"not her birthday"

Steve's schedule comes out around the 20th of the month.  So, around June 20th I realized that Steve was going to miss CC's first birthday.  This hit me pretty hard.  He misses holidays all the time, and parties all the time...I can handle that.  But, not her birthday...this really effected me.

So, before he left for his trip we had our own little celebration - just the four of us and some delicious cupcakes.  We sang happy birthday and that was that.  As a side, Steve and his pilot group are in the middle of contract negotiations right now.  Some of the pilots are wearing these bracelets which mean "Fed Up Pay Me"...I hate hate hate that this is now forever in our log of memories.  I mean, I can see him wearing the thing at work in uniform, but not at home.  Oh well.

Happy Birthday my sweet baby girl!

I shouldn't complain all that much, I suppose.  Steve was there for her delivery, and for that I am very thankful.  I do know someone whose husband was at 30,000 feet when his son was born, so yes pilots do miss the delivery of their children.  Steve started FMLA on July 9th, I think.  So, he "wasted" only 2 days, which isn't so bad.  I woke up around 3:30am with mild contractions.  I went onto the computer, but quickly realized that things were moving fast.  At 4am I woke Steve up.  "How far apart are the contractions," he asked.  When I told him "two minutes apart" he sprung up from the bed so quickly I was shocked (getting him out of bed in the morning is NOT an easy job).  Steve called his parents, who live 2 hours away, and they got in the car to come up to watch Ben.  When I was in the shower I realized that things were coming really fast...I got out, got dressed and told Steve he needed to call the neighbor to tell them to come over to watch Ben.  We did not have time to wait on his parents and we needed to leave.

Our neighbor came over, we left, I called my mom at 5:25am and told her we were on our way to the hospital.  The drive took about 40 minutes - thank God it was an early Sunday morning and no one was on the road.  We arrived at the hospital at 6am.  I wanted to be strong, and as I did with Ben, I wanted to walk myself into L&D.  Well, as we were waiting for the elevator I had a contraction so powerful it almost made me fall to my knees.  Steve rushed to get a wheelchair...and the rest is a blur.

As he was pushing me around, knocking me into walls at times, I was in such extreme pain that all I could do was keep my eyes shut and try to breath.  Once we got to the 4th floor the sleepy nurses sprung into action...they knew it was business time the second they saw me!  We got into the delivery room, asked me to empty my bladder and get into a gown.  Well, that wasn't going to happen.  I heard this over and over: once it is time to push it is like having the urge to have a bowel movement.  Well, I felt the urge and screamed to the nurses.  They rushed me to the bed...I was completely dilated and the baby was nearly out.  I was barely hooked up to an IV, they didn't even have any belly monitors on me...and the pushing began.  I don't know how many pushes it took (maybe two), and before I knew it Cecilia Wanda entered the world at 6:24am...a mere 24 minutes after we arrived...a mere 3 hours after my contractions started.  I will also add that this was a drug-free delivery.  Not my choice, either.  I had an epidural with Ben and would do that any day over drug free.  Cecilia's delivery was so out of control that when she came out and they yelled "it's a girl" (we didn't find out the sex before hand) I didn't even care.  I just needed to process all the pain I just went through. 

Our sweet baby girl, and she was worth every second of pain:

And where was Steve in this whole process?  Not sure.  Like I said before, I had my eyes shut most of the time.  At one point I heard  this directed towards Steve, "are you feeling okay?" and he said "no, not really".  So, they took him over to the couch - maybe made him drink juice or put his head between he legs - not sure...I didn't care.  To defend Steve, he isn't used to seeing what he was seeing.  I was in EXTREME pain, and he hated to see me that way.  Everything was happening so quickly.  It was all very overwhelming to him.  When he gathered himself he came over to the bedside.  On my right side I could hear Nurse Lydia cheering me on, and Steve was silent.  Again, I think he was just overwhelmed with everything. 

I also want to mention how we came to decide Cecilia's name.  We had a boy name picked out - that was easy.  But, we could not agree on a girl name.  My #1 is perfect and wonderful and I love it - still do.  But, Steve didn't like it.  His #1 name is, what I call, the Honda Accord of names.  It is a good name, a solid name, nothing is wrong with the name - but, it does nothing for me...it is kind of boring.  Cecilia was both our #2 name and so we went with it.  The name translates into Polish, which is great!  Also, St. Cecilia is the patron saint of music and I already think that Cecilia is already demonstrating her love for music with her singing (ba ba black sheep is her newest) and her dancing, so it is very fitting.

When Lydia asked about names I looked into Steve's eyes and said  my #1 name and he looked back at me with no reaction.  I knew he didn't want the name, but since I just went through a drug free labor and delivery I would try one last time.  No go.  So, Cecilia it is!  Wanda was a natural middle name since I felt an extreme connection to my beloved Grandmother from the day I took a positive pregnancy test, which happened to be day she passed six years previous.  It came to no surprise that Cecilia was born on July 12th, as 12 is this reoccurring number.  My Grandmother's birthday is May 12, her death day is November 12.  Cecilia was in the hospital at 4 weeks with viral meningitis and when I realized that her room number was 0712 (again her birthday is 7-12) I nearly burst into tears, since it was a sign that my Grandmother was watching down on us and was telling me that she was going to be okay.

So, that is her birth story.  Ben's birthday is August 6th, and I am sure I will give his birth story.  Steve was actually on day 3 of a 4-day, so Ben's story is actually quite exciting.