On September 23rd, 2021 I met Beau Salvatore, my son. The answer to my Prayers. My “Handsome Savior” who has brought nothing but joy and happiness in to my life.
The story of Beau begins long before we found out we were pregnant. His story starts, in fact, years before. Before I was out of college, before I met my husband, before he was even a thought.
Growing up, all I wanted and dreamed of being was a mom. That is one of the first things I can remember ever wanting- kids. I did not care if I had them biologically or adopted them, I just wanted children. I dreamed of the day I had a baby of my own to love and watch grow. So, when I was in college and diagnosed with HPV and the doctor said that there was spot on my cervix that she wanted to be cautious about, I panicked.
I delved in to research on what this diagnosis meant for me. I had no clue what HPV was or what it affected, but I knew one thing- I was scared. Then, after many unnecessary hours on WebMD the words INFERTILITY and CERVICAL CANCER kept popping up. My entire being was rattled. What did this mean for my future?
Fast forward to meeting my, now, husband. We dated for 3 years before we were engaged, but we stopped preventing pregnancy after we got engaged because we figured “why not!” During the next two years, I had my concerning spot removed from my cervix which weakened my cervix wall, and made me susceptible to preterm labor. Then on top of all of this- we never had a pregnancy ‘scare’. That’s right! After, two years of ‘not preventing’ I never missed.
I freaked out. I thought my body was about to betray me and not be able to give me the one thing I have ever wanted. So, I hyper-focused on planning my wedding, which I planned in 3 months (another story for another time) and we got married on December 19th, 2020.
January 30th, 2021- the day my entire life changed. It was the day my period was supposed to start, but I woke up at like 7 a.m. and took the test. Positive. I remember being so happy I couldn’t contain my excitement. I ran in to my bedroom, jumped on my husband and drug him out of bed to the bathroom where 4 pregnancy tests showed our greatest blessing was coming,
Pregnancy was rough. I was sick a lot. I had raging heartburn, I felt huge and round, but I never took any of it for granted. I embraced it. I looked forward to each doctors appointment and with each passing week- we got closer to meeting our baby.
We did the blood test to find out the gender because I was too exited to wait. Up until the day we found out, I knew I was having a girl. There was not a doubt in my mind. Every pregnancy symptom I had indicated that I was having a girl. Everyone who heard how my pregnancy was going said it was a girl. My husband was in denial and said it was a boy. So, when blue balloons came falling down during our private gender reveal, I was SHOCKED! Thrilled, but shocked.
We were having a baby boy. Now it was time to start planning. We had a few names that we really liked but did not want to settle on a name just yet. One thing we did know was we wanted his middle name to be Salvatore, after my husbands grandfather. The man who inspired him most.
We had our baby showers, we washed all of the clothes, we sanitized all of the bottles and we set up our ‘Little Sharks’ surfer/shark theme nursery. We were ready. We had everything ready to go.
The last two weeks of my pregnancy were extremely hard. My doctors said that our baby was measuring way too big, so they wanted me to come in twice a week for stress test and ultrasounds. By the time we reached 38 weeks he was supposed to be measuring over 8 pounds, and I, of course, was nervous. I did not want to risk him being too big for me to deliver and possibly hurt him and myself in the process. But I, also, did not want to have a c-section either.
Wednesday September 22nd was my last normal day. I went to work, came home, ate dinner, probably watched some TV and before I went to bed I did a few stretches for my aching legs, and went to sleep. At 2:30 in the morning, I woke up startled, rushed to the bathroom (as fast as a pregnant woman could) and felt a gush of liquid. I, honestly, thought I peed the bed. So I called my mom, and asked her what I should do. She said call the doctor- your water broke.
My poor husband was in total denial! He said “Go back to bed! You peed yourself!” And boy was he wrong. We got to the hospital about an hour later because I wanted to make sure I ate something before we got checked in. The doctor confirmed that my water broke and sent me up to my labor room where I would spend the next 2 days.
After a GRUELING 22 hour labor- 3 epidural needles inserted in my spine, 5 hours of pushing, 3rd degree tear and the use of the vacuum to get my baby out- he was finally hear!
Beau Salvatore was born on September 23rd, 2021 at 11:42 p.m. weighing 7 pounds 14 ounces and 19.5 inches long.
That is the start of his story. There is so much more I plan to share, but I wanted to give the “before” with the “meeting him” story because that is such an important part to his beginning. There were so many emotions and challenges that led up to this tiny miracle baby. This is just the start of this amazing journey I am on, and I can’t wait to share it all.
A Crasi Mama 