One Miraculous Night

It is 3:07 on Wednesday afternoon and I am at home in my fleece Valentine's pajamas. No, the Hot Cable Guy is not here. I am watching "Dr. Phil" and eating the last piece of chocolate chip birthday cookie with vanilla ice cream. The sun is shining through the blinds and I am breathing deeply....breathing in gratitude, breathing out peace. Today is one of the two most miraculous days in the History of Me.

Ten years ago yesterday I woke up at 5:31AM with a fierce need to pee. I grunted, rolled and thrust my body upward...weighing 53 pounds more than "normal" made moving cumbersome...and off I went to the bathroom. Before I had taken my first step towards the door, my water broke. I awakened my husband (at the time....hereinafter referred to as HATT) and said, "It's time! My water just broke!" He didn't even roll over as he said, "Are you sure?" I looked at the puddle under my feet; I was pretty damn sure.

The drive to the hospital was absolutely the worse part of the entire birthing experience. Every time a contraction would start I would scream for HATT to stop the car so I could breathe and focus. Then every time a contraction ended I would demand that HATT  "HURRY UP AND F*(&ing GET ME TO THE HOSPITAL." (This scene was also repeated when I went into labor with our second son but he knew the drill by then so it didn't faze him.) As it turned out, there really was not a need to hurry. We were at the hospital dealing with contractions for another seventeen hours before Our Groundhog came out of his hole.

I am proud to say that I handled the first nine hours of labor without pharmaceutical intervention. Every seven or eight minutes I would simply quiet my mind, assume my stance and do the "hoo hoo hoo...hee hee hee" breathing. Unfortunately, this required everyone around me to be quiet too and oddly enough, the nurses, doctors and techs at the hospital didn't see the necessity of stoppping their work each time I had a contraction! Finally, I got tired, started to cry and gave in to the epidural....and that may have been my first lesson as a parent:  Sometimes you have to re-think the "plan" and do whatever works in the moment!

By this time my mother and my brother had arrived. So after the anesthesiology resident, which in Greek must literally mean "inexperienced and shaky", stuck the foot-long needle into my spine, while I was having a contraction, the lower quadrant of my body went numb. And this may have been when I learned my second lesson as a parent:  Modesty was going to be a thing of the past. Because every time I had to shift positions or sit up or drink water through a straw, my legs would splay off the sides of the bed. Granted, I could not feel this happening but I could feel the cold air as it whipped up under my hospital "gown". And dutifully, my brother and/or my HATT, would come over, pick up my trunk of a leg and put it back under the covers. Ah! The joys of giving birth!

Did I mention that I was giving birth on the night that Carolina played Dook at Cameron in 2001? Or that multiple family members bet money on this very date in the "Delivery Date Pool"? (Actually, one of these same relatives also won $50 from my mother when my first marriage didn't last five years....to their credit, they didn't tell me about this wager until after the divorce and I think they gave me the money...but I digress.)
By 2001, our beloved Dean Smith had retired and ascended to Mount Olympus. His hand-picked successor Bill Guthridge had also retired and the Powers of Infinite Basketball Wisdom had hired former TarHeel Matt Doherty when the Heir Apparent Roy Williams turned them down. Poor Matt never stood a chance....the Rebound Guy never does. He complied an 8-20 record that season and we finished seventh in the ACC.....behind Florida State and Clemson. It was only the second time in the history of the Atlantic Coast Conference that we finished with a losing conference record (4-12). But as I lay there in the delivery room preparing to birth my first child, I swear, there was a TV positioned on top of the cabinet and we were watching the Heels beat Dook at home!

I kid you not. My HATT was there on my left leg encouraging me to PUSH, PUSH, COME ON, PUSH and my baby brother was there on my right leg saying things like...."Okay...we are up by three...we have the possession arrow....and THEY HAVE JUST FOULED BRENDAN HAYWOOD!" In all honesty, I don't remember if it was Brendan Haywood. It may have been Joseph Forte or Jason Capel. I was busy giving birth. But I do remember that we won the game 85 to 83 and it saved Matt Doherty's job for another year...all while I was pushing out my child's giant head!

As soon as we got past the head, he slipped right out of hiding and they held my wondrous miracle up for me to admire. His dad was crying as he cut the umbilical cord. My mom was circling like a buzzard, waiting to get her hands on MY baby and my brother had tears in his eyes because we had just beaten Dook at home (just kidding, Uncle B!) It was at this moment that I learned parenting lesson number three:  Boy babies will pee on you if you don't cover up their private parts! Literally, I gave my child the gift of life and when he saw me for the first time he peed all over me! Immediately, I laughed out loud, told my mom to back off and sent my brother to find me a grilled cheese sandwich. Even without the instruction booklet, I knew that raising this Miracle was going to require something stronger than popsicles and ice chips!

And so, today marks ten years since the day Jackson Robert Miller made his appearance on Groundhog Day. In the years since he arrived, we have weathered harsh winters and hoped for early springs and every day he makes me confront my shadows. So each year when we eat the cake and sing the song and celebrate his "First Day on Earth Day", I am mindful to take a moment to breathe in gratitude....and breathe out peace.