13 years ago today...

13 years ago today......

  I have 3 children and on their birthdays, I tell them what it was like on the day they 

entered this world.  Today is one of those days and this is how the story goes.

13 years ago today, I woke up a little crabby because, the night before, we had celebrated Christmas at 

Grandma Vicki's house and I was still pregnant.  I wanted so badly to have a our 

expected new baby to be in my arms as we celebrated.

Oh well, maybe the arrival would be today, since I woke up having some contractions.

This wasn't all that unusual, because I had been having them on and off for weeks now.

I gave Troy a call just to let him know.  Then after awhile I called again to say, "It might be a false alarm

but why don't you just come home to be sure and go back if they stop.  Take your time because I don't think

it will be soon even if its the real thing."  Meanwhile, I jumped or should I say waddled

into the shower to at least be somewhat presentable for my hoped trip to the hospital.  As I fussed over my appearance I had to squat down because of the pain and it was then I knew I was gonna have this baby.  My water broke!  Now, with my other 2 children my water broke and they came along pretty quickly, so I was very anxious for Troy to be home and when I had the strength to stand up I looked out the window and in the driveway he pulled.  With some relief, I gathered my other 2 small children to say, "goodbye" and told Troy to run and get Dad across the street because we needed to leave.  As Troy prepared the car, I walked out of the house just as my half asleep Dad walked in with his tousled hair and untied boots. (He worked the night shift, so he was a little out of it). Then we were on our way.  The night before there was a snow/ice storm and the roads were still pretty sloppy.  We pull up to the first red light and I am really in some hard labor and Troy asks me if I would like him to just go through the red light?  My response was, "I'm not sure if you really want me to be making any major decisions right now."  I don't remember how many other red lights we got or if he stopped for them or not, but we did make it to the hospital safely.  He dropped me off under the carport and escorted me in.  The sweet little lady got me a wheelchair and told Troy to go park the car and she would take me up.  She then handed me off to a nurse whom I 

proceeded to  explain, "This is my 3rd baby and with my other 2 when I was in this hard of labor I was dilated to at least 4 and I go from 4 to 10 very quickly."  As she strolled me along, and with a little chuckle, she responded, "Oh, you mean to say you hope your dilated that much."  REALLY, you want to mess with a pregnant woman in hard labor?  Before long Troy made his way to the room in time to save the nurses life, ha, oh, I mean to help me get into the gown and use the bathroom one last time before they hooked me up to the monitors.  Getting into the gown would be fine, but using the bathroom the one last time was dreadful.  With my other 2 I experienced contractions on the toilet and it was awful  and I had no desire to do that again, so we had a plan.  As soon as one would be finished he would hustle me as fast as he could into the bathroom, I would go, then hustle me back to the bed, just in the nick of time to deal with the next one.  We are not very good at that game and our plan was unsuccessful.  There I was on the toilet having a contraction crying, "I don't want to have a contraction on the toilet."  Poor Troy is standing over me not knowing if he should pull me off or just leave me there.  Looking back its hilarious, but I assure you that at the time it wasn't funny at all.  Then it was back to the bed and time to get hooked up to the monitor and get checked.  Wouldn't you know it I was dilated to 8.  Labor was hard and to off set the pain, Troy was by my side allowing me to hold on to the neck of his shirt.  Little did I know that the whole while I had been twisting his shirt and eventually I was choking him!  Oops.  The nurse helped him out by asking me to release my grip.  Then it happened, I needed to push and I announced it to the whole room.  With my previous children when I made this announcement they always said, "Go ahead, push.", but this time I was met with eyes filled with a bit of concern.  They said to my surprise, "No don't push, you have to blow it off."  WHAT?  After doing this a few times I let Troy know that this next time I was gonna push our baby out so he should be prepared.  We only had an intern Dr. there and he looked like a deer in headlights, but I figured we had enough experience to get this done between the 3 of us and the nurses.   Then I made my next announcement that I was going to push this time and as I did my sweet midwife came rushing through the door just in time.  Push I did and it wasn't long and we were presented with our precious child, Carter.  We were thrilled.  His brother and sister came up to visit and we watched Monday Night Football, because the Vikings were playing.  That night Troy wore his Carter jersey proud as he held our very own Carter in his arms!

13 years ago today we were blessed for a third time beyond measure.