Carson was very much a planned pregnancy. I can clearly remember the conversation about starting a family. Like most of the very serious things I needed to say to my wife, it came up after two or three beers.
Beckham on the other hand was a gift.
The funniest part of Beckham's story has to be the way she told me. As you can imagine, as first time parents we were stressed out of our minds. We were tired, we never got any sleep. Carson had a lot of tummy issues as a baby and he would sleep in bursts. Cyndi and I had to sleep in 4 hour shifts overnight because he was up all night long. Cyndi was still working after Carson, full time, and I swear this two year period aged us 10 years.
Anyway... I got home from work one day and Cyndi had just come in. We were in still in our Hebron house. I remember we had this little 4 person dinner table. Cyndi set Carson in his car seat up on the table and handed me an envelope. I looked at her perplexed. I proceeded to open the envelop and there was a greeting card with a cartoon of a sperm on it. All the card said was "You did it!". I, confused, looked at her as if to say what is this. Then I noticed she had Carson in a onesie that read "Big Brother". At that moment I was truly, totally shocked. I bet I stood there for a good 10 minutes with my mouth open just unable to process anything I was being told. Oh my god, we are going to have another one. Mind you, Carson is only 4 months old.
As the shock and terror of having another child dawned on me, I am sure I stood there a few too many minutes and I probably freaked her out, with my mini-freak out, but... it was going to be OK.
Beckham's pregnancy was not all peaches and cream. Since Cyndi gave birth prematurely the first time, they monitored her very closely the second time. She had preeclampsia nearly the whole pregnancy, so we (again) were worried the whole time. Every time we would go to get her blood pressure checked it was off the charts high and they would freak out. Every damn time.
But Beckham must have liked his cozy little over because he did not want to come out on his own. Even with the high blood pressure, they didn't want to induce labor. We just watched and waited. 38 weeks, 39 weeks, 40 weeks... nothing. Finally, after being at the hospital one day and her 40+ week pregnancy caused her BP to shoot up, they said those magic words every parent wants to here "Let's have a baby".
They sent us to the hospital to try to induce, but that little turd would not come out on his own. Again, it seemed we were destined to sit and wait but at shift change the obstetrician came into the room and said "we are going to go get this baby right now". A Caesarean would be had.
I don't remember much from this point, except sitting in the "dad' room that was just off of the operating room for what felt like hours. I had never done this, I didn't know what to expect. I assumed it was normal to get me all dressed up like a MASH doc and then leave me in the "dad" room for two hours. Turns out, that they gave Cyndi her spinal block to high on her back. This turned off the "perception" of her breathing. In other words, she could not feel herself breath.
There are many instances where the bad-assery of my wife was on display, but none so great as this moment. They brought me in and told me what was going on. The reassured me that she was fine, she just can't feel herself breathe. I leaned in to chat with her. She lie there crying on the table, but calm. The anesthesiologist came up to me after and said normally if something like that happens they have to put the patient all the way under because the freak out. As Cyndi said, it felt like she had an elephant sitting on her chest. But my wife stayed calm. They were able to deliver a happy and healthy baby Beckham.
This time that baby was fully cooked and in a couple of days we got to go home. We were now a party of 4. Our little family was growing and we could not have been prouder.
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