Posted in Just Our Day-to-Day Life

Today my youngest, my baby, turned 18 years old.  How can that even be possible?  How can I now be the mother of no children, and instead the mother of only other adults?  When all those people told me to enjoy them while they were young because the time would go so quickly, they did not tell me HOW quickly!  Whoosh, and it's gone...

What an exciting day it was when I found out that I was unexpectedly expecting again.  My older children were 13, 11, and 7, and I had thought our family was complete.  But then came the dog bite...believe it or not, BJ was the result of a dog bite.  Yep, still don't know quite the science of it all, but I know for a fact he was conceived on the day a friendly collie bit my foot, which resulted in 6 weeks on crutches with infection reaching up to my hip.  Don't laugh, it's true! 

When what I thought was a tummy ache from the antibiotics became worse instead of better, and persisted even when I went off the antibiotics, I went to my friendly doctor who informed me that this was not your usual reaction to either a dog bite or to the antibiotics---I was pregnant!!!  I did a happy dance, avoiding my bad leg, all the way home. 

Mike and I sat the other three children down after supper that night, and told them that I was going to have a baby.  Since they had all longed for another for many years, I had thought their reaction would be a bit different from what happened next.  They all looked at each other, then at us, back at each other, and then they all dissolved in mass hysteria.  They LAUGHED!!!  Just like Sarai of old, they laughed in disbelief. 

This later turned into excitement for the younger two, Chelle and Josh, and embarrassment for my oldest, Jen.  Seems that it simply was not cool for a junior high cheerleader to have a mom who was pregnant.  She didn't want me near her the entire time.  No one else's mom was pregnant, so it made her feel awkward and different.  I think this goes back to the 1.7 kids per family that is the "norm" these days.  How sad that others made her feel this way just because we were being blessed with another blessing!

Chelle was the next to fall off the "I'm excited to have a new baby" wagon.  You see, her birthday was on April 19th, four days before BJ's.  Since that was a school day, we had a huge birthday party planned for the following Saturday.  It was three weeks before my due date, so this was a safe day to have the party, right?  Wrong...  Friday night I went to bed with a terribly upset tummy.  It was something I ate for supper, I was sure.  Never having been in labor for even one labor pain before, I had no clue that I was in labor when I went to bed that night, but around 2:30 in the morning it became very clear that this was not bad meat, it was the baby deciding to come early, just like the others had done.  Should've known it...

So Chelle's wonderful party was put on hold.  Grandma had to call all the little girls and cancel till a couple weeks later when I was home and well enough after the c-section to have the party.  That party never came, because of complications from the delivery.  I don't think poor Chelle has forgiven poor BJ about that never-to-be-had birthday party to this very day, as she still brings it up to him 18 years later. 

That left one child still excited about the new baby, big brother Josh, who had thought that he was going to be my baby forever.  The afternoon after BJ was born, my parents brought the kids to the hospital to meet their new baby brother.  Josh was in first grade at the time, and the "in thing" was to have a spiked haircut.  Mike and I wouldn't let Josh have his hair done like that, and we were about to find out that he was more upset about that decision than we had thought.  BJ was born with a naturally spiked hairdo---long hair that was full of static and stood straight up on end.  The first thing Josh said when he looked at his new baby brother was, "You wouldn't let me have a spike!  How come did you let HIM!!!"   Everyone died laughing because he was dead serious about it.  He thought we had "let" the baby have his hair that way...lol. 

Poor little BJ...everyone had reason now not to want the new baby around.  But once they held him in their arms, he was a keeper.  It was instant love from all of them, and everything else was forgotten.  Jen loved to show her baby brother off at track meets that spring to anyone who would look, Chelle agreed that having BJ was a better birthday present than a party, and Josh loved brushing that spiked up hair down into some sort of respectable looking hair style. 

Due to complications from the spinal anesthetic, I developed a serious frozen bowel problem that kept me in the hospital for nearly 2 weeks after BJ's birth.  I had machines and tubes in every orifice of my body other than my eyes and ears, and if they had had something to stick there, they probably would have.  It hurt SO BAD!!!  So bad, that I forgot all about my 18 inch emergency c-section incision.  The doctor asked me if I wanted pain pills when I went home, and I asked him what for.  Couldn't believe that something could hurt that bad...

Now that adorable, precious little baby boy that came unexpectedly into our lives, but was treasured from the first minute I knew about him, is an adult.  My baby boy is 6'2" tall, and is a handsome young man.  I am so very, very proud of him, and know that he is ready to take on the world.  But how this mommy would love to have him back in her arms to nurse and rock to sleep just one more time...