Philip's labor was long and slow. I just couldn't get past 7 cm and at one point, my blood pressure dropped to 70/40. I remember thinking at one point that I was so tired I just wanted to go to sleep forever. There was talk of a C-section, but a determined doctor didn't want to operate at midnight, so he worked his magic and before long I was fully dilated and it was time to push.
We were in the hospital for another day or two, but even after we came home, my blood pressure was still elevated. I don't remember how high it actually was, but it was alarming. Stroke-inducingly high. So alarming that one night I was afraid I wouldn't live to see the morning. My fear was that Philip would grow up without a mother and he wouldn't even have one picture of us to remember him by. So one night, when he was four or five days old, I snapped this photo with my flip phone so he would know how much I loved him.
