Santa, Baby
Posted on December 21st, 2006 – 10:24 PMBy May Chen
Planning for the arrival of a baby during the holidays is not easy. Especially since you can’t exactly plan. We tried. Twice.
Our first was due on Christmas eve but arrived a week later. Our second was due on Christmas day but came a week early.
With Zoe, it was December 2003 and we were living in Scottsdale, Az. I grew up in Malaysia, which is as green and humid as Arizona is brown and dry. Everyday, I walked the manicured paths that snaked through our endless suburb, past identical sand-colored houses that looked like nobody lived in them. It was strange to be in a place so barren when I was literally going through the most fertile time of my life. On the surface, everything was brown, brown, brown, including my swelling belly, a giant wedge poking out of my bikini at the pool.
My family flew in from Malaysia on Christmas eve. We had various contingency plans involving picking them up from the airport - if the baby came early, if she was late, if I was in labor. It was my parents’ first grandchild and the anticipation was thick.
They arrived and the baby still hadn’t. We joined my husband’s family in a subdued, restless version of Christmas, as if everyone was holding their breath. I don’t remember much but pictures from Christmas eve show me beached like a whale on the couch, heaving myself up now and then to join in a game of charades. The glass doors reflected overlapping images of Christmas tree and fairy lights inside, cacti and pebbles outside.
My obstetrician was about to go on vacation. My brother had to fly home to work. We induced her on December 30. The family ate New Year’s dinner at the Applebee’s next to the hospital. Afterwards, we toasted with sparkling apple juice around my hospital bed. People still ask us if we rushed the baby for the tax break.
With Maya, it was December 2005 and we had moved to Minneapolis. No bikinis this time, just big wool coats that barely skirted my circumference.
She was breeched. My obstetrician kneaded my belly like a big mound of dough and rotated her counter-clockwise 270 degrees (yes, she tried clockwise first…) as I gripped the railing of the bed. My husband turned pale, grabbed the toddler and fled, mumbling something about not wanting to frighten the child.
The next day, the left side of my face stopped working. I couldn’t shut my left eyelid; my smile was lopsided. I had Bell’s Palsy, a temporary affliction that pregnant women are apparently more susceptible to.
This time, my family arranged to fly in a week after the baby’s due date.
Maybe because of the steroids I took for the Bell’s Palsy, Maya came a week early. My husband walked me slowly up to the maternity wing of Methodist Hospital, past a Christmas tree. As I huffed my way through a contraction while filling out insurance details, the woman behind the counter grimaced and told me not to blow at her.
Luckily, there were others at the hospital who were more festive. Somebody donated Christmas stockings and roses to every new mother in the hospital. Each baby got a fruit hat knitted by volunteers. The nursery was a riot of fruits and vegetables - oranges, eggplants, apples atop tiny, scrunched-up faces in clear plastic cribs. Maya was a strawberry.
By the time my family arrived, we’d been home for more than a week. My smile though, was still crooked.
11 Responses to "Santa, Baby"
It was Christmas 2005 and I was due the 27th of December. I go early so we were pretty sure I would go before Christmas. But I was not 3cm as I had been at 34 weeks with my first 3 so who knew?!
I told my OB at 38 week appt which happened to be at 37 6 that I did not want to miss Christmas at home with my 3 older children as Matthew was 2 and he would really get the present thing for the first time.
He promised me I would not be in the hospital that we would induce if the next week I was still pregnant but he thought I would go sooner like that night. And sure enough at 4am on Dec 13th I went into labor. It is strange planning a major holiday around your baby’s arrival and trying to figure what you will do.
And now She turned one the 13th and trying to make it a birthday and not all mixed in with Christmas is hard.
What do you do to make birthday’s just that? We left 1 room in our house with nothig Christmas and her pictures were taken in there. And that is where she opened her gifts.
Christmas 1996, my first daughter was born on Christmas Day. After a night in and out of the hospital with false labor, and a midwife that told me I needed an attitude adjustment because it would only hurt more when I was in real labor, I couldn’t have cared less what day it was - I just wanted that baby out of me.
We always have a family birthday celebration on Christmas, and do a party with friends whenever we get to it in January (when it’s something to look forward to)
My sister is being induced today. For the second time this week- we were in on Wednesday, but she never got beyond 1 cm- so we were sent home. I am her birthing partner. She is ADAMANT that she will be having the baby today- we have our first Christmas celebration tomorrow- and she wants to be released intime to attend- with the baby. But, lots of women went in to the Hospitol last night, so we are on “Stand-by.” Waiting for the call, saying we can head to the Hospitol.
Have a holiday birthday is hard, but our family will always have a extra special reason to celebrate.
May,
I also had a December baby and had Bell’s Palsy with my first. I still remember Christmas shopping with my husband and him exclaiming, “What’s Wrong with your Face?” We both thought I had had a stroke. Thank God it was only Bell’s Palsy. Thanks for your entertaining Blog.
Our youngest son was born on December 23, 2004. I was due on January 3rd, and I was really hoping that we would have the first baby of the new year in our area. I had gone right on schedule with my other two boys, so I was a bit surprised when labor started on the morning of the 23rd and Samuel arrived later that day.
Santa visited us in the hospital on Christmas eve and we went home on Christmas morning. Sam is definitely the best Christmas present we’ve ever recieved.
When I was in the hospital, I talked with several others who had children born around a big holiday. One said that they celebrate the birthday a few weeks before, another said that they make a big deal about their kids’ 1/2 birthday and then do a smaller, family celebration around the actual birthday.
May,
As a Minnesotan now living in Anchorage, Alaska, I was very disappointed to read about the person at Methodist Hospital who made a face and told you not to blow at her. We Minnesotans are known for being polite. Being that rude to a woman in labor is unthinkable. I like to think that she wasn’t originally from Minnesota. Merry Christmas and thank you for your story.
Our daughter was due Christmas Day 1999 but arrived a week late, on Jan. 2, 2000. We were living in St. Petersburg, Fla., at the time.
Every year, there’s always a newspaper story about the first baby of the New Year. Well, since this was 1999, there was a lot of speculation about who would be the first baby of the new millennium. Some businesses, radio stations, etc. were offering prize packages to the first baby of 2000.
The St. Pete Times sent a reporter out to find very pregnant women and ask them their thoughts on whether they hoped to have the first baby of the millennium. My wife, Monica, was one of the women quoted. Her comment was that she “felt like a battleship” and just wanted it to be done with.
I was sort of hoping that our daughter would be born in 1999, because that would mean if she somehow lived 101 years, whe would have lived in 3 centuries.
But she came on the second day of 2000 and I wouldn’t change a thing.
I am 39 weeks pregnant with my second child. If I went into labor in the next few seconds, I wouldn’t be happier. As the “big day” - Christmas - gets ever closer, I’m more concerned that I’ll miss it with my 3-year old, who really gets the whole Santa thing this year. Yes, Santa can come to the hospital (the gifts have been wrapped for weeks as a “just in case”). Yes, we can celebrate Christmas when I and the baby come home (only if everyone agrees to not ask her “what did Santa bring you? when they see her). Of course a healthy baby would be the best gift. But, one that allows me to spend Christmas with my daughter and still gives us an additional tax break, might be even better.
We were expecting our first child last year at this time, with a due date of January 4. As the son of an accountant, my husband was ever-so-hopeful that the baby would be born before January 1. We planned to spend some time during the week between Christmas and New Year’s at my in-laws cabin with his whole immediate family. He suggested that the longer we spend at the cabin, the more likely our chances of having an early birth due to the sress of being in such close quarters with family. His family must be easy to live with…our son wasn’t born until January 8.
My baby was due December 6 (of this year), but he apparently was a little too comfortable in there. He arrived on the 19th, so now we have the challenge of Christmas and a birthday in the same week. Hopefully I can come up with something creative.
I was originally due on December 7, but my birthday ended up December 24. My mom worked hard to give me a real “birthday” every year. To the mom who asked how to make a December birthday special, I would give the ideas that my mom always followed:
* Always have separate gifts for birthday and Christmas–no combination gifts!
* Never wrap birthday presents in Christmas paper.
* Try to have a birthday party. It is great if it can be around the time of the birthday, but if it has to be a different month, so be it. Just having the party is what’s important. Everyone deserves one day of the year when they are “special.”
* Use plates and napkins that have a birthday theme, not Christmas.
* Avoid “For your December birthday” birthday cards.
There were a couple places where my mom drew the line, however, in trying to separate the two occasions, and there were some things that always bothered me. For example:
* While my siblings got to choose their “birthday meal,” I always had to have our traditional Christmas Eve dinner on my birthday. My mom was adamant about this.
* Most years, my mom picked a theme cake: Santa Claus, angel, Christmas tree, Yule log, etc. Again, siblings got to choose the shape they wanted.
This is not meant to be a complaint…just giving some tips to those parents with Christmas babies. As your kids get older, you will find your own birthday traditions that will make it special for your kids!
