Happy Birthday, Curtis!!

So today my little man turns five and I am happy and sad at the same time. He will be going to school in a couple of weeks and I am having a hard time letting go. Part of me wishes he was still a baby, but I love watching him grow and seeing how sweet and compassionate he can be. I love talking to him about Jesus and we have great conversations together. In honor of his birthday, I will be telling his birth story.

Curtis was my worst pregnancy and birth of the three. Kevin and I think it was in part because I got pregnant with him six weeks after the end of my miscarriage. I got sick as soon as I got pregnant and started bleeding at eight weeks and continued bleeding all throughout the pregnancy. Between the bleeding, bedrest, and throwing up, it made for a very long pregnancy. At 29 weeks, I went into labor and thankfully the doctors were able to stop the contractions. That was also when we found out we were having a boy. At 35 weeks, I went into labor again, but asked to be sent home because they couldn't induce since I wasn't 37 weeks and wasn't progressing. Then he ended up being five days late. At 2:45 the morning of August 29th, I got up to go to the bathroom and as soon as I got into the bathroom, this gush of water came out. I was like, "Oh man, I just peed myself." So I changed my clothes and went back to bed. A short time later, it happened again and I knew that I couldn't have wet myself again. I woke up Kevin and told him that my water broke, but he didn't believe me and went back to sleep. I lied down and tried to go back to sleep, but 15 minutes later I started getting these really bad contractions that just radiated from my spine all the way around my belly. I started timing them and they were seven minutes apart. I lied there for about half an hour then I decided to get up and walk around to see if they would stop. Kevin came out to check on me and I told him about the contractions, but he still wanted to wait and see what happened. So when walking around didn't help the contractions, I sat down and watched a little t.v. That didn't help either, so I told Kevin that this was the real deal and we were gonna need to go to the hospital. Kevin putzed around for awhile then decided to take a shower and I went into the kitchen to get a drink of water. As soon as I reached the kitchen a contraction hit me so hard, it brought me to my knees. So when it was over, I went into the bathroom and told Kevin that we needed to go to the hospital NOW!! Again he just kind of blew me off and took his time getting ready. My contractions were now four minutes apart and getting stronger. We finally headed to the hospital around 4:45 and my contractions kept stopping me in my tracks. Kevin took his sweet time driving to the hospital, he didn't even reach the speed limit! I will be honest, I wanted to rip his head off. I still give him a hard time about the drive to the hospital. Once we got there, I thought he was going to drop me off at the ER entrance while he parked the car...no, he drove around looking for a parking spot and found one quite a distance from the entrance. Thankfully, the security guard saw me wobbling around and grunting, so he ran inside and grabbed a wheelchair and ran out to me. When we got to the L & D floor, I got put into the triage unit so that they could check me out before they put me in a room. The nurse confirmed that my water had indeed broken and I was 6 cm dilated, so they got me into a room. The contractions were so bad and my blood pressure was getting high, so we decided to have an epidural. Once I had been given the epidural, which was around 6 a.m., the nurse checked me and I was fully dilated and ready to push, so she called my doctor and we waited. He got in around 6:30, so I started pushing. Two hours later, I was still pushing and he wouldn't come out. The doctor gave me an episiotomy and was trying to pull him out, but he was stuck. The doctor determined that his head was stuck on my tailbone and tried to wiggle him out, but it didn't work and he started getting distressed. The look on the doctors face when he told us that and that we needed to get him out asap was so frightening and I was so tired, I didn't know if I could push anymore. I prayed that God would give me the strength to push this baby out and that the baby would be okay. The doctor asked me if he could use vacuum extraction to get the baby out and I told him that he needed to do whatever necessary to get the baby out safely. The next part I don't remember because I was so focused on pushing, but Kevin told me that the first attempt at the vacuum extraction didn't work, so the doctor had to pull it off and readjust it on Curtis' head. The second attempt worked and Curtis came out at 8:39 a.m. screaming and flailing his arms. Ooohh was he mad, but he was so beautiful and perfect and I was so thankful that he was okay. He weighed in at 8 lbs. 4 oz and was 20 1/2 inches long with red hair. Thank you Lord for blessing us with Curtis, we are honored to be his parents.