I have a 10-year-old son. He's in the bathtub now. He's getting all cleaned up in order to receive more birthday loot. He was pretty pleased with the presents he got this morning and has been showing his gratitude ever since.

I waver between being in awe of him and being sad that he is no longer any type of my baby. I swear the other day I heard his voice start to crack. He's all excited because he's going to be a pre-teen and I'm preoccupied with the fact that this will be his last year in elementary school.

What was it like 10 years ago today?

Weather-wise, it was similar to today. Not a cloud in the sky and warm, but not as stifling hot as it is now.

I had gone to the doctor the day before, July 3rd, which was my original due date. I was the largest pregnant woman ever to carry a single child. I swear. Huge. People would gawk. But Little Boy showed no signs of wanting to come out. None other than his constant pushing against my insides, that is.

My ob/gyn was this tall burly guy that reminded me of Bill Cosby. He was my second doctor, since the first had told me (and my husband) that I has syphllis in my 5th month. I remember my husband and I looking at each other with that, "What did you DO?" look, then realizing he was an idiot. Turned out he had just done a test incorrectly, but by that time I didn't want anything to do with him. I had an awful time with then HMO but finally got Dr. Cosby.

Dr. Cosby's office was directly across the street from the hospital. NEVER EVER got to an ob whose office is within walking distance of a hospital. Damn doctors are always trying to put you in there for this or that. It was also overrun with single mothers, most of whom were studying for their GED.

So I go in on my due date and Dr. Cosby decides my blood pressure is too high and I'm too swollen and we're going to induce labor RIGHT NOW! So I take a minute to call my husband and we walk over to the hospital and check in. They chock me full of Petosin and hook me up to the monitor and then tell me I must lay down on my left side.

All well and good, but I have arthritis in both hips and the pain of laying on my side continually was making me cranky even before the labor started. Then I got really cranky.

The induced me at noon and the labor started sometime after dark. My husband - who I didn't realize at the time has a hospital phobia - was constantly finding reasons to leave the room. He was totally useless as a labor coach. As I had no illusions that I would go natural, they started the Demoral drip and I was able to sleep some the next morning. Around noon they decided to break my water (which they do with a crochet hook thing). Hubband was nowhere to be found. Seems my MOTHER had told him to go home, shower, change and get something to eat while I was sleeping. He also went shopping for a gift for me. (Years of therapy have led me to forgiveness.)

They finally relented after about 20 hours of intense labor and let me have a C-section. They wheeled me into the same room my stepson had been born in and cut me open. I never felt anything as blessed as when the anesthetic took effect. Then they showed me this little bundle of baby with a head the size of a 16 lb. bowling ball and the cutest face on any baby ever.

They took the baby off and Hubband followed to do the whole dad/baby bonding thing. They wheeled me off to recovery where I managed to fall in and out of sleep. Being a holiday weekend, they were short on staff and had a record number of births as well. I ended up spending 13 hours in recovery with my feet sticking over the end of the gurney. I told my husband I didn't feel well and he called a nurse. I was spiking a 104 degree fever. They never did figure out why, but by the time they got me to my room I found out my baby had spiked one as well.

They had him in the NICU, hooked up to antibiotics. They had to put a shunt in his head because, at 24 hours old, he kept pulling out the IV in his hand. I was told I could not visit him until I had gone 12 hours with a normal temp. I remember waddling down the hall, dragging my IV, and standing at the nursery window. It was after visiting hours and my whole family had just been in to tell me how they had each gotten to hold and feed the baby I had yet to touch. I stood there crying until a nurse came out and took me back to my room.

LB was born on Saturday, I ended up checking out of the hospital on Wednesday, but they wanted him to stay a full week to pump him with more antibiotics. (To this day the kid is never sick.) That was the best night's sleep I ever had, but it was miserable being without him. It felt odd and empty.

I finally got to feed him on Friday. We have pictures of me and my huge-headed boy, smiling as though I would bust wide with happiness. He was 9.5 at birth, 10.13 when we brought him home. He was healthy as a horse and ate like crazy. He still runs a 99.5 normal temp, just like his Dad and brother.

I remember reading his chart while we were waiting for him to be checked out. The notes talked of me feeding him and how we were "bonding" well. I think there is no one in this world I am more bonded to. I love him so.

I guess I can't call him Little Boy anymore, huh.

Happy Birthday, Boy.