped of one of them that day, but, I made it! This "old maid" got the right guy, had a big and beautiful baby boy, and dodged a potentially dangerous situation! It was quite a year and I didn't expect the rest of my life to be any different from that point on! I had grown accustomed to the fact that, sometimes, things don't come easy, but, how you truly appreciate them even more when you have to work a little harder for them!

Image credit: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pregnancy_test_result.jpg