World Moms Blog team has been throwing out some amazing Saturday Sidebar Questions lately. Last weekend, I couldn’t participate because it asked about when you first met your husband/spouse/lover. Since I am a single mom and currently doesn’t have any of the three – don’t even let me get started about my love life or the lack thereof! – I skipped but truly enjoyed reading these unique world love stories.

I know I’ve written about the day Lil’ A was born before. The craziness, the stress, the dutifully written birth story.

But since this week we’re being asked “How did you feel when you held your baby for the first time?” I knew I haven’t really explore the emotional side of it in my previous birth story posts.

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PS: This is gonna be long…considered yourself warned.

So let’s get emotional shall we?

First off, if you’re new here – thank you by the way! – I am a worry wart woman. So when Mr. X and I found out I was diagnosed with a severe preeclampsia at my 30^th week of pregnancy, I started to worry. Heck, I was already a ball of walking worry wart the moment I found out that pregnancy test didn’t lie!

Having your first pregnancy so far away from families and friends only spiked up my worry meter.

Then came the diagnosis.

The scare…the horror…

“If we can’t get your blood pressure lower, we will have to send you to Birmingham for an emergency c-section.” My then doctor said and I rallied through the phone to my family and friends to pray and pray hard for us and that baby inside me. When they found out about this I was immediately admitted to the hospital for 3 days.

It’s too early! I prayed, I begged, I cried to keep my baby inside me longer.

Three days later after two steroid shots on my behind to prepare the baby INCASE I have to go to Birmingham, I was released to a colder Alabama weather. Winter was in the air.

We switched Doctor as that new doctor won me over on his visit to checked on me while my first doctor was away on the second day after my shocking hospitalization. He convinced me that if I follow what he says, we may be lucky enough to bake that little nugget longer.

Part of the orders? Complete bed rest! He didn’t exactly say how long it was going to be as they closely monitored me and my blood pressure. I went in for ultrasound and bunch of tests twice a week during those times. Good thing about that was I got to see Lil’ A on the screen and listen to his thumping heartbeats so much.

Being bed ridden was absolutely hard. I got so bored!

Then on that cold Thursday morning of December 7, 2006…what I thought was just another check-up for the second time of that week, exactly on my 35^th weeks my good doctor said it’s time.

My blood pressure has went up the roof and complications are lurking like a dark evil ghost that can show up at anytime jeopardize Lil’ A life and mine. The stake was too high.

“You will be ok. Your baby will fine.” The good doctor squeezed my hand as tears started running down my face in his office after I realized it wasn’t a dream. I will meet this baby soon…the baby that we still not sure what to name for.

My C-section was scheduled for 5:00 PM that day. When asked if I want to go home or stay, I quickly said I’d like to go home. They let me go with tons of advice.

I remember cradling and speaking softly to my bump…”Please be ok, pumpkin. Please be fine…” as I sat in the car on our way home.

Mr. X and I got back to the hospital at 4:00 PM and I was quickly strap down in bed with heartbeat monitor around my belly, IV running into my vein. Was told to lay on my right side in hope to lower my wacky blood pressure. I was so scared, my minds were filled with a million thoughts at once. I wished my mother was there!

A little before 5, the crew came and wheeled my bed out to the Operating Room.The worst part was when I was told to lean on one nurse, both hands holding her shoulder (I think I might crushed it a bit with how hard I was holding her) to welcome the epidural on my spine. That hurts like hell!

Lil’ A was born at 5:45 PM…

I only got a glimpse of him as I fought hard not to throw up while the good doctor was still stitching me up. I couldn’t even touch him.

And they whisked him away with Mr. X following behind.

Everything was pretty much a blur that night. I remember after I was back in the room, one nurse came in with this big breast pump machine. She pushed a button and my bed arched up. “If you want to breastfeed your baby, you better start pumping or else your body will think the baby died and your milk will dry out.”

That machine was a bitch!

I started pumping even before I got to see my baby or even hold him.

“Can you wiggle your toes?” asked another nurse at only God knows what time. I still felt numb from the waist down and I had this itch that drove me insane which I later found out a ‘mild’ side effect of the epidural.

“Once you can wiggle your toes we can take you to see your son.” That nurse smiled at me as I barked order to my toes in my head, ordering them to move. I couldn’t feel a thing!

Mr. X said it wasn’t until almost midnight that they finally pushed my bed to the NICU.

Nothing can prepare me for what I was about to see inside that sterile room.

There he was…a tiny little baby that look like a weird astronaut with oxygen hood around his head and wires, lots of them poking his frail little body. He was sleeping and I broke down.

That’s not how it suppose to be! That’s not how you suppose to see your baby after they were born. That’s not what Discovery Channel and TLC channel shows.

My heart was so full of love all at once but it also shattered to pieces. That’s my baby, laying there with beeping machines surrounding him and those wires?! It took all the strength inside me not to jump down the bed and pick him up.

I sobbed…

Every inch of my being wanted to pick him up, to hold him…to kiss him. But instead, I lay there helpless right next to him in my own bed. I could only touch his hand. Those tiny five little fingers fit and held my one finger and I spiraled down to a hot mess.

All the things that the doctors explained was a blurry, what the good kind hearted nurses said sounds like they’re talking in Martians.

I just wanted to hold him…

Secretly anger was boiling inside me. I felt like my own body betrayed me. It made me so sick. That promised of natural child birth that I pictured myself getting was shattered. I never even get to feel what contractions feels like. I was bitter but kept it to myself. Even Mr. X didn’t know about how I really felt. All he knew was I cried oh so much.

Three days later…yes, 3 friggin days passed by before the nurse finally told me I can hold him!

It was magical…

The nurse pulled a rocking chair for me to sit on next to his bed in NICU. She carefully picked Lil’ A up and placed his tiny body on my trembling hands. She turned off the heart monitor and God knows what other machines attached to my poor little baby and there he is…My heart burst from so much love.

“Hi baby…I’ve been waiting for you!” I softly whispered as tears started falling down.

The nurse left us alone. Mr. X took pictures. I was swollen, puffy and looked like shit but I couldn’t be happier for that long awaited moment.

The moment Lil’ A opened his eyes and our eyes locked, the whole room disappeared. The beeping machines from other babies evaporated. It was just me and my baby…three days after he was born.

Holding him there, rocking slowly I knew he had hold my whole heart the moment his tiny fingers wrapped around my pinky.

How did you feel when you first time held your baby? Come share with World Moms Blog too.