Making Tamales

Today I'm making tamales for the second time in my life. The first time was one year ago today on Juice's 19th birthday. She has had a habit of challenging my culinary skills when she chooses her birthday meals. Tamales are delicious! It sure would be nice if the hispanic man who comes around selling homemade tamales now and then would just happen to come by on Juice's birthday :)

Twenty years sounds so long ago but it seems like just a little while since the day I became a mother. I've been reminiscing about that wonderful, horrific, exciting, terrifying time----

We lived in Provo, Utah in a studio apartment that was part of an old house which had been remodeled into apartments. There was a carport in the back and no lighting at all back there. I was five days overdue and so ready(and scared) to deliver this baby. When we decided it was time to go we got in the car and backed out--and hit the landlord's(they lived upstairs) brother's car which was parked there. The car was black and it was night time and there was no lighting back there. That's a good excuse isn't it? So Stephen ran in and told them we hit them and came right back out. They didn't know we were on our way to the hospital at all until later.

We got all checked in at the hospital and in our room and what do you know but my labor wasn't progressing at all. It turned out that all of my labors were that way. But when the doctor came and broke my water things got going pretty quick. I hadn't wanted any medication, but I had never been through this before and when the real contractions started coming it didn't take too long for me to fold and get an epidural. Epidurals are great if you don't want to feel a thing. In fact this particular epidural was so strong that I went to sleep and slept all through my labor until about 6:00 the next morning when they were telling me to push. Of course I was awake so they could check me and all but mostly I got to sleep. So about 6:00 am they're telling me to push---the epidural was so strong I couldn't even move. I had to lift my legs with my hands or have Stephen help me to do anything. I had never had a baby before and I didn't know how to push one out. The nurses tried to tell me what to do but they had to stand next to me and push on my belly to help me. Finally at 6:45 am out popped our sweet little Juice--8 lbs. 6 oz.--she was so beautiful and perfect. We held her for a few minutes before the nurses whisked her off to the nursery to clean her up.

The next time we saw her she looked like this:

I got a phone call from the pediatrician after they got me moved to my recovery room saying that Juice had a problem. Her mouth had been very spitty and mucousy so the nurses were trying to suction it out. They tried to put a tube down her throat but it wouldn't go down. They sent juice to have an x-ray and found that she had tracheo esophogeo fistula. Her esophogus didn't go to her stomach as it should and she would need surgery right away to correct the problem. We spent an anxious day waiting for her to be finished with the operation. Truthfully, I'm not sure I even felt the gravity of the situation. I was fairly groggy after that super-strong epidural and I was just going along with what everyone said. But I knew that Juice would be OK. And she was. 

 

 She spent exactly one month in the NICU and finally got to come home. We had to carefully care for the incision from the surgery and go back for visits with the surgeon for about 8 months but there have been no ill effects since then and she has grown and developed so beautifully as you can see into this happy, strong, loving, kind woman. We are so glad to have her in our family!