Before Baby...

It's interesting how all my life I swore I would never have any children. I had two reasons: There was NO WAY I could endure the pain associated with childbirth, and I didn't want to perpetuate the cycle of abuse of the last 2 generations. It was easy to maintain my NO CHILDREN policy for a long time considering I had no one worth having children with, but then came my beloved husband, Mike. We actually knew each other since we were twelve, being sweethearts way back then, but with my family moving away when I was 14 we had no way of foreseeing marriage in our future. We didn't see each other for 11 years and during that time I had even married (BIG mistake) and divorced. Then came my God-provided insight to look Mike up and see what was up in his life. SINGLE! And we managed to pick up right where we left off, only now we were adults and could plan a future. It didn't take long at all. Engaged within 3 months and married by the next year, we went through the Church, had proper counseling and planned it all by following God's plan. The conversation about kids was the tough one, of course. I went from not wanting kids to being open for whatever God had planned for me/us. I continued counseling after the wedding to get through some of my own issues, hoping to get our new life off on the right foot. We decided that we wanted to make sure we were financially stable before we considered children and we also wanted to spend some time together first, so I had some time. Then it occurred to me that if we were going to have children that I wanted to start before I was 30...Nothing like being mistaken for a grandparent and not the parent :(. So there it was, the conscious decision to start trying for a baby, after 3 years of blissful marriage. My career was moving right along and Mike was doing well too, so we weren't sure what God had planned. It took over a year and we were starting to think children weren't in the plans. During all this time, we had many a conversation about parenting. Like that I was sure that when kids came that I was going to stop working if I could so that I could parent my own child, not pay someone else to do it for me. Not that I have anything against working families and kids who go to daycare. Just the contrary; all families have to do what is necessary to provide a suitable home and all that the children need, and for many that means two working parents. I also have HUGE respect for single parents, now that I know the truth about being a parent myself. Anyway, I digress...
Just when we were about to give up on trying for a baby, it happened. Out of the blue, really...but that made it even more exciting. Everyone was SO excited, especially my parents who had no grandchildren yet. This would be their first. So we told people and finalized name choices for male/female until we could learn the gender and start addressing him by name. The pregnancy news led to house hunting so we would have room for baby and all the new things he would bring. That is a whole separate blog itself, I won't even get started. Let's just say we found a house in the nick of time and moved in just before snow fell. My due date: January 3rd. As the holidays approached, I got the news that I had gestational diabetes. Already things were going so smoothly (sarcasm here)! Now what was I going to eat for Thanksgiving and Christmas if I had such a limited diet?! Anyone who said you could eat whatever you wanted when you are pregnant LIED...It' just the opposite; you REALLY have to be careful what you eat because many things can be dangerous for the baby growing inside. So the rest of the pregnancy I had to monitor my diet and do finger prick tests 4 times a day and report the results at weekly Dr appointments. By now I was very pregnant but still working 40+ hours per week, and getting the time off for Dr appointments was going to start getting difficult.
Thankfully, we got through the holidays with no labor, no false alarms, and no further complications. Then came my Dr appointment just before my due date. The decision: Induction. They didn't want me going beyond my due date because of the GD just in case the baby grew too large for regular delivery. So the date was set and plans were made. My little boy would have a birthday of January 4th, 2010.