Two Years Ago..

Two years ago, right at this moment, Mike and I had just finished shaving my legs. Yup - you read that right. I hadn't shaved them since May, and my labor was going to be induced at 6am, so we were at his parents' house (it was about 3 blocks from the hospital) shaving my legs. Can I just tell you how completely disgusting it is - wait a minute, you guys have kids. You know how disgusting it is.

My last meal before I became a mother? Ribs, macaroni casserole, peach pie and butter brickle ice cream. My father-in-law shared that meal with me at his kitchen table at 11pm.. I couldn't eat after midnight.

My mother-in-law woke us at 5:30am. She and my father-in-law would be meeting us at the hospital at 7:00.

We were so scared, we couldn't even look at each other. We tossed our overnight bag in the car and drove silently to the hospital. When they finally got me checked in and hooked up the IV, we chilled out a little bit.. there was just this understanding that our whole world was about to change.

I love remembering that day. I still can't believe all the people we had crammed into that maternity ward. The last time my dad and my mom's boyfriend were in the same room was the night he came home and found them in bed together. Little awkward to be sitting in the waiting room together while I was having a baby, but they worked it out. It was awesome.

My mother managed to put aside her jealousy of the woman I very fondly refer to as my "adopted mother" long enough for all of us to form a "birthing team." She wasn't even upset when she had to let the "other grandma" hold Zion.

Our nurse, Kim, kept murmuring things in my ear like, "Should I go ahead and have security on standby?" and "Do I need to make a new rule that we can only have one person in the room? It can be my fault, if you want.."

It still amazes me that everything went as smoothly as it did. The room next to us housed a couple that we had teamed up with in our childbirth classes, and they lost their baby the day we had Zion. My sister, who had participated in the classes with us, tried to go talk to them, but they wouldn't see anyone..

Sad day, happy day, exhausting day, but at 3:40 in the afternoon, I met my son for the first time, and I got my first glimpse of the wonderful father Mike would be.

Happy Birthday, Z-man.