David's Birth Story

Happy Birthday to David! David is the child who made us parents. Here is his birth story. We look so young and, actually, we were.

Bringing him home from the hospital to our basement apartment--we weren't supposed to have any children there but we were moving soon

With David coming first, I had no idea what to expect for his birth. A few weeks before he was born, I started feeling mild contractions. I was naively hopeful that this first early labor was as hard as it was going to get but, of course, it wasn't.  Every evening I would start having mild contractions and then it would quit about the time I went to bed. I went to the doctor about a week before my due date and he said I was dilated to 3cm which was a lot of progress for a first baby. He also said the baby was face up instead of face down and he wanted to try and turn him. So he did and it really hurt! The doctor thought the baby would be born soon--and he was right--he was born about 12 hours later.

The new Aunt Heidi holding her nephew; Kent's sitting next to her

That evening I started having contractions but this time they didn't go away. In fact, they started happening every minute, became very intense, and were pretty hard to deal with. So we went to the hospital around midnight and I was dilated to 4cm so they checked me in. When the nurse was trying to put in an IV and digging around in my arm a lot, Scott started feeling lightheaded and almost passed out! Soon I got an epidural although it was a little too strong because when it came time to push the baby out, I couldn't feel anything. I progressed quickly then I pushed for two hours with nothing happening. The doctor showed up. He pulled him out with forceps and there was David! It was a relatively easy and short first birth. I did have a lot of soreness for several weeks but otherwise I recovered well.

We didn't have much money so I opted for a 12-hour stay at the hospital and we came home that evening. I had a private room at the hospital that seemed very small especially when the nurse came in and seemed very loud, especially after a night of no sleep. I actually knew her from my freshman dorm so I guess she was extra friendly.

This was David's blessing outfit

For dinner, we went to my Aunt Sally's house and took a 4-generation picture with my parents and grandparents

Once we got home, I realized that babies really do want to eat every 3 hours which I had not realized. I was a sound sleeper in those days so a few times David would be screaming in his cradle at the foot of our bed and Scott would have to wake me up to feed him. I quickly learned to wake up when he was crying.

He was really good at nursing thankfully but one challenge we had is that every so often, he would get all filled up and then throw up everything. That lasted about two months and then it went away. Otherwise, he didn't spit up at all--it was all or nothing.

When David was 6 weeks old, we moved to Los Alamos for a summer job and Scott grew a beard

David was a very tense and strong baby. He really struggled to relax and go to sleep, especially when he had been up for too long. It took us several months to figure out that he needed to go to bed as soon as he was tired or there would be a lot of screaming involved.

David at 3 months propped against the couch

I look at these pictures and remember how clueless I was. I thought I would know more being the oldest of a large family--but I was wrong. Fortunately David was pretty healthy and we eventually figured things out. Since he was about 3 years old, David was a relatively easy child to raise. He wanted to do what was right, be responsible, and take initiative. His parents just had to figure out how to get out of the way.

 I am so grateful I get to be a mom. It's the hardest job in the world but also the most rewarding. Having children brings a lot of meaning and purpose to my life. I have learned so much being a parent.