It’s likely my life was saved by my obstetrician. There I was, heading blithely to his office for my regular check up–weekly now. I was wearing my favorite blue linen maternity pants, even though it wasn’t quite warm enough for them. It was my first official day of leave from work. A Tuesday. I was looking forward to a few weeks at home. Folding onesies, reading baby books, finally settling on a name for our son.

Seven words—and my doctor’s eyes fixed on mine—changed my life forever: “You’re going to have this baby today.”

These were the days before Sweetie and I had cell phones. Also in the days when he worked two hours away. And so I found myself hunched over the doctor’s office telephone, frantically dialing Sweetie’s work number. I had to leave him a message. And then I had to get myself to the hospital. I was not to stop home for anything. No overnight bag. Nothing I might have planned to bring with me for this life-changing event. Ever the procrastinator, I hadn’t packed such a bag yet. I hadn’t even interviewed pediatricians yet. I had at least three weeks ahead of me. I thought.

At the hospital I was quickly taken into a room that was very familiar to me. After suffering hyperemesis gravidarum during the pregnancy and needing regular rehydration, I was a frequent flyer in the birthing center. But this was more serious. I was immediately hooked up to an IV. I was used to the needles by now and barely flinched. But this time the solution wasn’t electrolytes and sugar water. This time it was magnesium sulfate to lower my blood pressure and keep me from fates not anticipated when embarking on the thrills of pregnancy and childbirth. Fates I can’t even bring myself to type here for some irrational fear that I’m still tempting them.

This was more serious. And yet—at the time—I was never afraid. As I think back now I am cautious in what details I remember. And I realize in that ever-insistent hindsight the seriousness of my condition. But at the time, I was cared for so delicately and thoroughly (and I was so medicated) that I handed over my trust and my life and the life of my baby to the professionals most prepared to care for me. It is only now that I see the seriousness in the pairs of eyes examining me and hear the insistent monitors beeping much too loudly at my bedside.

Medically speaking I’ve always been the exception to the rule. As a child Benadryl made me hyper. My migraines answer better to allergy medication than to Triptans. And when my doctor told me, in my magnesium sulfate-stupefied state, that the Cervidil he was so delicately inserting into me would “get things started” slowly, I was woozy enough not to even notice. Until. Until I started having contractions. Or rather, a contraction. A very long, continuous contraction. With no breaks at all. Exit Cervidil.

I remember the darkened room. I remember realizing Sweetie and my mom were there. I remember the nurses, oh the nurses. Every time I looked up another one. I remember insisting on some kind of pain medication, even though I had insisted on having no pain medication. I remember the nurses giving me some kind of narcotics and then the nurses saying that they weren’t working. It’s true, the drugs had no effect. How did the nurses know this? And how is it that in all of the remembering I don’t truly remember the pain?

I remember my doctor coming in periodically, checking my blood pressure, the cuff permanently affixed to my arm. I remember the strict instruction in his kind but firmer-than-usual voice: “Be sure you lie on your left side.” I remember the word seizure. I remember falling asleep. I remember holding my mom’s hand. And Sweetie’s. I remember hearing that the doctor would be back after an emergency C-section and thinking “NO! No C-section.” But he wasn’t talking about me.

At 2:00 a.m., just 15 hours after my original office appointment, my doctor broke my water. At 4:00 a.m. my son was born. Because of all of the magnesium sulfate in my system, I could not see straight. It was days before the double vision went away completely. Because of all of the magnesium in my son’s system, he had to be taken to the nursery and was monitored and given oxygen. His tiny little IV line was pinned to his hand by a huge plastic IV guard. His “cell phone,” we called it.

I didn’t get to see my baby—my not-quite-7-pound baby—for about 12 hours.

This was the longest, most excruciating 12 hours I’ve ever endured.

My life as a mother began with me feeling as though I’d already abandoned my son.

I didn’t tell anyone this. I couldn’t truly pinpoint my emotions exactly. I’d just been through an ordeal. The doctors were still worried about my blood pressure. I was still on magnesium. My blood was being drawn every four hours. My baby was across the hall so very far away. But I was still a patient. We both were.

“He’s a little floppy,” was all I’d heard when he emerged from my body, an empowering and at the same time completely indescribable sensation I will never forget. And I remember wanting to laugh a tiny bit. His in utero name had been “The Flopper.” He had never stopped moving. (Now, more than 7 years since his extraordinary debut, he still hasn’t.) I remember thinking he hadn’t cried yet. Wondering if he was OK. I remember asking Sweetie if this is what he wanted. A son. To be a father. What did I mean?

I remember my mother leaving the room. It hadn’t been her intention to stay for the birth.

I’m so glad she stayed for the birth.

Because of medicine. Because of a regular visit to my OB-GYN. Because of a doctor I trusted implicitly. I am OK. My baby is OK. His birth was not a dramatic one at the time. But when I think back on it. With the distance. With the perspective of having since gone through two very different births—neither medicated and neither with any interventions greater than IV antibiotics—I realize, with a chill, how lucky we were.

I entered my doctor’s office, naive with swollen ankles and my blood pressure dangerously high. I entered my doctor’s office thinking of all the things I would have time to do after the weigh-in and the peeing in a cup. I entered my doctor’s office a woman expecting a baby (in about a month) and in moments I began to think of myself as a mother.

Because of the care and attention from a dedicated, kind, insistent medical staff of nurses and doctors and phlebotomists and all of the others at the hospital who made my food and cleaned my room and generally took care of me and my new family during my pregnancy and my son’s birth I am grateful. And I am also very aware of how much I took for granted that all of them were there to care for me when I needed it. I don’t let myself think about what would have happened if I hadn’t had a routine doctor’s appointment that day. If my pre-eclampsia had gone on too long without medical intervention. I don’t dwell on the circumstances of a birth that wasn’t what I had imagined. How can we imagine a birth? How can we truly plan for one? Every one of my babies came into this world in his or her own way. My son took a little more vigilance. My first daughter was very nearly born without any help from me. My youngest took more coaxing that I had prepared myself for.

All three of my children are unique and healthy and thriving.

All three of my children are the miracles that all children are.

Each of my children is different and each challenges me in different ways daily.

But there is one ever-present similarity. To each I am mommy. And I am grateful for everyone’s part in making that dream come true. Three times over.

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Originally published in October 2011