Happy Birthday, Danielle!

November 30, 2009


Danielle has always been her own person, since even before she was born. Even in the womb she did her own thing, on her own schedule. At one of my pre-natal check-ups, the doctor couldn't find any heartbeat at all for several minutes, causing both the doctor and me great concern. At another appointment, the doctor thought he might have been able to detect two heartbeats. In reality, Danielle's heartbeat was just marching to its own drummer, not interested in anyone else's agenda or timeline.In addition, Danielle defied the doctor's ability to narrow down a due date. Her first due date was November 24. Then he revised it to December 4, then finally to December 8. She had other plans, though, and decided she'd make her very sudden and unexpected arrival early in the morning on November 30, 1998.


On the day before Danielle was born, I recognized the signs of early labor. This was my third, so I was familiar with the signs. I was in labor for most of the day, but wasn't interested in hanging out at the hospital while the work was in progress; I wanted to wait it out at home for as long as I could. I was a little distressed since I hadn't been expecting her arrival just yet. I still hadn't even registered at the hospital yet, and there were still finishing touches to put on the nursery. Until the pain grew too strong, I tried to take care of last minute details around the house.

Late into the night, my husband had already gone to bed. I was too uncomfortable to sleep, so I started timing the contractions. Five minutes apart, ten minutes apart, two minutes apart, ten minutes apart...they never came at routine intervals. My doctor had said not to go to the hospital until the contractions were consistently five minutes apart, but there there was no consistency. Danielle at her finest, doing her own thing in her own way. Suddenly, though, it became more difficult to breathe in between contractions--there wasn't enough time in between. I started timing again--two minutues apart, two minutes apart, two minutes apart.... I realized this was the real thing, and I'd better get myself to the hospital quickly.

By that time, it was about 2:15 a.m. (None of my kids had the decency to be born in the late afternoon--they all kept me up all night when they were born.) First, I called my mom, who lived across town. She was on-call to come stay with Brianna and Nicholas whenever it was time for us to go to the hospital. Then I went in to wake up my husband, who was sleeping soundly and obliviously. I told him it was time to go. He told me later that he thought about asking if he had time to take a quick shower, but took one look at me and knew he'd better not. As soon as Mom got there, we jumped in the car.

That ride was one of the fastest and longest rides of my life. Is that possible? I remember it vividly, because Bill was speeding down Herndon Avenue, even running the occasional red light (which of course, scared me to death!). We were racing, but I was in so much pain and so in fear of my life from Bill's frantic driving that it seemed as though it was moving in slow motion. Thank goodness it was nearly three in the morning and we appeared to have the roads to ourselves.

Somewhere along the drive, I said to Bill, "This really doesn't feel like the other two. I'm in a lot of pain. If they ask you at the hospital if I want pain medication, you go ahead and tell them yes. I don't think I can take much more of this." With my first two, I had wanted to forego any pain medication (though in retrospect, I can't think why I would have done that--I'm no martyr), and I had managed just fine. I was ready to throw in the towel with this one, though.

We drove up to the hospital entrance, and realized we still needed to register. It was just barely three a.m. They wheeled me in to a young lady sitting at a desk, pen poised in hand, ready to help me fill out all the necessary forms. She asked my name--first, middle, and last--calmly and sweetly. I couldn't get the words out, so Bill had to fill her in. She asked me my social security number. Bill didn't know that one off the top of his head, so I had to field that one. She looked at me expectantly. I held my breath through the pain of the contraction that was gripping my body while I held up a hand to let her know I'd be with her shortly. Suddenly her expression changed. "Hey! Are you pushing? You look like you're pushing! Just a minute--don't push. DON'T PUSH!" I was nodding my head, but she wasn't convinced. "We'll have to finish this later. We've got to get you up to a room NOW!"

Bill looked a little lost and confused as he followed the wheelchair up the elevator to the third floor maternity ward. They scooted me onto a bed, but didn't even have time to put me in one of their oh-so-fashionable hospital gowns or put an IV in me. Danielle was on her way, and she wasn't waiting for any paperwork or hospital protocols. As soon as the first nurse checked she said, "Get a doctor in here NOW. This baby is going to be born with or without him." Meekly, Bill said, "Um...I don't know if this is a good time to tell you this, but my wife said that she thinks she wants pain medication this time. So I'm supposed to tell you that. Can she have some?" The nurse smiled at him and said, "Honey, this baby is going to be born before we could even get someone up here with the meds. Your baby is almost already here." And within another four or five minutes, she was indeed. Arrival time? 3:19 a.m.--Nineteen minutes after we pulled into the hospital parking lot.

And who knew that arrival would be the harbinger of things to come? Danielle, my sweet little baby girl who turned eleven on November 30, still does things her own way, marches to her own drummer, doesn't worry about what she's 'supposed' to do or look like or think. It's not always convenient or easy for me, but she certainly manages to keep things interesting, and I'm excited to see where her own path leads her in the future.

(Oh, and for the record, it drives me up a wall when people hear about Danielle's birth and they say, "How lucky you are that you were only in labor for nineteen minutes!" Being in the hospital for nineteen minutes and being in the labor for nineteen minutes are NOT the same thing! I was in labor all day long, thank you very much, and I want credit for my suffering. I was stupid for waiting too long; luck had nothing to do with it.)

Danielle, exhibiting her very own sense of 'style'

Babies, Babies, Everywhere

February 24, 2009

One of my very good friends just had her baby yesterday, after a somewhat challenging and anxious pregnancy. Mom is doing well, and the precious new arrival is tiny, but healthy, and I can't wait to see her and hold her in my arms. I definitely plan to be 'Auntie Donna' and to watch this beautiful little girl grow and learn and play through the years.

As a matter of fact, babies are in the air. I've got friends with toddlers and newborns. I've got friends who have just found out that they are pregnant, and friends who are ready to deliver at any moment. I've got friends who are in the process of adding to their families through adoption, or have already done so. And thanks to Facebook, I get nearly weekly updates of former students who are embarking on the amazing journey. Seeing my friends and their growing families all around me makes me nostalgic and reminiscent about my own babies during that stage in my life.

I come from a family of five children, and as I was growing up, I always envisioned myself with six kids myself. I'm not sure why, other than the fact that I loved kids, and my favorite show was the Brady Bunch. I really wanted to be them when we were kids, but my mom wouldn't oblige by having one more boy, so I guess I figured I'd create my own when I got older.

When my husband and I got married, he wasn't so much into the Brady Bunch plan. (He was ten years older than me, so maybe his pop culture influences were slightly different.) When we talked about having children (as any couple should, before they get married), I conservatively said I'd like to have four, while he thought we should have two. We compromised at three, naturally.

After a few years of marriage, we decided it was time. Within a few weeks, I found that I was pregnant. I thought, "Well, that was easy!" And so it was. True to what we would eventually discover to be her nature, Brianna was agreeable and pleasant--a real people-pleaser. She gave me no trouble at all during the pregancy; it was ideal. No morning sickness, no weird cravings, no false-start scares. She measured normally and grew normally. I worked up until my due date, which was the last day of school, and then went home over the weekend and had her. She was even kind enough to arrive on Father's Day, bright and early, two days after her due date.

When we decided to add a sibling for Bree to our family, I figured it would be as easy as it was the first time around. This time, however, it took us eight months before we found out I was pregnant again. This was in keeping with what we found to be Nicholas' personality. He takes care of what needs to be taken care of, but he takes his time. His schedule, his pace, runs a little behind other people's; he's just not in a hurry to get anywhere. When he does get somewhere, though, he makes his entrance known. When he was born, he was two and a half pounds bigger than his sister was at her birth. Believe me, two and a half pounds is a noticeable difference when it comes to babies! Even now, he is clearly the strongest personality in the house, with the strongest and loudest voice. When he joins the conversation, he wants everyone to know it. His determined streak (I prefer that term to 'stubborn') was also immediately clear at birth; he did NOT want to exit the comfort of his first home. The doctors had to use the forceps to 'coax' him out.

Danielle's personality was evident from the minute she made her presence known. She was our surprise baby. She has her own mind and her own time table, and was fickle even during the pregnancy. She had at least six different due dates, because the doctor couldn't pin down her measurements. (She decided not to arrive on ANY of these due dates, by the way.) There were at least two visits when the doctor couldn't find any heartbeat, and one where he thought he heard two. She slept fitfully during the day, but was awake and kicking well into the night--every night. Even when she was born, she literally never slept through the night more than ten days total before she started kindergarten. Her actual arrival was as unpredictable as the rest of the pregnancy was--the contractions never got steady and regular; by the time I realized the time was imminent, it was REALLY imminent. We arrived at the hospital at 3:00 a.m., and she was delivered at 3:19 a.m. I wasn't even registered at the hospital yet, because our best guess was that we still had another week before she'd make her arrival. Actually, I wasn't even checked in to the hospital before she was delivered, because they could see that they needed to get me up to the room STAT. They didn't even have time to get me into a hospital gown. Today, this little cutie pie is still the most unpredictable and mercurial personality in the bunch, adding variety and interest to our daily lives.

Despite the differences in the 'personalities' of each of the pregnancies, I was blessed with uncomplicated, relatively easy pregnancies, and smooth deliveries. Not easy deliveries, mind you--delivering a baby is NOT easy. However, there were no difficulties and no health scares, and the recovery was fairly quick. Looking back, it's amazing the clues each one of them gave us as to who they were long before the grand entrance. No matter how often you hear that siblings are their own individual people, you don't really realize just how true that is until you've tried to raise them in the same household. The same approach just doesn't always work. Here's an example: When Bree was little and she got into trouble, she'd often punish herself even before I found out the infraction. I'd find her in a chair in the corner and ask her what she was doing, and she'd say, "I hit Brother, so I put myself in time-out. How long should I stay?" Putting Nicholas in time out, however, was an Olympic sport of the wrestling variety. Being determined, he'd 'escape' the minute he got put there, and I'd wrestle him back to his seat. We discovered early on that we'd need to find a different approach with him. Often loss of privileges worked best there. Danielle's time outs were effective in that she'd stay there, but the were LOUD. She wanted to make sure we knew what indignities we were imposing on her. They all reacted differently to their experiences along the way, and of course, we also had to adapt our approaches to what best helped them progress on the way to becoming the wonderful and loving individuals they are now.

The stage in my life when these tiny and beautiful babies first came into my world was truly magical, and I miss it dearly every time I see another newborn. Honestly, I'd do it again in a heartbeat tomorrow if I could--go through all the sleepless nights, diaper changes, the absolute, turn-your-life-upside down changes. A newborn babe still pulls at something deep within me, connecting me to the pure miracle of a new human being. But these stages of life that we are in the throes of now--the stages of the teenager, the pre-adolescent, and the exuberant child-- are also incredibly miraculous and unexpected and full of wonder, for me and for my children. I am blessed to be able to guide them on this journey as they reach out to find their potential and become the people they are becoming--the people they started out as so many years ago. I can't wait to see what's coming next for all of them...