Four Years Ago Today...

Four years ago today we were in the hospital with a brand-new baby boy named Parker Scott Denton, who arrived 10 days early in the wee hours of Saturday morning.
I was a reporter at the time, and I worked that Friday. I had a pretty easy schedule just finishing up some stories. I even had time to go to lunch - a rare event. One of the editors took me and a coworker out to eat at Swett's, and I came back and finished up. I remember noticing contractions throughout the day, but they weren't painful. Subconsciously, I must have known what was happening, because I worked late to finish up stories that weren't even due until the next week. Then I actually organized my desk (which I never did) and sprayed and wiped it down with cleaner.

It was Friday night before Memorial Day, the start of a long weekend. Jerod had rented a movie (something with that guy known as The Rock in it), and we watched it while eating spaghetti. The contractions were stronger and closer together, and we started timing them like we had learned in our birthing classes. They never really became completely regular, so I just went to bed around 10:30, figuring that if this was the real thing I'd know it at some point. Thirty minutes later my water broke! We were at the hospital by 11:30 p.m. I was so nervous, my teeth were chattering on the drive in.

The contractions were starting to get painful, so I was trying to breathe through them. Pretty soon I asked for (demanded) the epidural, and I just remember how incredibly hard it was for me to hold still while the anesthesiologist inserted the needle in my spine between strong and painful contractions. But then everything was great (after I threw up the spaghetti), and Jerod and I watched the forceful contractions on the monitor. I kind of dozed on and off, and the nurse told me to try to get some rest, that it would probably be about eight hours before I would be ready to push. Wrong! Soon after that, I was fully dilated, and they called the doctor.

After 30 minutes of pushing, Parker wasn't coming out, and his heart rate started to drop. I remember people rushing in, a nurse putting an oxygen mask on me, and the doctor saying she was getting him out. So I had a major episiotomy, and he was born at 3:42 a.m. - fewer than five hours after my water broke. Parker was immediately whisked away to have his lungs suctioned (they were full of meconium), and I remember the doctor telling me not to worry if he didn't cry - that sometimes babies with this much meconium in their lungs didn't cry. But Parker started wailing with a big, healthy cry, and it was a wonderful sound (portending things to come...)

Jerod took lots of great pictures and videos, and he was so excited. We were both so excited - and kind of dazed, too. The whole thing was surreal and wonderful, the beginning of a journey that has profoundly changed our lives for the better.

Happy 4th birthday, baby boy. We love you so much.