Dear Ells Bells,

You were born in Cullman, Alabama. I like to think that you were really born in California, and I hope you will forgive me for lying to you about that starting in a few years. Cullman is midway between Birmingham, where I attended graduate school at UAB, and Huntsville, where Daddy worked with a bunch of ex-military Republican Christians with Aspergers Disorder. Alabama is a horrible place and we shall never speak of it again.

But let's start earlier...

We had tried to get pregnant for a long time--close to two years. Turns out my thyroid hormone levels were off because of taking generic thyroid medication. Did you know generic pills only have to be within about 80% of the stated dose? Ridiculous. Anyway, my doctor at school figured that out, gave me brand-name thyroid medicine, and you were conceived a month later. At that point I was so skeptical of ever being able to have a baby, I just used the pregnancy test because it was the last one we had and I wanted to get rid of it. And, lo and behold, it was positive. I didn't believe it. That was on New Year's Day, 2008.

The night BEFORE, Daddy and I went to dinner in Birmingham to celebrate New Year's Eve and my friend Alexis's birthday. We offered to buy dinner for Alexis from the fixed price menu, not realizing the bill for the three of us was going to come to over $400. I had two glasses of wine during dinner and two cigarettes with Alexis (not realizing I was about four weeks pregnant). Sorry about that.

Here's a picture of Daddy and me from that night. I made that shirt for his Christmas present!

Anyway, once I found out I was pregnant, I tried to be as healthy as I could. The first month I was stymied, though, because all I wanted to eat was Caesar salad. At about six weeks I got the flu, and while sick for three weeks I ate nothing but frozen cheese pizza and fudgsicles. At one point I transitioned to ranch dressing--maybe around five months? Somewhere late in the game I got really into fruit, but by then the pattern had been set. I ate whatever the heck I felt like. My doctor wasn't too pleased with my 55 pound weight gain, but he said I was a tall gal and could handle it.

Speaking of the doctor, he was awesome. His name was Dr. Yarbrough and he was pure Alabama. He prefaced every statement with, "Well...". Ask Daddy to do it for you some time. I started begging Dr. Yarbrough for a C-section when I was about 36 weeks pregnant. I was not a fan of being pregnant. He wouldn't relent and made me go through the whole pregnancy! The nerve! And then in the 41st week, he thought you might be on the big side, making a normal birth difficult, and he decided to induce labor. Secretly he and I both hoped for a C-section... him for convenience and money, and me because, well, I was scared of the regular kind. When we finally settled on the C-section, 12 hours after the attempted induction began, I was all prepped and waiting in the operating room for him. Daddy was waiting in the hall outside the room. Dr. Yarbrough walked by Daddy, said, "Well...", and walked into the OR.

And then you were born. (And the C-section was SO MUCH BETTER THAN THE OTHER KIND!!!)
Love,
Mama