How to Make a Nugget: The Conclusion to the Conculsion.

This is the very end of a very long story about my pregnancy and birth.

You'll find:

Part 1 is here
Part 2 is here
Part 3 is here
Part 4 is here
Part 5 is here

the Finale: "Anthony's Paper Pants"

I was overcome with happiness to be on my way to meet my bebe. I couldn’t wait to find out if he was cute or not (although I knew that he would be). I have no idea how people get to this point and don’t know the sex of the baby. The suspense would kill me.  I would have had the doctor tell me if he was going to be a summer or an autumn if the information had been available to me.  The worst part of it was that for the first time, they took Anthony away from me.  They took him to dress for surgery while they prepped me. I hadn’t realized until that point how much his presence was holding me up emotionally.

It was totally worth it though. Here’s why. Anthony is a serious sort of fellow. He’ll almost never let me make him wear anything goofy. Our first Halloween together I bought him a cape and  vampire fangs to glue to his teeth. Did not happen. This turned out great for me because they gave him a paper outfit that was two sizes two small and a rather smart paper hat. He. Looked. Awesome. It reminded me of a friend’s dad who took us to Rome and had to wear Italian sized paper pants over his American sized legs to waddle around the Vatican because he was wearing shorts.  Just Delightful. Then, Anthony further proceeded to keep my mind of things by bolting into the room like a shot when they gave him the word,  hunching down to put his face directly beside mine lest he should see anything unnerving in the other side of the sheet and pass out in front of everyone. He didn’t move from that spot the whole time, bless his heart. He threw his iphone to the 
anesthesiologist to take a picture when Maxwell finally graced us with his glowing presence.

I made it b&w so it wouldn't gross you out. See how I love my readers?

More after the jump.

I couldn’t see him at first. I just heard a quiet gasp by one of the nurses,

“Oh my God,” she whispered “can you believe that?”  I panicked.

Her sentiment was followed by the Dr. ooohing and ahhing, then finally loudly announcing “He’s HUGE!”

The sentiment quickly echoed around  the group of onlookers.

“Just look at the size of that head!”

“Look at those theighs!”

I was very emotional and started to quickly develop a complex. That was my sweet, little angel they were talking about! How big could he possibly be? He’d been turning summersaults in my abdomen not hours before. Dr. Ryan had estimated earlier in the week that we had a six or seven pound baby on our hands.

Ten. Pounds. Three Ounces. Born at a 17:17 in the evening to the proudest mama in the world. They popped his head over the screen for me to see him for just a single instant.

That was all it took. I wanted to hold him and love him and protect him from every unpleasant thing the world could ever possibly throw at him.

Because I’d been in a lot of  pain during the surgery, the second Max’s umbilical cord was cut, the anesthesiologist, Chad my angel, flooded my veins with something that I’m sure was terribly horrible for my health and made me feel, along with my rush of maternal euphoria, that I was floating on a cloud with my hair looking fantastic.

Tears of joy slid silently down my cheeks as I heard Anthony shouting that Max was completely okay and moments later, I heard the most beautiful music I’ve ever heard as that little boy cried out his protests against the suctioning he was receiving.  I thanked God with all my heart for this amazing blessing. I can’t imagine what it’s like for mothers who don’t get to hear this good news after going through all we go through as mothers. I thought of them in that instant and said a little prayer for their sacrifices as I was laying there getting patched up. Even that day in that very hospital a mother who labored along with me lost a baby. I can’t 
possibly try to dream up a more painful trial for a mother.


From around the sheet my doctor appeared into view, placed his hands on either side of my face and planted a huge kiss on my forehead. "Congratulations!" he said "Are you happy?" I told him I was very happy, and with a wave, he was off. 

The next thing I knew we were all in a recovery room with my aunts, a three-person family where a couple had stood earlier that afternoon. It was amazing. I asked Anthony if he had ever seen anything more beautiful in his entire life. He looked at Max’s sweet little smushed face and said profoundly,  “Umm, I guess not” he muttered while looking at me like I was on drugs because I was.

He passed the baby between my aunts and then turned and handed him to me. It was at this moment that I realized that my arms were not arms but useless slugs that were about to let the baby I’d worked so hard to bring into the world drop to the floor with a splat. I asked Anthony to quickly take Max back before this could happen. He handed the baby to one of the aunts before turning on me with disgust.

“You don’t even care about the baby or want to hold him or anything?”

I didn’t know what to say. I was just blinking at him, confused and wide-eyed. It was then that my aunt explained to him that I was still under heavy drugs and probably just didn’t know what I was saying yet. 

Pretty soon though, my arms returned to their proper function which was the only one really worth anything to me anymore: holding my Nugget.

And the Elmos lived happily ever after. Well as soon as we survived all the crazy night nurses and the blackout that had us attaching glow sticks to the baby so that we could keep track of him in the following days. But that’s another story for another time.

The End.

Part 1 is here
Part 2 is here
Part 3 is here
Part 4 is here
Part 5 is here
Part 6 is here