What is Love?

I remember just knowing that I was going to have a girl when we found out we were pregnant.  The “knowing” was just there in my mind.  I remember the amazing feeling that came over me the moment that it was confirmed that I was pregnant.  I was thirty five when I found out.  I grew up thinking that I never wanted to GIVE birth.  No way I was going through all that big belly and the pain of child birth.  I was going to adopt!  That thought was still with me at the age of thirty something with one failed marriage behind me and no options in sight.

I made a decision to give myself one last year to find a viable mate with whom to adopt with…….or maybe try to have a baby.  The older I got the more that the idea of giving birth seemed to get better.  Still wanting to adopt as well but perhaps seeing if I could have a child as well.  So I gave myself ONE year to find a partner.  Along came Dennis through an internet search.  We met and things took off from there.  He was the kind of man you could imagine being a dad.  I was hooked.  We were married less than two years after starting to correspond. 

I went off my birth control before we were married.  I knew that with depo it took about a year and a half to get pregnant after stopping.  That was 1998.  By the year 2000 I was getting worried that adopting might be our only option.  No pregnancy yet and news that older women taking depo not being able to conceive being heard.

Then one day in late October of 2000 I was cooking hamburger and was so upset to find out that it smelled bad.  So I threw it out and got another package out.  I started cooking it again.  Dennis got home from work then and I asked him to smell it.  It smelled disgusting to me.  He said not only was that burger fine but so was the stuff in the trash!  I had an odd thought.  I said that my sister always thought meat was bad when she was pregnant.  So Den bought a test the next day on his way home from Toronto and we sat on the edge of the tub waiting for three minutes.  I jumped up at the end and ran to look at the tab:  TWO pink lines!!!!  My hunch had been right!

I called my sister first as we’d been wondering together and then I called Arizona.  Mom answered the phone.  I told her that sorry to say we would need to make some arrangements for the store the following summer because I was going to be doing something that would use up a lot more of my time but it was something that Dennis and I considered important enough to do.  She said, “Well, we will make due no matter what.  We have time to plan.”  I then went on to tell her we would also need to have enough people lined up to cover the entire store during probably the 4^th of July.  Being the busiest holiday, this would not be very easy.

She said “Okay…” at which point I said,  “because I will probably be at the hospital having your next grandchild!”  And I think Mom lost it.  Then I got to turn around and have the same conversation with my Dad who hadn’t heard it.  They were both crying at this point.

I had an amazingly easy pregnancy.  I felt better than I had in a long time…which shocked me. I knew before the ultrasound that I was having a girl and we began the name game! I actually lost over seventy pounds during the whole time and the only glitch I had was finding out I was gestationally diabetic so I ended up giving myself shots for the last two months and being heavily monitored.  I played a lot of diverse music to my tummy and sang and read outloud a lot to the munchkin growing inside me.  I embraced my belly and was extremely happy.

Due to the diabetes, I was induced early, as soon as she was big enough to survive…still at 39 weeks, considered full term.  It was June 27^th so we’d be in the store by the Holiday!  I was induced at 9:30 a.m. and she was born at 6:30 p.m.  All 6 pounds 15 ounces and 21.5 inches of her.  I had an epidural and an amazing painkiller so I was still out of it when she actually arrived.  I remember looking over at her and wondering who the blonde baby belonged to as I had a private birthing room!

After she was checked and wrapped up I assumed that Dennis would bring her to me and I was really ready to meet her.  Instead he whooshed right on by me and out in the hall where all the grandparents were standing, waiting to be introduced.  A few moments later, she was in my arms and I was meeting the child who shared my body for so many months.    The bond was maternal and eternal!  What is love?  This is love!  The magical moment you hold your child in your arms for the first time.  I have never known a fiercer feeling of love than I did at that moment.  It was truly the moment my life changed more than it ever had previously.  Love is the feeling you get when magic appears in your life!  For me that is McKenna Ann Elizabeth!