.::still blinking::.

I had my mom write a guest post for me today, my birthday. Thank you.

This is the story of your birth. Vernal and I were happily married and so anxious to have you come and be part of us. Please look at this from the rosy glasses at that time in my life.

I planned to have you with the midwives in Kaysville, but we moved to a little town by Craig, Colorado, about three months before you were born because Vernal couldn’t find work in Salt Lake, but we still planned on the midwives.

You were due on August 7th, 1980. When you didn’t come that day, Vernal took me for a bumpy truck ride on August 8th, thinking that might help move me into labor, which it did.

I woke up about 2:00 am on August 9th, knowing that I was in labor and hoping that we could make the long ride back to Salt Lake before you were born.

We hurried and packed up and we had a Jeppson van at the time, that Vernal threw a mattress in the back so that I could lay down.

When we got to Vernal City, we stopped and I threw-up and I knew I was really in labor then. We drove to Roosevelt and I thought I was never going to make it to Salt Lake so we stopped in the Roosevelt Hospital, where you were born.

The doctor was an idiot. I told him that I wanted to have you without any medication, and I was very stubborn on the idea. I also didn’t want a lot of intervention. They would come in and check you and me off and on and most of the time, pretty much ignored me, because I was such an oddity to them. I have read many books. I had been to a class on natural childbirth and I knew what I was doing. I wish I had been brave and strong enough to drive to Salt Lake in labor, but I needed someone with me in the back holding my hand, but Vernal was driving, and I didn’t know how bad it was going to get and I thought it best that we stop in Roosevelt. I don’t remember what time of the day it was when we stopped in Roosevelt, I think early morning, like about 8:00 am, but Vernal called my mom soon after and she was there when you were born.

I was very adamant about not taking drugs because I wanted you to get the best start you could. I remembered all the women in the past that never had anesthesia, and I was such a trail-blazer in my own right, that I wanted to be a pioneer woman and have you in the most natural way possible.

You were born at about 2:00 pm. When you came out, there was meconium on you, and the doctor didn’t suction out your face. If he had suctioned out your head before you came completely out, we wouldn’t have had the problems that came later. When you came out, they laid you on my chest and you took a big deep breath and then quit breathing. I said in a loud voice “she is not breathing.” The doctor grabbed you and hauled you into the other room and we didn’t know for a long time if you were even alive or not. I prayed to Heavenly Father to please let you live and have a wonderful life. I was mad at him for awhile and said if she doesn’t live I am not going to church again. After about a half hour I took those words back and said, no matter what happens, I will always be involved. Part of the reason that I am still involved is because of the commitment I made to Heavenly Father, the day you were born. The nurse kept coming in and saying that “it didn’t look good”. Vernal was out with you in the other room and the doctor asked him if he wanted to give you a blessing. Vernal was so choked up he couldn’t talk, and so the doctor anointed your tiny head and gave you a blessing that you would be ok. We found out that they hauled you off and then pumped you full of oxygen and popped one of your lungs. I think that to this day you still have residual effects from this. After that, they put a tube in your chest to drain the air. A little prevention in this case would have gone a long way. After a while they came in and said you were stable, but that they were going to life-flight you to the neonatal center at the University of Utah. I got to see you at about 5:00 pm for about 10 minutes before they took you away in the helicopter. I asked if I could go with you and they said no, I would have to go by car. When I saw you, I was so in love with you. You were the most beautiful baby I had ever seen and not just because you were mine. You had such a determined little look on your face and in your eyes. I knew your eyes were going to be brown, I could see the brown past the baby blue. You had a little bit of dark, dark hair. You weighed 6 lb. 13 oz. I think. But they didn’t weigh you when you were born, that was after you got to the neonatal hospital, so you might have actually weighed 7 lb. when you were born. They brought you to me with a little red nipple from a bottle with cotton inside it for a pacifier. I ached to be with you, but the doctor made me stay in the hospital in Roosevelt for three days. Had I been a second time mother, and have known what I know now, I would have gotten out of the bed, and followed you to the hospital. When you got to Salt Lake, Naomi and Karla came to see you. They called me and said that you were the most beautiful baby they had ever seen. Every time I drive down Parley’s Canyon, I am reminded of the day that I was driving to see my baby at the hospital, many years ago. We drove directly to the hospital. Because you were in the neonatal center, we had to scrub for 20 minutes and put on gowns to even come in the room. I didn’t think you were remember me because you were whisked away so fast, but the moment I held you and tried to feed you, you remembered me. We were glued together. I didn’t want to leave you at night. The first night I did have to leave, but the second night they made a room for me and you in the hospital and we got to stay together. Then we got to take you home. For the next couple of days I had to bring you back to the hospital to have your birth weight checked. Each day you had gained ounces and you did so well. The neonatal hospital was a sad place. You were kind of out of the ordinary there, because you were such a normal sized baby and so many of the others babies were born months early and babies with such bad physical problems. Each day we came back, babies were gone and we knew they didn’t make it. I was so extremely grateful to Heavenly Father for the blessing of being able to keep you and raise you. I think you came into this world thinking that it was a hard, cold place because of the struggles of your birth and on your own you have discovered that so many people love you and it really is a wonderful life and a wonderful world. You are the world to me. I love you so much. You and your little family bring joy to my life. This has been hard for me to write through tears because things don’t always turn out like you think they will. In your case, they have turned out better. The little purple outfit that I gave you,is the one that I took you home from the hospital in. You were five days old when you came home from the neonatal hospital. You have always been a blessing in my life.