Three years ago yesterday, I was in the hospital, having my daughter after 26 hours of labor and a c-section. Just thinking back to that day makes me exhausted. Coming down to delivery felt like I was nearing the end of the longest infertility/pregnancy/labor marathon that anyone could have ever dreamed up in their sick minds.

While I was on the operating table, some of the anesthesia dripped into my lungs, making me not able to feel myself breathing. It was the oddest sensation. Before I said anything to the doctor, through my mind I was thinking that I was dying. I was thinking that this was it, there would be no more of me after this surgery. The panic that I expected at this point never happened. I felt ok about dying at that point. Remembering this even now, I remember my calm.

I had always felt that if I died before I had a child, by any means, I would feel like I would regret my life. I had waited a long time to have a baby, but being a mom was almost drilled into my head since I was small. Being a parent in my family meant your definition. Since I was at that time delivering my daughter, I felt like I had tied up loose ends and that my life would have mattered. At that point, I would have lived a successful life.

Once I told the doctor that I couldn't breathe, he told me what had happened with the medicines, that it sometimes happened, but yes, I was ok. I was breathing. I just couldn't feel myself breathing. I was alive, everything was fine and there was no danger to my daughter or to me. It was such an odd feeling. In the back of my mind, I still thought that it was the end. I couldn't bring my conscious mind around to being reassured.