no birthday is complete without...

the birthstory. I love the scene in "City Slickers" where Billy Crystal's mom calls at his exact birth minute to wish him a happy birthday, weeping while she recounts his birth story to him. I'm not that bad, but I do remember it every year and reminisce about it. I guess it's just such a moment that it never dims in your memory. Sometimes I can't remember what I ate last night, or if I turned off the iron, or where I left my keys. But those days, the birth-days of my babies, those I remember.

E's birth was an eventful one for us. Monday night we took the girls to our friend's home to swim. Our good friends the Butterfields were there and we enjoyed swimming and laughing. I was due in a couple of days and Sheila and I were talking about how fun it would be to have the baby here finally. It was a wonderful evening. We went home and put the girls to bed. Then we went to bed.

A couple hours later I woke up to go to the bathroom. (surprise). While I was in there I felt this huge gush of water. Did I just pee the biggest amount of pee humanly posible I wondered or did my water break? I wasn't sure. In retrospect it seems silly. I never wanted to go the hospital and be sent home & I didn't want to wake any of our friends to watch the girls for nothing. So I walked around the house a while, looking out windows, enjoying the quiet, wondering if this was the last time I would feel little kicks in side of me.

Finally I had a few contractions. I woke DH up and said I "might" be in labor. We waited a few more minutes and then he started calling our list of midnight help, and getting stuff together. I got dressed. Fretted about if this was it and we got out to the car. We had to drive three blocks, small, normal, residential blocks to Sheila's house. DH took the girls in, she came out to the car to wish us well and off we went.

We drove to the freeway. The contractions were coming quite close and I was very quietly breathing through them thinking "we're not going to make it". Then we turned onto main street and kept on driving. Eventually I thought, still quietly so as to not panic the driver and keep us safely on the road :), well whatever happens is fine and I bore down just a little to relieve the pressure. As you can probably guess it didn't take long before he was coming.

I then said (outloud), his head is out. DH said something like "what?!! what should I do?" I told him to pull over and help me. There was construction on the road so it took a minute to pull over and then he hopped out, and slammed his finger in the door, and ran around to my side just in time to help me lift him out of my 'underwear'.

Now what should we do he asked? I said I guess we should drive on to the hospital so I wrapped him in my dress, lifting it up from the bottom and we drove. We turned on the heater, not wanting him to get cold and I just sat there and looked at him. After a couple blocks I thought I should see if it's really a boy, yep it was. Then I asked DH what his name was. We couldn't agree the whole pregnancy and after a lot of discussion, a lot of discussion I finally said he could pick. He said "Noah". Okay.

He didn't cry and kind of gurgled while we were driving. I tried to rub him and talk to him but really we were not worried. It was calm and peaceful and DH and I both felt like we were in the presense of angelic helpers and things were fine. When we pulled into the parking lot we stopped in front of the gaurd and DH yelled out the window that we had had a baby. The gaurd ran over and looked in the window, then ran in, and then many people ran out. A nurse reached in the open window and cut the cord and took the baby and left. I turned to DH and said go with the baby so he hopped out. Then there I sat, umblical cord hanging out, placenta in, car running, blood and other lovely fluids everywhere. A gurney came out and the nurses were trying to figure out what to do with me. Finally I said well I'll just step out and get on. I got a look like you can do that? Yep, out I hopped and in we went. When we got in the ER someone asked me where the baby was. What? Don't you have him? That was my only moment of worry.

They took me upstairs and the doctor came in and delivered the placenta while I answered a million admission questions. Why do you pre-admit again? The cord and placenta seperated from each other so I had the fun of the OB fishing that out, probably the worst part of the whole thing, then DH and our new son came to my room. Finally. He looked great. Well, as you can see he actaully looked like he hit a brick wall with his face but I guess that's what happens when you come speeding out like that.

The nurse asked us what his name was and I looked at DH who then said E________. Yeah! That was the name I wanted so I said quick write it down. After awhile we went to our room and he was great.

We had lots of visitors, lots of people wanted to know his story. It was very exciting. That next night 8-10 sisters from our ward snuck up to visit and we had a birthday party! Then he came home on Wednesday. It was really my favorite birth, quick, and peaceful. DH had to clean the suburban, which he claims was the worst part:) and E got some great nicknames: Auto being one. Chevy sent him a model suburban for his room and a GC. And he's the only boy I know who doesn't have a birth minute. We forgot to look so we made up one! I guess that will save him a middle of the night phone call when he's in his 40's!

the pictures are in reverse order of how I wanted but Blogger rarely cooperates with me! You can see he got better soon. And the first shot is me and H nursing our babies together, that I just love!