Beautiful Boy

Today is William's 4th birthday. I remember his birth like it was yesterday -- what mother doesn't remember the birth of her first child?

I did not know what to expect. Jud and I took the weekend course that's supposed to "prepare" you for the beginnings of labor and to know when you should go to the hospital blah blah blah. Now, after having had three kids, to a certain degree when it comes to childbirth, I think we're still living in the dark ages. There's so much we don't know and yet all these textbooks and experts tell you it should go like this when sure enough it will go like what?????

But I digress...

William was in no hurry to enter the world. He was quite happy to stay put. A week overdue, I finally felt the beginnings of labor, or "false labor" as the experts like to call it. Nothing felt false about it to me. I felt pain and it wasn't stopping.

I was so convinced that I had dilated 6cm that we charged off to the hospital fully expecting to deliver our little bundle of joy within the hour. Nope. I had only dilated .5cm. Go me.

We were sent back home to "hang out" until the contractions got stronger and more painful. I don't know about you but when you have no yardstick to measure your "pain" against because, well, you've never given birth before, that advice may as well have been given by a monkey.

The day came and went, the contractions seemed to become more frequent and I couldn't talk during them. Well, apparently my pain threshold was not as high as I thought. I had only dilated another .5cm. At least this time the hospital kept me and decided it was time to get things going.

I was dumb enough to hold off on getting the epidural until I was 6cm (I did not make that mistake with Bo and Joshua). I had never felt such unending horrible pain in my life. The only way I've described it to other pregnant women -- and I had to be honest since some of them heard that it wasn't painful at all -- was that it was like being jabbed in the gut with a jagged knife, twisting and turning for 45 seconds, two minute reprieve and then the knife jabs again.

Despite these strong and frequent contractions, I felt like William was never going to come out of me. I was at the point of acceptance that I would be permanently pregnant when the nurse finally told me that I could push.

I couldn't feel my legs, I was shaking due to low sugars, I had been awake for 48 hours and I had Jud, my labor nurse and the doctor all telling me to push. Somewhere I found it in me and twenty minutes later, William Laird Rasmussen was born.

Turning 1...

Turning 2...

Turning 3...

And now our big boy is 4!

Happy Birthday to our beautiful boy.