Labor started Wednesday night, June 20th, 2001 during the 3rd of our 4 weekly scheduled Lamaze classes. Thursday I spent most of the day with a friend shopping for her husband's surprise birthday party where she would give him the exciting news that they were expecting their second child. I drove us from store to store and breathed through each increasingly intense contraction while clenching the steering wheel white-knuckled.
Brian assembled some more baby equipment that evening and walked with me up and down the driveway in the dark. I timed and recorded the length of each contraction. At 5:00 a.m. we headed an hour north to the wonderful Kennestone Hospital in Marietta to avoid downtown rush-hour traffic. The nurses and doula pampered and coached me for 11 hours. Dr. Karl Steinechen broke my water at 4:00 p.m. and threatened to do a C-section. Can you say, "Spike in blood-pressure?" An hour of intense pain going from 4 cm. dilated to 10 and it was time to push. Two excrutiating hours later and eight (very short) years ago, at precisely 7:07 p.m. the first of our four children was introduced into our family. My mom, Brian's parents, my grandparents, my aunt and uncle, my brothers and one girlfriend, my cousin, her husband and his daughter all anxiously awaited to hear the announcement... Boy or girl?!
It's a boy!!! Seven pounds, 14 ounces, 19 inches, black eyes and dark hair covering nearly every inch (hence the heartburn- I very much believe that old-wives' tale).
And now he is a precious eight-year old going into the 3rd grade! He loves computer games, soccer, baseball, correcting every word his brothers and sister utter, Hershey's bars and corn. He looks and acts a whole lot like his mama!
Brian assembled some more baby equipment that evening and walked with me up and down the driveway in the dark. I timed and recorded the length of each contraction. At 5:00 a.m. we headed an hour north to the wonderful Kennestone Hospital in Marietta to avoid downtown rush-hour traffic. The nurses and doula pampered and coached me for 11 hours. Dr. Karl Steinechen broke my water at 4:00 p.m. and threatened to do a C-section. Can you say, "Spike in blood-pressure?" An hour of intense pain going from 4 cm. dilated to 10 and it was time to push. Two excrutiating hours later and eight (very short) years ago, at precisely 7:07 p.m. the first of our four children was introduced into our family. My mom, Brian's parents, my grandparents, my aunt and uncle, my brothers and one girlfriend, my cousin, her husband and his daughter all anxiously awaited to hear the announcement... Boy or girl?!
It's a boy!!! Seven pounds, 14 ounces, 19 inches, black eyes and dark hair covering nearly every inch (hence the heartburn- I very much believe that old-wives' tale).
And now he is a precious eight-year old going into the 3rd grade! He loves computer games, soccer, baseball, correcting every word his brothers and sister utter, Hershey's bars and corn. He looks and acts a whole lot like his mama!
Happy Birthday, June Bug!
I can't imagine my life without you in it.
I can't imagine my life without you in it.
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