It's been fourteen years and yet I don't think I can ever think about the day after Christmas and not remember the way I woke up at 5am to my water breaking and fearing that a) my second baby was ready to come WAY too early since I wasn't due until February 1st; and b) Holy Shit I am going to have a Christmas baby!
The year was 1997 and we had made the decision to not travel on Christmas day...like we did in the past...to the orange county area to celebrate with Larry's family. I was way pregnant and not in the mood to be in a smoky room and a drive that took hours, one way, with traffic.
So we spent the day at my parents house and I remember feeling bloated and awful and did a lot of sitting with my feet up. I woke up the next morning, surprisingly, to my water breaking.
Little did I know at the time that I wasn't going to have a Christmas baby (well, day after, technically) because I was destined to sit in a hospital bed for a week while I waited for my little baby to develop a wee bit more and then was induced the day after the new year began.
I still remember that hospital in Oceanside and the pointsettia plant one of the nurses brought into my room. I read books, watched television, wrote in my journal, dealt with tacky doctors and mean nurses, and waited. Ate Mexican food that a friend brought me on New Years Eve as Larry and I watched Dick Clark and played cards in a hospital room while Josh was with my parents.
Now my baby boy is about to turn fourteen in a week. I love that boy to pieces! I remember when I first laid eyes on him after a full day of induced labor and three hours of pushing...it was like the sun came out after the rain and the rainbow glistened in my room as tiny angels scattered gold flake kisses. I was in love!
The day after Christmas will always bring this memory of Harrison back to me!
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