my very own baby boy

To this very day, in this very hour, Bradley William Summers decided to grace us with his presence. Well, more like the decision was made for him. I guess he really liked his warm and cushy home; he wasn't going to leave it anytime soon. It was a week before his due date and he had yet to descend and engage. A quick ultrasound later confirmed our fears: Will was not just stuck, he was just anywhere other than where he should be. My midwife and my doctor suggested we plan for a C-section. This came as quite the blow, seeing as I'd been setting myself up for a natural birth... needless to say, many tears were shed and prayers were said.

Two days later I showed up at the hospital. I had come to grips with it and was ready for my baby. The nurses strapped me up to the machines and started giving me grief because Will had decided to be head down that morning. So there I was, a half hour from being spiked and sliced, and I'm told that I'm making the wrong decision! You have no idea the kind of roller-coaster I was on; natural birth, C-section, back to natural birth?! I was probably hyperventilating. I decided to wait for my midwife and ignore the nurses. She came in and measured me, thoroughly. Apparently all the angles of my bones in that relative area were too small. Will had a less than 50% chance of making it out through my natural doorway. More tears and more prayers. We made our decision, chatted with Mom (so glad she was there, whew) and Adam (who was on his mission, recovering from a surgery of his own), waited for the doctor, and glared at the nurses.

My team of experts (minus the nurses) was a dream. I loved my supportive midwife, my sympathetic doctor and my super friendly anesthesiologist. I'm not going to lie and say that getting a spinal is a walk in the park. No, there would be no walking anytime soon. I was shaking so bad from nerves (I hate surgery and stuff) and I was freezing, but the warmth of the drugs was pretty awesome. But man alive, that first prick... I've never had such a deep and painful ache like that.

So there I was, on the table, about ready to pop, and feeling SO comfortable and warm. Weird. After a few nice words and glances from my dream team, we were all ready to get this party started. Brad gave me reassuring squeezes of the hand and play-by-play remarks throughout the entire surgery. If I wasn't the one on the operating slab I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall...

Fifteen minutes later, Will came out, feet first, crying and peeing like there was no tomorrow! On a side note, yesterday was the very first day he peed on me! I had such a great track record up until that point, sheesh! But I digress. Anyway, he was the most beautiful baby I had ever seen. And boy, was he big! It wasn't quite love at first sight simply because it was so surreal, and the drugs were really starting to work their magic. But I couldn't take my eyes off him and I was just so happy that he arrived here safely and it was all over; our lives together had just started.

And we couldn't be happier. *B