Everett's Birth Story

Happy Birthday to our adventurous Everett! Here's his birth story:

I have to admit, after four boys, I was a little disappointed to find out that my 5th baby was going to be a boy but I got over it pretty quickly. People in Maryland where we lived thought we were trying for the girl when they saw our boys and me pregnant. But I wanted a large family so I knew this was not going to be the end. Our exactly middle child, Everett fit in well with his older brothers and worked hard to keep up with them. And tortured his little sisters with teasing.

Such a classic Everett expression even as a baby

Everett was due on July 5th but on June 30 I was dilated to 5cm at my doctor appointment. The doctor encouraged me to come in right away if anything started. After my miserable experience with Lincoln, I had changed doctors and had a much smaller practice at a closer hospital. It was a much better experience.

At midnight that night, I began having somewhat regular contractions. At 1am I called the doctor and he said to go in. Our neighbor Cynthia Gale came to stay with the children and we left. Meanwhile the contractions had stopped but we went in and when I got checked, I was at 6cm. The doctor said I could walk around or get an epidural and given my very intense experience with Lincoln's birth, I voted for the epidural. They broke my water but not much was happening, so they gave me some pitocin and soon I was ready to deliver. He came out quickly and the birth experience was definitely better. He weighed 8 lbs. 5 oz. and had lots of dark hair.

Everett was very attached to his pacifiers until age 2 when we lost all of them and refused to buy more.

I found it almost unbelievable that a few days after Everett was born, a headline in our newspaper said, "Everett, not Lincoln, gets star billing as Gettysburg orator." Exactly relevant to our situation. We actually lived pretty close to Gettysburg at the time.

It was a stressful time for us because we were in the middle of moving from Maryland to Utah. When Everett was 3 weeks old, I flew with him to Utah to look for a house with Scott joining me a few days later. He wasn't the happiest baby and breastfeeding was much more painful than it had been with my others. We moved when he was about 6 weeks. After a while, things settled down and we could enjoy baby Everett more.

Everett slept best when he was swaddled tightly, a little tricky with a summer baby

Here is something I wrote about him when he was about one, "Everett is very wiggly in Sac. Mtg. and does a lot of screaming. He is getting very good at getting into trouble with his great dumping techniques. He is definitely a busy boy with a pretty cheerful disposition as long as he's not hungry and things are going his way." I think that last sentence still describes Everett today. We love you, Everett!

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