Today is Alexander’s 10th birthday. Double digits. Amazing. Unbelievable that a decade has passed. Unbelievable that he grew and birthed out of my body. Unbelievable that he is the spectacular human being that he is.

He was born on December 19, 2000 at 9:40pm, weighing in at 6 lbs. 12 oz and 19 ¼ inches long. He had a full head of dark blondish hair with these amazing little silver tips, as though it were frosted.

He was due on Christmas Eve, and on the 19th I was shopping for Christmas lights in our local drug store. I had, only a minute before, run into someone I hadn’t seen in a really long time. That day, I happened to be wearing a black, billowy maternity dress. A hideous dress actually. I really hated it and had never worn it before. But I felt so big and miserable that it just worked on that day.

For 15 years, I had told the women in my PillowTalk classes that the chance of their water bag breaking in public was really very small. Only about 10% of women actually even have their water bag break before labor starts.

As I was standing in the store aisle, I felt a little pinch, and suddenly, on the floor, was one of the largest puddles of amniotic fluid I had ever seen. Really. I stood there for a second, stunned, and then literally ran out of the store, laughing hysterically and dripping all the way out the door.

I called Ray from the car thinking he would think it was as funny as I did. Being very much not the doctor who had seen hundreds of births and instead, being very much the extremely nervous father, he found  little humor in it at all. There is a sweet photo of him standing outside the car holding my small suitcase with a sock hanging out of it. He could not even pack a suitcase he was so nervous, much less drive a car.

Thank God my wonderful friend, Chelan was there. Her instructions (from me) were to not allow me to go into the hospital until I was in very active labor. I was NOT going to go into my hospital, begging for mercy and not be dilated at all. The good news was that I was in booming labor and 4 cm. dilated, the bad news is that things went steadily downhill from there. But that is a story I have told before. Alexander and I came home from the hospital on Christmas Day.

Today was a very mixed day. So quietly happy and so immensely sad for me. Our family tradition is that the birthday person may do whatever they like on their birthday. So the young prince selected his breakfast, lunch and dinner (pizza) and opened one present this morning and will open the rest after dinner and cake. We sat on the couch this morning and went through all of his baby pictures, the cards we got when he was born and the lottery pool that was done by my colleagues to guess the sex of the baby (we didn’t know) and when he was going to be born. He came much earlier than anyone chose.

Happy Birthday Alexander.

Part 2 will come on Tuesday…

I know people who drink lots of water. My friend, Vic , always has water closeby — drinks it all day long. Says she couldn’t live without it. Well, I suppose that’s true for all of us, but you know what I mean.

I certainly talk about drinking more water during pregnancy. During pregnancy, a woman’s increased energy needs, faster metabolism, and hormonal changes alter the body’s physiology. There is increased blood volume, and the baby is producing amniotic fluid. All these changes do cause the body to have higher water needs.

But what about when we aren’t pregnant. We know that we need more water when we exercise or when the weather is hot, but what about the other times. I found a great article from the Mayo Clinic which explains how we lose water throughout the day and how some is replaced by food, other kinds of drinks, but that we still need to add at least a 1 1/2 liters a day by drinking water.

One liter is about 4 cups. The 8 glass rule isn’t based in any science about that specific amount it just seems to have been an easy formula to remember. The 8×8 rule — 8 – 8 oz. glasses per day. I found a great perspective that resonates with me in Snopes , debunking a lot of the myths around water consumption. Drinking a high volume of water does not cure such things as arthritis, hypertension or asthma.  It does not make us thinner or change our metabolism.

Simply said, use common sense and try to stay one step ahead of thirst. It’s not possible to know exactly how much water each of us should drink each day. A pretty simple way to know if you are well hydrated is that your urine will be a very pale yellow color. On that note, I ‘m  suddenly thirsty.

How much water do you drink a day?

This, of course, has led me to think about my own Alexander’s birth. His actual birth was crappy. Sorry, but it was. There was no spiritual or profound experience attached to it. There was, actually, real fear for my safety and I was pretty much out of it for the last 4 hours of my labor and the  24 hours after his birth.

I was healthy, ultra fit (much more so than today), and didn’t even look pregnant from the back, and I developed severe preeclampsia in the days before he was born (we didn’t know at the time). And during labor it moved into scary, scary HELLP syndrome. It came as a complete shock and I very rapidly became extremely ill.

Today, Alexander was watching an interview I did in June, and in the middle of it he said, “I have no idea what you are talking about”. Fair enough for a 9 year old. So, we talked a little about his birth. He knows I was very sick and that is why he was born by cesarean. That is the extent of the story he will get on that unless he one day really needs the details. I don’t honestly think they matter to him.

So, a 5-day hospitalization, which involved a serious medical condition, has now been summed up in a couple of sentences. What he will tell someone in his future is that my water bag broke in the Christmas card aisle at our local drugstore and that I ran out of the store before anyone noticed, laughing and leaving a trail of fluid.

And that his dad, who was an anesthesiologist (who had attended hundreds of births) was so nervous that he was completely incapable of packing a bag for the hospital or driving a car. One of my best memories is getting into my friend, Chelan’s car (thank God she was planning to be with us) in booming labor and seeing clothes sticking out of my bag.

His story also includes that when we came home, our two dogs were terrified to come near him for 2 days. They knew he was a very important new addition to our family. And lastly, that our lab, Harley, loved to creep up to him as he laid in his bouncy seat and gently steal his binky (aka pacifier) directly from his mouth, lay down next to him and keep it in his own mouth.

Honestly, these are the parts of his own birth story that should be forefront in his memory. And, most importantly, that his safely entering the world is all that matters. ALL that matters.

People sometimes dwell on what “goes wrong” in an experience. That makes me sad. I smile every time I think of Alexander’s birth. It in no way minimizes the scary parts. I just am really aware that bad things happen in life but that ultimately life is simply vibrant and full of wonder and humor, so long as we let it be.

I want this to be Alexander’s story.

He was due on Christmas Eve, and on the 19^th I was shopping for Christmas lights in our local drug store. I had, only a minute before, run into someone I hadn’t seen in a really long time. That day, I happened to be wearing a black, billowy maternity dress. A hideous dress actually. I really hated it and had never worn it before. But I felt so big and miserable that it just worked on that day.

For 15 years, I had told the women in my PillowTalk classes that the chance of their water bag breaking in public was really very small. Only about 10% of women actually even have their water bag break before labor starts.

As I was standing in the store aisle, I felt a little pinch, and suddenly, on the floor, was one of the largest puddles of amniotic fluid I had ever seen. I stood there for a second, stunned, and then literally ran out of the store, laughing hysterically and dripping all the way out the door.

I called Ray from the car thinking he would think it was as funny as I did. Being very much not the doctor who had seen hundred of births and very much the extremely nervous father, he found  little humor in it at all. It wasn’t long before I was in booming labor but that is a story for another time. Alexander and I came home from the hospital on Christmas Day.

Tonight Alexander is curled up next to me. His tummy hurts and he is very much a little boy. I don’t know how 9 years has passed. In some ways it feels like a long time ago but as I look over at my baby (who now comes up to my chin) I understand what happens to all parents. No matter how old they are, our babies are our babies. Happy Birthday Alexander.