My husband and I were thrilled at the idea of having our first child together. He had two sons from a previous marriage and very much wanted a little girl. I got pregnant in January 1992. I had just turned 20yrs old and all of this was very new to me. I had a very normal pregnancy. I took my prenatal vitamins, had regular check-ups at the doctor, didn't drink or smoke, and got plenty of exercise and rest. I had a standard ultra sound at around 7months and all appeared to be "normal". I carried for 41 weeks and went into labor on October 24th. Labor lasted about 18 hours and I did have a spinal epideral (couldn't imagine doing it without!). My husband was very excited because labor went into the next day and our little girl was born on October 25th which just happened to be his 28th birthday!! Now, I had read some pretty good books about pregnancy, labor, and delivery and thought I was prepared. So when my daughters head first came out and she was a purplish-blue color, I was worried. The first thing I thought was that the umbilical cord had wrapped around her neck and she was choking! Excitement turned to panic in a heart beat. They placed her on my chest and assured me that she was not choking and for the most part she was fine. Luckily, my doctor had seen this one time before and explained to us that what we were seeing was called a port-wine stain, a very rare type of birth mark. She had it covering the left side of her face from the upper lip to the top of her head. Upon further inspection of our new born, we discoverd she also had port-wine stain covering about 75% of her back, spots on her right arm, and a large patch on her left leg. Now at this point, the color had turned to more of pinkish-purple or "port wine" color and has remained that color since (although, it does very in shading from very dark purple when she's cold to lighter pink when she's hot or flushed). I'll tell you, this was a most shocking moment! I had never heard of such a thing in my life and neither had my husband. We spent quite some time staring at her in amazement. She was the most uniquely beautiful baby I had ever seen and I loved her instantly. Now, this whole ordeal was quite exhausting for me and I opted to have the nurses care for her that first night so I could get some well deserved rest. I later learned just how thankful I was for that rest because it was to be the last restful night I would have for the next 2yrs! None the less, I was mildly amused the next morning when the nurse brought my new baby in to my room. Because it is standard and very necessary procedure, the nurse proceeded to match my wrist band with Alyssa's wrist and ankle bands and she unwrapped her to reveal that in fact this was a baby girl. I was impressed with the thorough and professional check that the nurse performed, but at the same time amused because I felt quite confident that mine was the only pink baby in the nursury! I told the nurse that there was no doubt in my mind that this was MY child and that had they accidently brought this one to another mother she would have been quite sure that this was NOT her baby!
