B-Day

It's odd to know when your child will be born.

DH and I were informed several weeks ago that apparently our son may have a long career ahead of him as a defensive lineman. At 36 weeks, he was guesstimated to weigh 9 lbs, 9 oz. Now, this is all from an ultrasound with a 20% +/- give or take. But we've been told several times now that the kid is BIG.

Our options were to 1) labor naturally, and face the 90% chance that Big Guy's shoulders would get caught in the birth canal. Or 2) go with a C-section straight away. We chose option 2. It was pretty much a no-brainer on our parts because we didn't relish the thought of having our baby's head attached to a bunch of nodes which would be monitoring his stress level through the birth canal. I also didn't want to endure 18 hours of laboring only to be told that I would have to have a C-section anyway. I say, cut to the chase. Let's get this show on the road.

Doula Lorraine was all set to support me through labor and greet the little man upon his arrival. And now it looks like only DH will be allowed in the OR with me for the C-section. So we've made the compromise that Lorraine and Grandma K (DH's mother) will be waiting for us in the post-op room where I have to hang out for an hour or so to stabilize. So Lorraine will get to see him very very soon after he's born. Though some of the glamour will be lost in not being able to watch him appear in this world, I'm terribly glad my dear friend won't be seeing my uterus out on my chest or my internal organs and other whatnots. I mean, I love her to bits, but let's keep some things private, shall we?

And so now we know our son will be born on Monday, August 27 at approximately 4:10pm PST. How strange it is, knowing when he'll arrive. Knowing that it only takes about ten minutes to deliver a baby via C-section, but it takes another 45 minutes or so to reconstruct my abdominal bits.

August 27 is the feast day of Saint Joseph Calasanctius, a Spanish priest who founded several public schools throughout Europe and founder of the Order of Piarists. If I were a true, old-school Catholic, I would be naming my son for his patron saint, Joseph. But I'm not so old-school in my Catholicism, and instead I'll be naming my son for my maternal grandfather. Or I could do as my Spanish grandmother did with my father: I could heap my son with every important saint's name in the book...my father's full name was Roberto Antonio José Luna Brown. (And the gringo name at the end...Brown...doesn't that round out the whole Spanish theme so nicely?)

My son's birth day will be August 27. I have to start getting used to that...it's going to be a life-altering day.