Jan's Birth Story

 Happy Birthday to Jan! Here is Jan's birth story:

Based on an early ultrasound, Jan's due date was Dec. 19. But for other reasons, I thought maybe his due date was the beginning of December. It didn't help that I started having contractions and was dilated pretty early. So I got my hopes up, but he ended up being born right before his official due date.

I went into labor around 4am that morning, per my usual pattern of the middle of the night. I waited about an hour before I woke Scott up and we left for the hospital after our neighbor came over to stay with David. We lived in Wisconsin in graduate student housing at the time. 

At the hospital, I had dilated enough to start pushing and the doctor came in a rush. But it took me about an hour to push him out. He was facing up instead of down so that slowed things down a little. It felt like I was going to break every bone trying to push him out but finally he came at 7:30am. We had not known previously what gender he was because of our insurance rules not allowing that--remember this was the old days. I was expecting to have a girl but I was wrong! Jan was 8 lbs. 1 oz. and 20" long.

My hospital experience was not great. I had a very rude roommate who kept the TV on constantly and would talk about me as if I couldn't hear her through the curtain drawn between our beds. I finally told my nurse that I was going home if I couldn't move to a different room. So they moved me and thankfully my new roommate was much more considerate.

Right after Christmas, my mother came to help out for a week. It was nice to have her there. While she was visiting Scott gave him a blessing at church in a little tuxedo outfit somebody gave us.

Jan was a very hungry baby, my biggest eater. He gained weight very quickly--5 lbs. in his first 6 weeks--and weighed 18 lbs. at 4 months of age. He wanted to eat every 2 hours around the clock. After a few months, someone at church told me they just loved to come to church and see how much bigger Jan was. They wondered what I was feeding him--only breast milk--and called him the little cow.

 After several months of this, I was feeling a little frantic to get him on a more reasonable schedule and I can't remember if anything worked except the usual remedy of time. Eventually he could eat solids and he didn't feel quite so hungry all the time. But he has always enjoyed eating. He loved to go to the grocery store with me and see all the interesting foods we could get.

Jan has been a great member of our family and we are glad to have him!