Starting Life Upside Down

Part One in a series from my Homesteaders & Homeschoolers group blog topic..."When and Why to Start a Family"

Starting a family is something some girls dream about from childhood.
I was not one of those girls.
I didn't play with dolls.
During my early 20's I would emphatically state that I was NOT going to have kids.
I met my husband and we had a fast courtship (10 months).
After 5 years of hanging out with just him, traveling, enjoying each other's company, it happened.

I was in my early 30's and we were at Ravinia in Highland Park.
An outdoor music venue where you can sit on a blanket, drink beer, eat goat cheese and listen to Lyle Lovett, Elvis Costello, Peter Paul and Mary, or whoever happened to be making music that summer.
I don't remember who we were there to see, but I do remember what Chad said.
A young girl, probably 5 years old, ran by us on the sidewalk.
Chad said "isn't she cute?!"
And at that moment I knew that we needed to have a child.
And I hoped it would be a girl. 
We didn't have to try too hard.
We easily got pregnant (I now think I am one of those ladies that could get pregnant if my man looked at me and I wasn't on birth control.)
Pregnancy was easy, too.
I had an infatuation with Sour Tangerine Altoids.
I would eat them by the tin full.
I didn't get morning sickness (I think I barfed once or twice only at work, much to my co-worker Sarah's disgust!).
I didn't get stretch marks.
My skin looked FABULOUS!
The only issue occurred in the last trimester when Chad said I snored so loudly that he thought the neighbors were going to start complaining and he was forced to sleep in the other room.

Then about three weeks before my due date, I was told by the doctor that she thought this baby girl, still residing firmly up against both my lungs and my bladder, was upside down.
An external version was briefly talked about...briefly because once my OB started talking about trying to turn the baby around from the outside of my belly and that it had to be done in the hospital in case of trauma and they would need to get the baby out stat, I firmly said nope.
So a c-section was scheduled for February 11th.
Great.
Now I had to go back into my baby books and read about c-sections because I had skipped all of those chapters!
We arrived around 11:00 or noon and then proceeded to patiently wait until about 5:00 to go into surgery.
When you have a scheduled c-section you get bumped back when those ladies who are trying to vaginally deliver a baby suddenly can't.
So after the emergency c-sections were taken care of, it was our turn.  
I was getting super hungry since I hadn't eaten anything all day.
It was an easy procedure.
She came out kicking, really she did.
My doctor declared, "she just kicked me!" as she reached in to get her from my uterus.
I thought she sounded like a kitten mewing when she stared crying.
All I knew at that point was cats and dogs.
Now I had a person who sounded like a cat. 
I was beyond overwhelmed that a person had just been pulled out of my body.
And even more overwhelmed when we had to take her home and do this human rearing ourselves.

We named her Zoe.
Zoe is a Greek name that means LIFE.
And she is our life.

We have had to help save her life.

We have had to watch her little body and mind endure so much stress and trauma in this short life she's only begun to live.  

We can't wait to see what her life holds for her.

To be continued...

My interweb group of friends (Homesteaders & Homeschoolers) and I decided to do some posts together.
This month's theme (the rest of April anyway) is about our journey into motherhood.
Check out their stories, too.
Laura
Carla
Melissa