Rocking Bo Peep into the World

7 years ago tonight, I was rocking in a rocking chair.

Ceaselessly. Rock, rock, rock.

I had a big ole belly and my obstetrician said that if I didn't go into labor on my own by the next day, she was inducing. I'd had pitocin in the middle of my first labor, with The Boy, without an epidural, and I just remembered bad pain. No pitocin! No pitocin!

I tried everything. Yes, everything.

Rocking in the rocking chair kept my contractions going. If I stopped rocking, I stopped contracting.

(No comments, please, about how I should have just let my body determine the timetable. That's true for most folks. But I had gestational diabetes and an extremely rare condition, unless you're Chilean or Scandinavian - I'm neither - called intrahepatic cholestasis of pregnancy. Or as I called it, Itching So Much I Wanted to Jump Through A Plate Glass Window.)

We were due at the hospital at 5 am. C'mon, Body, birth!

My Mother-in-Love, bless her patient heart, stayed up with me, talking with me about all kinds of things as I rocked. Religion, tv, family ... okay, I'm lying. I have no idea what we talked about. But late into the night. Finally, about 2 am, I gave up, and went to bed.

(I wound up being induced for Little Warrior's birth and discovered that when paired with a nice nip of epidural, pitocin wasn't bad at all. Yes, I know. I'm a horrible mother for having an epidural. Add it to a list that includes downing a margarita that the BFF-DRE snuck in after I gave birth.)

The alarm rang in the morning and I managed to roll/slide my way out of bed. I stood up.

Contractions.

By the time we got to the hospital, the contractions were going strong. I refused to let them put me in the wheelchair to take me to the maternity ward -- didn't want those precious contractions to slow!

Bo Peep was born just a couple of hours later, no pitocin needed. Two pounds over the size of my other kids. I just remember the doctor calling out, "Here come the ears!"

She was born exactly 9 months after Sept. 11. Like each of my kids, I'm especially fond of her.