Yes, it has been a year! And now Baby is 1

In honor our our littlest turning one I thought I'd break my year of silence and start posting his birth story.  It is totally fitting to do this over Thanksgiving because I am most thankful that things turned out so well.  He is a happy, healthy, walking, but not sleeping one year old!

My sweet boy what a wild ride you’ve given us!  Your birth story is one that will take a long time to fully absorb and it is not the story we would have wanted for you, but it is the one that is yours and we are so grateful that things happened as they did.

Our pregnancy was fairly uneventful other than a few physical things that bothered me.  I had to deal with carpel tunnel that got pretty bad as the pregnancy went on and there was an issue around week 35 when I suddenly could barley walk because of pelvic and hip pain.  But we dealt with these things and I started seeing a chiropractor and overall we just kept soldiering on towards meeting our newest family member.  You were due on November 8^th, but for some reason I really felt that you would be joining us in October.  There was no reason to believe that since Garrett was born the day before his due date and Kelby went 9 days past hers.  I think I wanted you to have your own birth month like everyone else in the family did and I didn’t want you to have to share it with me, our anniversary and Thanksgiving too.  When Halloween came and went we knew our little one had plans of their own and I resigned myself to the fact that you probably would cook well beyond your due date just like your sister!

As we crept through November I became more and more anxious to meet you.  We were having to make decisions about band jobs since Daddy didn’t want to get too far away in case anything happened.  He ended up giving up 3 jobs once we were past your due date because we just knew it could be any time.  And since things moved quickly with your sister Deb and Coral both wanted us to be prepared for a very quick labor and to be on our toes if contractions really got started.  Just after your due date (40 weeks, 2 day) we had an evening where I felt like the contractions were more rhythmic and like maybe something was brewing.  I always hesitate to make the call, but we finally decided to call Debby since she had made it clear that we should contact her at the first sign of anything.  I struggle to know exactly when things change from just the typical Braxton Hicks contractions that I have for months to something that might be more ‘real’ and mean baby is working on joining us. 

After we chatted she asked me to start timing things and just let her know if anything changed.  She also said we should put the kids to bed (just a bit early) and to get the van packed in case we needed to grab sleeping kids in the middle of the night.  As we got everything packed and ready to go the contractions got closer and were about every 15 minutes apart so she instructed me to head to bed and just rest in case I had a night of labor ahead of me.  We called Coral who was teaching a class and she was ready to head the birth center and spend the night in case we were headed in later.  However after an hour or so of resting the contractions all faded away and we ended up calling everyone and telling them to just go home and go to sleep.  You were parked for a while longer.