Birthdays, Socialized Medicine, and Miracles

Her brand new birthday bike!

Yesterday was a very special day in our household.  My firstborn turned 7 years old!  I still can't believe it, that does not sound right to me.  You see, she was just born yesterday.  I remember.  It was YESTERDAY.

I often wonder how such a small baby could possibly draw the things she does, create the art projects she does, read chapter books, want to take the training wheels off her new bike and never stop playing the piano - all when she's still a BABY.  I'm pretty sure I need a reality check. 

Sadie's birthday started me thinking about the actual day of Sadie's birth.  Something you may not know about my sweet firstborn is that she is a dual citizen - her nickname is Sadie Ann the Canadianne.  My husband calls her our Canadian souvenir.  She was actually an illegal alien in our country until she was 2.  That's a ridiculous story for another day, our government just did NOT know what to do with her.

When people hear us say that we lived in Canada for the first 7 years of our marriage the question comes  - inevitably......"So, what was socialized medicine like?"  We have gotten this question ALOT in the last four years since our President was elected.  I always answer with Sadie's birth story.  Which begins like I'm a hero.

I was in labor with her for 40 hours.  That's right.  See, a hero.

Well, it sounds heroic until you realize that I was in a hospital, given an epidural before I was dilated to 2, and slept through the entire thing.  Forty hours after my water broke, after Sadie had been with no fluid in my womb for several hours - socialized medicine decided maybe we should do a c-section.  All the while, my American ER nurse-mother was crawling the walls and about to kill someone (I was blissfully drugged and unaware of the danger in my first-time-birth-haze).  

Sadie was born with a fever and put in the NICU for a week, I hemorrhaged and lost half my blood volume and spent another week in the hospital.  My recovery from that c-section?  Six months.  Seriously.  Six months and 3 uterine infections later I felt normal again.

But, hey - I walked away from that paying zero.  Yay for socialized medicine.

This was not an isolated incident for us.  When we first moved to Winnipeg it took us over a year to find a doctor because all the "good" ones were gone.  You see, when you are a doctor who doesn't make enormous amounts of money like they do in the states, then you take a CERTAIN amount of patients and you cut it off forever until someone dies or moves.  We eventually found someone who was 45 minutes from us and got mad at John for calling him "doc".

OH, and my favorite story - in that year when we couldn't find a doctor I developed a huge lump behind my right ear and needed to get it checked.  I went to a walk-in clinic and a nice doctor gave me this advice after checking my lump "You should stop touching yourself.  You will always find things you don't like."  

Now, I know that I have Canadian readers so I need to clarify a few things.  I love Canada.  I would say 90 percent of my heart is still there.  My husband and I have been praying for years that God would send us back and hope to one day be sipping Tim Horton's again with our Canadian family while looking out on the banks of snow.  I would never let our health-care issues keep us from the Country that has my heart.  And, I never really heard Canadians complain about their health care system.  I think maybe when you have always been in it you don't know the difference?  I guess I can't conjecture that, I just know our experience and because of our experience Obama-care would never be my first choice.

I cannot BELIEVE I just blogged about something political.  That kinda blows my mind. 

But, even with that birth story I would not change one moment of my sweet daughter's life.  Another thing you need to know about her - she's a miracle.  When I found out I was pregnant with Sadie I was in the middle of menopause.  Yes, you heard me right.  Six months earlier I was diagnosed with Premature Ovarian Failure and told we would never be able to carry children (even through in vitro).

I will remind her she is a miracle for the rest of her life.  How can a girl have self-worth issues when she knows that God performed a miracle to get her here?  At least, that's my hopes....

Happy birthday Sadie Ann the Canadianne! 

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