Jordy

22 Jun 2000 - Jordy
Today is Jordy’s birthday. He is 10 years old. Always on my children’s birthdays I remember the day they were born. I guess all mothers do that, seems pretty natural.
My pregnancies were pretty difficult, not like some women that come near death. But it was harder on me than the “average” pregnancy. Spent several days every month of the pregnancy in bed, and at the end was for the most part incapacitated. So I was really ready for him to be born.
I had just given birth to Hannah 11 months before. I remembered very well what certain things felt like. So on Monday morning when I got up and felt a “leak” I knew what was happening. I went to the doctor’s office. They didn’t examine me other than a BP check and listen to my tummy. They said that because of the baby pressing on my bladder the “leak” was urine. I didn’t think so, but he was the doctor. The leaking continued and I called them on Wednesday. They said no need to come in because I had an appointment on Friday morning. I continued to leak and called again Thursday. Finally Friday morning came and I got to the office. I told this other doctor about the leak. He wasn’t impressed, and repeated the bladder story. I got a little huffy. I said I just had a baby 11 months ago, and I have been familiar with urine and in my opinion it was amniotic fluid. So the doctor told me to get undressed and he would check. He did the litmus test and sure enough it was amniotic fluid. He said you have to go to the hospital right now. I said can’t I drive back home and meet my husband so we could go to the hospital together (the hospital was an hour from our home). Now this is one part that I found amusing, if I hadn’t insisted on the test I would have driven home anyway and if I had left the office and headed for the hospital alone that was going to be all right. But he wouldn’t let me drive home which was a shorter trip than the hospital. Anyway, I ended up having to wait at the office while Calvin came from work and got me.
I started having contractions on the way to the hospital. It had already been decided that I would have a C-section. The C-section was already scheduled for a couple weeks later. So when we got to the hospital we had to re-register. Well, this was 9 months to the day after Hurricane Hugo had hit. After no electricity for more than 2 weeks 9 months earlier there were a lot of babies coming that day. The maternity ward was packed. The children born during that time were dubbed “Hugo Babies”. After a lot of poking and prodding I was taker to the operating room. Jordan Browning Sinclair was born at 3:08 PM. The first thing he did was pee on the doctor. The doctor said, “Here comes the water works.” He weighed 6 pounds and 14 ounces. And had a head full of dark hair.
I don’t know if it is just my makeup or if it is the fact that I had so many painkillers after the wreck but it is hard to put me to sleep or to “deaden” an area on me. So I ended up getting 2 epedurals. Then during the surgery they had to give me phenegrin (which does whack me out). Then got back to the room I had a severe allergic reaction to the epedural so they tried different medicines on that. Finally after 3 different allergies medicines and painkillers the doctor was sure I would go to sleep. As a matter of fact he used the expression “enough to kill a horse”. So about time all this medicine hit my system, they came and told me that Jordy was going to have to go to neo-natal intensive care. Turned out that because I had “leaked” for 5 days they thought he had a very dangerous infection. Well I lost it. I am sure that there had been woman in that hospital that had lost babies that behaved better than I did. I am sure it is because of the drugs. I embarrassed Calvin and scared the doctor. Finally, after me having a fit, the doctor had me wheeled while still in my bed and hooked up to all manner of tubes. He tough seeing Jordy would calm me down. Wrong. Seeing Jordy all hooked up to machines made me worse. So the poor nurses and Calvin had a hard night ahead of them. In my own defense I did calm down once the drugs got out of my system.
After 4 days the tests came back and Jordy was fine. We went home and Jordy has always been very healthy.
We make a big deal out of birthdays here. Calvin takes the day off and the birthday child has a “date” alone with Calvin and me. And they get to spend their birthday money. They we also do something with the other children and normally a few friends or cousins. Today, weather permitting, we are having a pool party.
Happy Birthday Jordy!