It had been two months since that fight and we had not fought since then. Zac and his family were fine and not much had happened. Except Christmas…
Everyone had been Christmas shopping like crazy. With so many people in both mine and Zac’s families, Zac and I had some major Christmas shopping to do.
My due date was only two weeks away and Zac and I were excited. It was December 21 and I was so incredibly anxious for Jordi to come into our lives.
We had been shopping all day and we had finally bought everyone’s presents, so, we decided to go over to Walker and Diana's house for dinner.
We dropped all of the packages off at our house then we headed to the house for dinner. As we arrived at the house we could tell that everyone else had arrived because of the number of cars that lined the street in front of the house.
We took the dish of warm food that we had prepared and walked towards the house. We opened the door and announced our arrival to the noisy crowded house.
“Uncle Zac! Aunt Dirbee!” Margo yelled coming towards us. Soon to follow her were most of the members of our family.
The women were in the kitchen helping Diana prepare our feast for the family. But, seeing as I could barely move I was sitting with them men in the living room that was serenely lit by Christmas decorations including the main Hanson family tree that was huge and real.
I sat next to the window watching the light snow fall. I was very thankful that the snow wasn’t as heavy and dangerous as it had been last year when Taylor had his wreck and I had had my miscarriage.
The men were talking about cars, sports, their wives and children, and of course music. We sat in the living room for a good half an hour when Diana called us all into the abnormally large dining room. The dining room was so incredibly large that it could fit all 18 of us at the abnormally large dining room table.
We sat down in front of two turkeys, dishes of everything imaginable, well, stuff that would normally be served at Thanksgiving.
I piled my plate high with mashed potatoes and gravy, turkey, stuffing, green bean casserole, rice pilaf, which was a Hanson family tradition, and sweet potato casserole with tons of melted marshmallows on top. I had made that myself because I was having a serious marshmallow craving.
I ate everything on my plate and even served myself seconds; unlike I had done before I was pregnant.
After we were finished with dinner and had gone through dessert we all departed the kitchen and went into the living room. Taylor sat down at the 16’ grand piano and everyone gathered around him. He began to play a carol that I recognized as “Deck the Halls”. You couldn’t really tell that Taylor was sick unless you watched his hands while he was playing. They had lost a lot of the huskiness that I knew them to hold. They looked so fragile and from the depth of his breathing I could tell that it was taking all of his energy to play such an upbeat chorus. But, I was more than willing to give him a break if he wanted me to play for him.
As we began to sing a second round of the carol I felt a jolt in my stomach as though Jordi was doing cartwheels. As soon as we sung the word “Holly” I felt a sensation that I couldn’t possibly explain.
As I felt water rush down my leg I grabbed Zac’s arm tightly, he turned and looked at me with his face full of fright.
“Dirb? What’s wrong?” he asked, his voice quavering.
“Zac, my water just broke!” I said, a smile radiating all over my face.
“Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh my gosh,” he almost screamed. The music stopped and everyone looked at us.
“The baby’s coming,” I said shakily.
“How cool!” Avery said kind of loudly. People in the room began to mutter and Zac and I began to walk towards the door. We got the doctor on the phone and he said he was on his way to the hospital. We told everyone we’d call them when we got settled into the hospital.
In the car was when I had my first contraction.
“Oh god Zac, this hurts,” I said as I grabbed onto the armrest and I breathed harder.
We got to the hospital in good time, a good twenty minutes, we immediately got checked in and we got a private room just because of media and stuff. The doctor came in about fifteen minutes later to check to see how dilated I was.
“You’re only one centimeter Dirbee,” he said.
“Oh geez,” I said already sweaty from the contraction I had just had.
“Well, buckle in, because this is going to be a long hard labor. I hope you’re strong,” he said sympathetically.
“She’s the strongest woman I know,” Zac said while sitting next to me on my bed and holding my hand.
“Well, that’s going to come in handy for this pregnancy,” the doctor stated with a hint of skepticism in his voice.
“Well, she is,” Zac said getting defensive and he stood up.
“Zac, get over here,” I panted as my next contraction surfaced, it seemed, from my toes.
“Sorry,” he said taking a stride to my bed and immediately forgetting about his fight with the doctor.
For the next 12 hours I went through the same thing, contractions and then ice chips, visits from family and friends, and then more contractions. During those 12 hours my dad was able to get a flight in from Virginia to Tulsa so that he could be there for the birth of my first child.
“Hey,” Meredith said softly as she poked her head around the door.
“Hey,” I whispered completely exhausted from the work-out that I was going through, but I was still pumped and ready for more. I wanted Jordi in my life so bad that I was willing to go through anything to get her in my arms, and in all reality that’s what mother I hoped to be; always willing to do anything for my daughter.
“How’s it going?” she asked me as she stepped up to my bed.
“Long,” was all I replied.
A few minutes later the doctor came into the room to check how far along I was.
“10 centimeters dilated and contractions three minutes apart, it’s time to get you down to the delivery room,” he said and they started wheel my bed to the elevator.
I absolutely hate elevators, they always make me so sick; so when it stopped on the floor we were supposed to be on, my stomach, not enjoying the ride at all, gave a heart-wrenching leap forward and I threw up all over the floor of the sterile smelling elevator. It wasn’t nasty, it was just 13 hours of ice chips.
It was almost like I could feel her shifting in my body, ready to come out of me. I don’t mean to be graphic, but this was the most beautiful time of my life.
When we got off the elevator and headed towards the delivery room the entire Hanson clan met up with us and they all gave us well wishes and kissed us as we went into the room.
A few minutes later I experienced the worst, most beautiful, pain of my life as I began to give birth to my baby.
An hour later, which felt like an eternity, I heard the doctor say to me:
“Okay Dirbee, one last push and you’ll be a mother.”
I reached for Zac’s hand and he willingly took it and gave it a reassuring squeeze. I leaned forward and grabbed my knees and pushed as hard as I knew how to.
The next few seconds will always be precious to me, because as I felt an enormous relief to the pain that I was in and I let go of my knees, which allowed me to fall back onto my pillow, breathing very hard, might I add, I heard a sound that changed my life forever; the sound of my baby crying, the first sounds she made as she entered into the world.
“It’s a girl,” the doctor said proudly as he handed her to the nurses to clean off.
“You did it,” Zac whispered into my ear.
“No, we did it,” I said proudly as he kissed my forehead.
A couple of hours later after Jordi and I had been cleaned up and then moved back to a quiet, private room, I heard a soft knock on the door.
“Ready for this?” Zac asked me.
“Better now than later,” I replied.
“Welcome to our world princess,” Zac said to Jordi and then he placed a small kiss of the top of her little forehead, then he pressed his lips firmly to mine giving me a kiss that I had never had any trouble returning.
He lifted off of the bed, where he had been sitting with me, and walked towards the door to let the family in.
As the door opened the first thing I saw were the flashes of lights from the reporters’ cameras, I instinctively covered Jordi’s face so that they wouldn’t get a picture of her, but the next thing that I saw was a welcome sight; my dad and Diana and Walker leading the Hanson family into my room. As the door shut behind them I heard a number of oohs and ahhs, but my dad’s hugs were more important to me than the gawking over how gorgeous my precious baby was.
“Hey Dirb,” he said to me as he placed his hand gently on the top of Jordi's pink hat that was keeping her head from getting cold.
“Hi Granddaddy,” I said making him smile.
“Okay, if I could have everyone’s attention please,” Zac said, immediately quieting everyone down. “I would like to introduce you to the newest member of the Hanson and Baxter families, Jordan Aria Hanson, also known as Jordi, my and Dirbee’s daughter,” he said creating a lot of chatter.
“Awwl, so it’s a girl,” I heard Alyssa say softly in the back to Isaac.
So, then for the next half hour everyone had their turn to come up and say something to me and Zac, see how beautiful Jordi was, and get to hold her. I was very reluctant about that at first, but eventually I gave in to my dad, who handed her off to Diana. After I had realized that everyone in the room had held a newborn baby before, I was comfortable, but I was immensely relieved when she was back safely in my arms.
When everyone realized that Jordi was asleep and that I was about to doze off myself, they decided that it was time to leave. After hearing once more how gorgeous my baby was, everyone began to file out.
Once they were all gone Zac come over to the bed and took Jordi and placed her in the little glass bed, he got into bed with me and laid there with me for a while. Finally he said something.
“Long day, huh?”
“Uh-huh,” was all I said as I curled myself farther into Zac’s warm body and fell asleep, incredibly thankful for the rest I was getting, because I was sure that once Jordi was home there wouldn’t be much sleep for any of us.
Email: hshanson09@yahoo.com