4 Lamberts: It Seems Like Only Yesterday . . .

I have been taking a walk down memory lane the past few days. It seems Ryan's impending birthday today got me thinking. Ryan turned 9 today and I am left wondering where the past nine years have gone. Wasn't he just a baby??

I remember the day Ryan was born like it was yesterday. I woke up a little after two in the morning with pains I knew were beyond Braxton Hicks. I woke Bill and we started timing them. They stayed about 5 minutes apart for quite some time and slowly started to get closer together. My bag was packed for the hospital and had been for quite some time since my due date was November 20 and we were two weeks past that. Bill called the hospital to talk to the OB charge nurse and she told us to come in when the pains got about three minutes apart. That was my cue to take a leisurely shower (yelling to Bill each time a contraction started), do my hair and put on makeup (can you tell this was my first baby -- I had NO idea what was in store for me). Bill was getting very frustrated with me at this point because although he had delivered babies for Paramedic class and was prepared to help deliver this one -- his plan did not include doing this at our house. By the time we left for the hospital the contractions were 2-3 minutes apart. It was about 6:30 in the morning and we arrived at the hospital right at shift change so it took awhile to get us settled in to our room.

The rest of the day seemed to stretch on. I had bad back labor which made me quite sick and in a great deal of pain. My stubbornness was not to my advantage that day as I look back now for I was insistent on no pain meds, no epidural, nothing. I went into my own little world and tried to get through it. Finally after more than three hours of pushing Ryan made his grand entrance at 2:16 pm. He was literally bright eyed and bushy haired (so that was why I had so much heartburn!). The doctor and nurse marveled at his alertness and chalked it up to how much past my due date he was.

Ryan was such an easy, happy baby. We moved to a new house only two weeks after he was born and he slept through much of the chaos. We were lucky -- for a first baby we were blessed with a boy who made us think we could have several more (after having Anna however we saw how outnumbered we felt with two and decided two was a nice number).

Today Ryan is still bright eyed AND bushy haired. He is growing up to be such a fine young man and we are so very proud of him. He is empathic to others and loves his sister dearly, he is smart and excelling in school and his twinkling eyes and toothy grin can't help but make you smile. I wanted to share a photo from the day he was born but I don't have one electronically. So instead I decided to share some photos from his birthday party on Saturday and his birthday dinner tonight. Enjoy!