How I Wished I Had Paid Better Attention...

The date is Oct 26 and the day is a Wednesday (I only know that because I did keep a journal of my pregnancy and I have had to refer to it, although most of this all from memory) I woke up feeling yucky as usual. I laid in bed patiently waiting for my stomach to settle enough so that I could take my shower and get ready for school. I had a big test on Friday in World History that I had spent a lot of time studying for. Also I had spent some time the night before rearranging my room so that we could begin to find a place for the baby stuff that we were going to need. I was not really worried about passing the test because I loved History, I was more worried about making it through the class. (Darn that stupid school cafeteria.) Anyway, I laid in bed and my stomach stopped rolling long enough for me to make it to the bathroom. As most of you that have been pregnant know peeing was always the top priority in the AM. So I begin to lower my panties and sheer terror strikes. There is blood in my panties, I sit to pee and there is more blood when I wipe. By that point I am scared to death that I am having a miscarriage. I holler to my mom to come into the bathroom, the moment she walked in her face went white. She went running for the phone, to call the doctor. All I could do was pray, beg, and plead with God not to take my baby. Telling God that I knew I had no business getting pregnant at my age, but to please not to take that out on my baby. It isn't the baby's fault. I promise you, God, if you don't take my baby I will be the best mommy I can to him/her, and I will always put this baby's wants and needs first. (Amazing how those words spoken at such a heartwrenching moment can come back to haunt you when you must decide what is truly best for your baby.) Just please don't let my baby die. Those were the prayers and bargains that I made with God that day.

My mom was told to bring me to Dr Siegel's office right away. So off we went to find out what was happening. I was shocked because there was no sitting in the waiting room, there was no pee in this cup, there was no the doctor will be in shortly. I was immediately taken back to an exam room, told to remove my clothes from the waist down, and put this gown on with the split in the front. My mom was told to let them know as soon as I had the gown on. I undressed as quickly as possible, Mom let them know I was ready, and in flew Dr Siegel. He did an exam said that he is slightly concerned and that he wanted to do a sonogram. So he actually walked with me into the sono room, had me lay on the table, ran the wand over my belly, and said...your baby is going to be okay. (I think that I finally began breathing again at that moment, I didn't even realize I had been holding my breath.) He pointed out Mr Peanut's heart beat, looked at my placental sack, did some measurements, and then gave me the biggest lecture I have ever had once I told him that I had been moving furniture around the night before.

That is the very moment that I realized I wasn't invincible and my baby certainly wasn't either. Placenta Previa, the 2 words I paid no attention to 2 weeks before, had come back to haunt me. Apparently with placenta previa you shouldn't be doing any lifting, tugging, or pulling. I did not understand how very dangerous it could be to my baby, nor did I pay that close attention at my last doctor's visit to what Dr Siegel had to say about it. I was 17 I could barely say it let alone comprehend what could happen because of it. I learned several very important lessons that day:

1. I was only 17 but I had made an adult choice to have a baby, it was time for me to take it seriously, I was no longer afforded the ability to put myself first. (It was then I understood my mom's tears over my lost childhood)

2. Not only was I pregnant at 17 but I also found myself facing a potentially life threatening situation to my baby in my pregnancy.

3. I wanted my baby more than I had ever wanted anything else in this world.

4. I needed to listen to my doctor he does know what he is doing and saying.

5. I was only 17 and even though I thought I had memorized those books on pregnancy, I hadn't. So I needed to spend more time learning what to do, what not to do, and what to expect.

6. Most importantly...If I needed Dr Siegel for an emergency, he wasn't going to keep me waiting.

After the lecture, and my promises to take it easy. I was told to go home, put my feet up, and stay in bed for the next 2 days. But wait...I thought. I have a test at school, Friday night is a football game, and I had plans with Doug and his family on Saturday night. (Notice how quickly lesson #1 went by the wayside!) My mom told me that none of that mattered, if I didn't want to lose my baby I had no other options. So home is exactly where she took, and home is where she made me stay until Monday morning when I was finally allowed to go back to school.

Tina, my dearest sweetest friend, came over and sat with me. We played games, we talked, we gossipped, and we watched TV. Each time she had to leave to go home, to school, or work I was felt feeling so incredibly alone. I was (and still am) such a social person and to be cut off from the rest of the world was not my idea of fun. When Tina was in school, and my mom was at work is when I would really begin to think about my baby. How small it was , how much further I had to go, how much I loved my baby, and how very much I wanted my baby to arrive healthy. Sometimes I would cry from the emotion of it all (or the hormones, whichever), it really was very overwhelming for me at 17. But I also began to realize that weekend that even though I was cooped up in the house with no social life at all, I never regretted being pregnant with my baby.

This was the weekend that I finally allowed myself to really begin to dream. To dream about what my baby would look like, what his/her personality would be like, how much I wanted to be the best mommy ever, how he/she would love me with a fierce undying love because I was her mommy, and how I would watch her grow and find her way in the world. I finally knew it what meant to love someone more than I loved myself, I finally knew what it meant to put the needs of your child first, and I finally knew that come Hell or high water I could do this...I could be the best mommy possible to my baby. It hit me with a ton of bricks but I knew in those quiet moments I was alone and it was just my baby and I, that there was nothing I wouldn't do for him/her. That if I had to lay down my life for him/her that was exactly what I was prepared to do. That I wanted my baby to know what it meant to be able to count on his/her mommy to be there for him/her always. (Yes looking back these hopes and dreams I had have hurt a lot when I realize that I allowed someone else to do it for me.)

So still with 6 1/2 months of my pregnancy left I became my baby's mommy, and I shed what was left of my own childhood...for no one other than my baby.