Bee's story isn't quite so wonderful and it starts out a little bit rocky. Where I had to wait several years for Maggie, Beatrice was a surprise. I know, she shouldn't have been, I mean we know how babies are made, we had one, and yet I was rather convinced that we'd have to go through the same waiting and trying before Maggie would have siblings. I was nursing her full time and completely immersed in the little walking, barely talking person she was and Rob was saying, "You know, we might want to think about this" and I was saying "I'm not going to get pregnant that easily" and then I was pregnant. I was very unhappy about it and I actually didn't get too excited about the pregnancy until at 20 weeks we found out that this baby was also a little girl. This was a good thing because I'd practically set my mind that if it was a boy I'd give it away! (I know, horrible!) If I had to have another baby so soon, it had to be a girl because I had all girl's things and the only other bedroom in the house was Maggie's and it was already pink and boys are rowdy and obnoxious and I don't want any boys ever!! I said these things in jest, but there was certainly a grain of truth to them. Once I found out that the Lord had been overly kind to me and that she was a little girl, I began to accept the pregnancy and get excited.
What a change - two years earlier I would have taken any baby offered and now I was shocked and resentful that another one was being offered to me! I truly know what a fickle ridiculous person I am.
Well, Beatrice Elaine was due on March 5th, but because Maggie was born on a Holiday, I told everyone she would be born on Valentine's Day. I unpacked and washed or tidied all of the newborn baby stuff, we moved Maggie (Unwillingly on her and my part) to her own bed, we introduced her to the potty, and I accidentally weened her. (Once we moved her to her bed and I weaned her at night, then one day I realized it had been a couple of days since she nursed during the day. She was 18 months old and she'd had enough. If she couldn't nurse all night long, she just wasn't going to nurse at all!) The pregnancy went well, though I got bigger much faster, and I didn't have gestational diabetes this time like I had with my first pregnancy - and I'd even carbo loaded the weekend before my GD test, eating doughnuts and cookies because I was sure they'd be called off my diet for the next few months, so I knew that I really didn't have it - and I remember being slow and tired and trying really really hard to hang onto the "mama of only one child" thing.
On Monday, February 13th, Rob and I randomly decided to beat the Valentine's Day rush and go out to dinner. We went to the Newell House and I ordered a steak, wrapped in bacon with a crab sauce and asparagus. It was as close to heavenly as a meal can get. I stuffed myself. I'm pretty sure we even had desert and Rob had two martinis because they make them so well and we were enjoying ourselves so much, and I was a designated driver if there ever was one. We picked up Maggie from Grandma's house and she and Rob laid down in her little twin bed. Usually this was how we were getting her to fall asleep, then she'd sleep through the night, but Rob fell deeply asleep, too. So I went next door to spend some time with all of his sisters who were making truffles. I felt great. I was full of exquisite food. I was surrounded by women folk. I was in the tail end of my pregnancy. They joked that I said I was going to have the baby on Valentine's Day and I joked that I was still planning on it. We joked about that. I went home and went to bed.
And at 1 o'clock in the morning, I woke up with a jolt. I jumped out of bed and stood there a little confused and already feeling the adrenaline filling my veins. My water broke. That didn't happen last time until I was safely on the delivery bed. There were several still moments where the water spilled and I had a very long, in depth conversation with myself about what was going to happen. Finally, I thought, well there haven't been any contractions yet. And at that moment they hit. I went to the bathroom and got a towel because I didn't know what that amniotic fluid would do the the wooden floors in our bedroom (!!!) and once they were dry enough, I woke up Rob. This time the bag was packed, we knew the way to the hospital, and the only thing we had to do was wake up Grandma to come get Maggie. Well, and I had to put on dry sweats. I was working through the contractions and vaguely listening to Rob on the phone with his mom. He said, "Okay, we'll meet you at SilkWorm," (his parents live down the road behind that building in rural Murphysboro and we lived in Murphysboro) and I vehemently shook my head and said, "No, meet us there." He got Maggie in the car and that's the last time I remember her, though she was with us right up to the delivery room, in her fuzzy yellow footed pajamas. We parked at the wrong entrance to the hospital and had to walk quite a ways, taking up valuable time, dealing with the contractions as they came, Rob carrying a sleepy confused Maggie, and me pulled inward with transition. The ER folks had me sit down in the wheel chair, which I was able to do and they got us pretty quickly upstairs. Once in the room, I had a persnickety nurse who wouldn't let me stay in the hands and knees position. She hadn't ever had a woman do that before and I told her, briefly, "Don't check me, I'm going to push!!!!!" She made me lie down anyway and checked. Yep, a ten - why didn't she listen to me?? She got Dr. Gates, who was on call that night. I kept telling them I was going to push and they kept telling me not yet. And I'm thinking "to heck with you, I'm going to have this baby". But then something wonderful happened. That nurse left and a friend from church, who happened to be an L&D nurse came in. She was so happy to see me, I remember she gave me a hug and I thought, "Oh, that's nice, Hi, Debbie, please move so I can have this baby, I don't want a hug." It's funny the way your mind is so focused during labor, and yet you have these huge conversations with yourself. Dr. Gates was there, Debbie was there, and Lynne had just whisked Maggie away to the hallway and finally they let me push. Dr. Gates put gloves on my husband (the one who'd been rudely awakened less than 45 minutes ago and had had two martini's at dinner) and got him in position to catch little Beatrice. The nurses all reminded me to push while breathing out like blowing out a candle and a moment later she was born. And she was completely blue. They very quickly moved her over to the warming bed and every one in the room got very tense, except for me. I was in that blissful rush and a blue baby wan't going to change that. A moment later she began to cry and the nurses all realized that she was so blue because she was quite bruised by her quick entrance into this world. They called her birth at 1:57. Exactly 57 minutes after my water had broken with no other signs of labor. (These are my greatest bragging rights of my whole life: I can birth a baby in under an hour!!)
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