Garrett's Birth Story

Happy birthday to Garrett! Here is his birth story:

Our third child, Garrett, was due almost exactly 2 years after his older brother was born. I was dilated to 5cm for several days before the due date but it came and went with no baby. But early the next morning, I went into labor in the middle of the night at 2:30am.

I didn't wait very long before waking Scott up because the previous delivery had gone pretty quickly. We went to St. Mary's Hospital. I asked for some pain medication but it was not very effective and just slowed down my labor. They broke my water at 6am and it had some meconium so they called in a few extra people in case there was a problem. At 6:15am, I started pushing and there he was!

We named him after my father with his middle name being Philip for Scott's mother. I was glad to have another boy to join our first two. He weighed 8 lbs. 2 oz., 20" long.

The day we brought him home was Jan's birthday. My mother came out a week later right after Christmas and stayed a week, giving me some much appreciated help.

Grandma Hansen holding Garrett

This picture sadly got a hole punched in it but I just love the expression on Jan's face.

Garrett was not a big eater but he was something of a night owl. He would keep me up pretty late until I was feeling frantic about getting enough sleep to get up in the morning. Then he would sleep in which I couldn't do since I had two other small children to take care of. Scott was finishing up his last year of graduate school and would usually leave for work around 7am and come home about 6pm so he couldn't help much. Finally, I realized I would have to wake the baby up in the morning with everyone else so he got on a better schedule. Once Garrett and I agreed that 1am was not an acceptable bedtime, we got along great.

This was Garrett's blessing day. In the background you can see a rare sighting of our short-lived goldfish named Alma.

Garrett was a very social baby. When I took him for his 4-month checkup, the doctor was amazed at how much Garrett engaged with him. Garrett has kept that quality and is definitely a people person.

His first year of life had lots of transitions for our family. Scott finished up his last year of graduate work with a lot of long hours. Then we moved to Maryland when Garrett was 9 months old.

We're glad to have him in our family!

Age 5 months

Age 1

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