Talmage's Birth Story

Happy Birthday to our cute Talmage! Talmage was my only baby where my labor was induced and the only one not born in the middle of the night.

Here's the story:

A few weeks before Talmage was born, people liked to tell me how big I was looking. I was in a craft store, and a woman called to me from about 30 feet away, saying, "You poor woman! Are you having triplets?!!!" It took me a second to realize she was talking to me. About that same time, I had to go in for jury duty. But it didn't take them long to excuse me since they really didn't want me going into labor during the trial.

Talmage was due on June 18 but wasn't born that day. The next day, I had a doctor appointment where the doctor decreed me ready to deliver. He suggested that since my previous delivery with Susanna was so intense and fast that the doctor completely missed it and I had no opportunities for pain relief, maybe we should do an induction. I agreed and they told me to go to the hospital in a few hours.

I showed up at the hospital around 1:30pm and it took a couple of hours to get an IV, get an epidural going, and start some Pitocin. My labor started at 4cm and 2 hours later, I was at 10cm. I couldn't push until Dr. Judd showed up at 6:10 and our sixth son, Talmage, was born one push later at 6:14pm. I had known for a while that I wanted to name him Talmage since I had heard the name referred to in General Conference and immediately liked it.

A few hours later, my parents showed up with all of our other children. Susanna, Everett and Garrett had colds and croupy coughs but fortunately Talmage didn't get sick. It was a tender mercy that he wasn't born in the middle of the night like our other babies because Everett, not quite 4 years old, woke up that very night with a bad case of croup and needed help breathing. If we had left David, age 12, in charge, he wouldn't have known what to do (or even woken up for that matter). But Scott was home so he was able to care for him.

Age 4 months

The first several months after Talmage was born were pretty challenging for us. We had seven children 12 and under and Susanna was just 20 months old when Talmage was born. Mealtimes felt especially difficult. We went on a trip to Mexico when he was 6 weeks old where everyone got food poisoning except for Talmage and me. It seemed like the only time Scott and I could talk to each other was at bedtime. He wasn't the happiest baby but when he was 3 months, he started sucking his thumb which helped a lot. Eventually he turned into an easy-going boy who enjoyed his siblings and friends.

We're glad Talmage is in our family! Happy birthday, T-bone!

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