Happy Birthday Peyton!

*Waring. This is a very long post. ☺*

Today, my baby is 2 years old. These past 2 years have gone by so quickly. I know that everyone says that, but they really have. In fact, from the very beginning, everything with Peyton has been so surreal and happened fast.


We decided in early January 2007 that we would like to have one more child. I assumed it would take around 6 months to get pregnant because it had taken that long with our other 3 children. I was wrong. It took about 2 weeks. Surprise. One of the things I was looking forward to when I had another baby, was delivering at the new hospital, IMC. I became pregnant so quickly this time around, I missed the opening by one month. I had to deliver at Cottonwood Hospital. Oh well. I had two others there.


The pregnancy was just like and not like all of my others. My hips hurt, my sciatic nerve hurt, everything hurt, and hurt pretty bad. In fact, those things hurt more than any other pregnancy. I spent a day in bed here and there because I couldn't walk. It wasn't fun, but I survived.


We didn't find out the sex because we kind of like surprises like that, but I just knew from the beginning that he was a boy. I bought lots of boy clothes on the assumption that my hunch was correct. Lucky for me, it was.


I had delivered all of my other children around 3-4 weeks early. I assumed it would be the same this time around. A few days before the 36 week mark, I began having contractions. At my 36 week appointment, I had to have the Strep B test. My doctor checked me and found that I was dilated to a 3. He asked if I was having contractions. I said yes, but that I thought nothing of them and I didn't think it would be happening anytime soon. (I secretly knew that it would be.)


I went home and went about my day. I did everything as normal. The contractions continued, but were still nothing I considered uncomfortable. At around 8:30 p.m., I decided to take a teaspoon of Castor oil to see if it would push me over the edge. I called my friend who had delivered her little girl 4 days earlier. We chatted for a while and I continued having contractions. I remember telling her I was having them, but they just didn't hurt. After hanging up with her, there was a knock at the door. It was a Cub Scout and a member of our bishopric collecting for Friends of Scouting. The bishopric member asked if I thought the baby would be coming soon and I said, "yeah, probably tonight."


I put the kids in bed and sat up for a while. Ryan kept asking me what was happening. I told him there were contractions, but none that really hurt. By around 11:00, I was pretty tired and I was also having much stronger contractions. I had told Ryan to just go to sleep and so he did. At around 11:30, I had a couple of really good ones but I decided I was tired too and I didn't want to pay attention to them. I just wanted to sleep. I went to bed and went right to sleep. I woke up just after 1:00 because I thought I had peed the bed. Ummm...yeah, even being my 4th pregnancy, I thought my water breaking was me peeing in the bed.


I went into the bathroom and called to Ryan that he needed to call somebody to come and be with the kids. He wanted to know who I wanted him to call and I said I didn't care, he just needed to get someone there fast. I was thinking to myself, "I don't care if you call Santa. Just call somebody." My water had never broken on it's own, but once it had been manually broken, the kids were born in less than an hour. I knew we had to get to the hospital fast.


I got myself dressed, picked up the bag I had packed earlier and said to Ryan, "it looks like we'll have another child born on the 27th of a month." (Tyler is in January and Avery is in July.) I then went to sit in the car. Ryan came out just as his dad got there and then we were off.

The drive went quickly. I was having contractions the whole time, but I don't remember any of them hurting. The first time it did hurt was when Ryan turned off of State Street to go to Cottonwood Hospital. There was a large dip and the car rocked back and forth. That really hurt, but I didn't let it phase me.


Ryan parked the car and I immediately got out and went inside. I didn't even wait for him. I didn't want to waste time. I walked to the desk and told them I was in labor and needed a room. A nurse asked me if I had pre-registered. I told her I had not, I forgot. She sort of tisked, tisked at me and then proceeded to take her time to find out my information. After about 9-10 minutes, they were ready to lead me to a room. I told them to hold on a second, I needed to finish a contraction. I then followed. The nurse asked me to get a urine sample. I walked toward the bathroom and thought to myself, "no. I don't want this baby to be born on a toilet." I asked Ryan to get them in there and sat on the bed. The nurse strolled in saying, "it looks like she was in labor for 17 hours with her last baby." Ryan said, "ummm....well, I'm pretty sure she's ready right now." She checked and said, "oh my! You're at a 10." She snapped on a pair of gloves and started calling in others. Hearing I was fully dilated was all I needed to hear. I pushed and his head was born. The only people there were the nurse and Ryan, but they were enough to get the job done. The nurse asked me to hold on a second and she suctioned the mouth and then she and Ryan delivered the rest. It took about 20 seconds before anyone remembered to find out the sex. A boy. Just like I thought and born about 12 minutes after we got to the hospital. And just like that, it was all done. It was what the nurses call a "stop and drop".

I would like to let Peyton know that I am so glad to have him in our family. He's such a fun little boy. It pains me to say that he's a little boy now because I can't believe that he is. I've tried and tried to make him stay a baby, but he just won't. He may think (at least most of the time ☺) that his dad is more fun then I am, but he's coming around. He's actually starting to miss me when I go somewhere and that just does my little heart good. It's about time he loved his mom.

We all love him very much and wish him a very Happy Birthday!