The day I became a mother

It's been a while since I've written. I do realize I'm not the best writer. I'm not even the millionth best writer but it feels great to put it all down on paper.

Twenty-one months ago, my son Mason was born. He came out the most beautiful, perfect, shining, crying, adorable, stellar, amazing human baby of all time! Haha, well, at least that's what I thought. Isn't that what we all think about our children when they're born? Words truly can't describe the wonderful, spiritual moment of giving life to a baby.

But before the wonderful, amazing part, there was pain, lots and lots of pain. I decided when I was pregnant to have a natural birth, aka no epidural or other pain meds, no nothin'.
I also, impatiently, decided to drink a little castor oil to help kick start my labor because the due date came and went. Although, it did "work" because my labor started that night, I regret taking it and I don't recommend it. I feel like this might have contributed to my painful, weird, all over the place contractions I was having for the first several hours. I've since read that caster oil can cause more intense contractions than natural ones.

That night, I tried to get as much sleep as possible, maybe three hours? We left for the hospital around 7:00 a.m. On the way, a bald eagle soared across the open sky, right in front of us and I instantly knew it was a good sign and everything was going to be okay.

When I arrived at the hospital I was 5 cm dilated. As soon as I got a room, I went straight to the tub. Wow, what a difference it made! The pain almost went away completely as I relaxed and zoned out. About an hour later the pain was back with a vengeance and there was nothing I or the tub could do to change it. The nurse had me get out to check me. I was officially at 10 cm dilated! Wow, I was already there but didn't feel the urge to push so she told me to listen to my body and wait.

About an hour later, I was ready and my awesome midwife arrived and guided me on the pushing.
About 20 minutes if pushing time later, at 12:25 p.m, December 8th 2011, my little, perfect man, John Mason Caceres was born in all his gloriousness. That was the day that I became a mother.

Our Love Story and My Pregnancy Thus Far

Well, it all started when me and my ex fiance Juan, got back together. I couldn't have been happier! He is seriously my first and only true love. We had dated from 2006 to 2009. Finally, my life is complete again! Okay, so the one tiny problem is... he's in the Navy. He was stationed in Norfolk, Virginia and I was living in Gainesville, Florida when he first visited me again after about two years of not seeing each other. Everything that was missing in my life was fulfilled and then some! We immediately knew we were back together and engaged again. We had to continue our relationship through lots of emails, text, and phone calls. I was first able to visit him a couple months later March 17th for about a week. Such a blast hanging with him on the Naval Base. Seeing his lifestyle now and what he had been doing for the past two years. He always knows just how to make me laugh. Just a few weeks later he was able to come to Florida to visit! It was a blast again hanging out. We broke out the instruments and had a jam session and i went and visited his family too. Okay the TMI part... I noticed I was getting some pregnancy symptoms. My boobs were so sore and I was pretty emotional about him leaving again. I remember saying "If I don't start soon I might be pregnant or something". Well, about a week later i still hadn't started and so i got daring and i bought a pregnancy test. I was at work and i remember it was a Tuesday. I went to the bathroom, peed on the stick and waited for the three minutes. Thinking "there's no way, there's no way". I looked at the test and there it was, a glorious plus sign. I smiled and laughed, I was so happy. You see, secretly I had been hoping I was knocked up but for some reason i didn't think it could actually happen. I didn't tell anyone for a couple days. I told my sister, Kristin on Friday. I said "It was a plus sign but one of the lines were a little faded so i'm not sure what that means". She said something along the lines of "i'm sure you're pregnant, what else would a plus sign mean"? So the next morning, I took another test, just to make sure. There it was again, and although one line was still faded, it was a definite plus sign. My sister screamed "You're pregnant"! I smiled and said "Yay, I am pregnant". It was more real from that point. Now, I had to tell him. I called Juan and told him that I was pregnant. He seamed pretty excited, we've joked about it before but didn't think it would happen, not this soon. He said "Okay..alright..cool, are you sure"? I said "Yeah, i'm pretty sure, there was a plus sign so..." Then it was time to plan a trip back to Norfolk and get married. I was about seven weeks pregnant when we got married in that Virginia Courthouse. Although, not how i'd always imagined, it was one of the happiest days of my life. A drunk sailor buddy took some wedding photos of us around base and downtown. Fighting my morning sickness, which had lasted all day long since my sixth week, I grinned through the picture taking. Not the most romantic but I did feel beautiful and gosh, did he look handsome in those Dress Blues. We were now officially Husband and Wife. I could definitely get used to that. When our short time together was up, I went back home. My morning sickness from weeks seven through sixteen were pretty terrible, although luckily, I never threw up. Foods of all kinds sounded disgusting. Especially, the foods that are normally my favorite like Mexican, and anything spicy. All I could eat was fruit such as watermelon and sweets like icecream. Even, pickles sounded gross, aren't pregnant women supposed to love pickles? I thought my nausea would never end but then, thankfully and eventually, it did. I was Week Seventeen and I was feeling pretty good. I had some energy, hardly any nausea and I would even dare to say, I felt normal again. I had my second ultrasound that week. I'm for sure already in love with this little alien looking creature. My Midwife said during the ultrasound that she is almost certain it's a boy! My Mom also said she knew it was a boy. Everyone was happy to hear that on his side of the family, as well as mine. My Mother has five granddaughters and zero grand sons, it's definitely time for a boy. That same week my Husband was sent to Japan to be stationed there. I had to write him through Facebook that we are having a little him. Thats same night, or should I say morning, it was about five o'clock a.m. He called me and let me know that he was in Japan and he couldn't read his text or get on the internet. I was so happy to be the one to tell him then that we're having a boy! He said "I knew it, I told you". We had lots of I love yous' and kisses through the phone, then we said our goodbyes. Three weeks later I had my twenty week check up. I was glad to report, he's perfect and he's still a boy. I'm really getting used to this pregnancy thing. I'm now Twenty-six weeks pregnant and truly happy. Feeling my little man move is the most amazing thing! Also, eating all different kinds of food like a "normal person" is awesome. Back to putting hot sauce on everything. Luckily, I've only gotten heartburn about twice thus far. I have also got the baby bump now so even strangers can notice. I'm just so happy to be a Mommy. I know Juan will be an awesome Father. This is just the beginning for us and by no means the end. Just the end of this chapter. <3