Happy Birthday Dalton!

I was going to wait to blog about Dalton’s birth when he turned 13 since that is when I wrote about Madison’s. However, she wanted me to write about it on his birthday today, so I did.

First off, Dalton’s due date was April 25, 1998. That is my birthday. When I found out his due date, I was a bit taken back. I figured I would never celebrate another birthday of mine as long as I lived. Now that I have kids, I do not seem to care much about the excitement of my birthday. Therefore, I guess it would have been ok if he was born on my birthday…but that did not happen. Here is the story.

My pregnancy was going just fine. I never had any morning sickness with either of my children so I really could not complain about anything. He was due in April, so I never had hot summer months to deal with, just smooth sailing. At 29 weeks along, I started having some pains. I called the doctor telling him about the severe pains in my back. He told me to go to the hospital. We took our two year old to Kelley’s Moms in Grandview and headed to Grant Hospital. They hooked me up to all sorts of monitors. After awhile of testing the results were that I was in preterm labor. I wasn’t ready for this baby to be born. They thought it was because of dehydration. Was I not drinking enough water? I wasn’t a big water drinker, but I did drink it. Well it wasn’t dehydration but they still didn’t know why I was having contractions. So they pumped me full of fluids and steroids (just in case this baby was going to be born they wanted to do everything they could to help the baby’s lungs) hoping the contractions would stop or at least prolong it long enough to let the baby grow. Each day in the womb would be better than having a baby right now. I spent the night in the hospital and the contractions eased off. The next day the contractions had stopped completely, but I was still getting steroids…just in case. Some co-workers thought I went into preterm labor because of the problems we had at work. We just found out a few weeks earlier that Fifth Third Bank acquired the privately owned The Ohio Company. Would we all still have our jobs? Was the labor caused by stress? I never found out. Later that evening I was released from the hospital but told I couldn’t work for the rest of my term. I can’t not work for 11 weeks! So, the doctor really did work with me and said I had to stay at home, not working, for the next two weeks then he will see how I was doing. If ANYTHING happens then I would have to be on bed rest after that. So, ok, I got the picture. I would be a good girl. In addition, I need to drink lots of water and take these pills every 4 hours. I don’t remember what the pills were for. I’m assuming either for my condition or the baby, but I had to set the alarm every four hours (night and day). That was a killer, to be awakened from a sound sleep to take a pill…every single night.

Staying home with Madison for two weeks was heaven, except I couldn’t pick her up, but she could climb up on my lap. I took naps with her, played with her…just plain fun. After two weeks I went back to see the doctor and I was doing very well. I wasn’t having any contractions. I could go back to work, but still had to take those pills every four hours and he still threatened me with bed rest if I didn’t take it easy. When I went back to work, I had to carry a travel alarm with me so I could remember to take those darn pills.

Work was ok, my department was saved with Fifth Third so we weren’t going to lose our jobs. That was weight off my shoulder.

Kelley was playing in a band a lot back then so a couple weeks before my due date Kelley’s mom would stay overnight with us when he played in the evening, just in case. He had a gig on Friday, April 17^th so she was at the house. The next morning was Saturday and I got up at 6:30am to use the restroom and my water broke. Wow, hadn’t experience that before. Kelley had a late night, but I woke him up anyway. He shot out of bed like a rocket. I called the doctor, but he said to wait until my contractions are 5-6 minutes apart (sort of heavy labor) before going to the hospital. If the contractions didn’t start by 2:00 in the afternoon, head to the hospital anyway. So, Kelley went back to bed. I had the luxury of having a great nights sleep and now I could take a shower and shave my legs before going to the hospital. It felt good. Well I had some contractions, but they weren’t regular. Some were 9 minutes apart, some 11 minutes apart, so I wasn’t worried because everything I read said that contractions would become regular, otherwise they were false. Yeah, right (I can say that now!).

At 8:40 am, the contractions were much more painful and A LOT closer together. I got Kelley up and we were out of the house by 9:10 am. Thank goodness, Kelley’s mom was there or we would have never made it. Kelley was going about 85 mph on the freeway (we are about 30 minutes away from Grant Hospital) and trying not to hit any bumps. At this time, my contractions were about 2 minutes apart and VERY painful. Kelley called the doctor on the cell phone to ask him what to do if we don’t make it? Dr. Koerner said, “Wrap the baby up in a blanket and get to the hospital as soon as we can”. We got to the hospital about 9:30 am. We parked in emergency and walk the short distance into the hospital. I was screaming very vocal at this time when I had a contraction. Kelley grabbed a wheelchair and we headed to the elevators. The door opened (no one was inside) and he pushed me in and banged the wheelchair right into the back of the elevator. OUCH! He thought the elevator was deeper that it really was! The nurses were waiting for us and rushed me into a room. I was fully dilated and the baby was crowning, so therefore I received NO painkillers. The nurses tell me to push but apparently I didn't push the way they wanted me to. How many ways is there to push? It was very painful and I was still screaming very vocal. They told me instead of screaming being VERY vocal to focus and push. The baby starts to tear me ( I didn’t feel this) so they gave me an episiotomy. One more push and our beautiful little prince was born. Robert Dalton Wells was born at 10:05 am. How’s that for having him fast and one week exactly before my birthday. He was 7 lbs 4 oz and 19 inches. Dalton was healthy and oh so much bigger than Madison had been (5 ½ lbs). We named him Robert after both my and Kelley’s dad. We had our little girl and now our little boy. We couldn’t have been blessed more!

Little boy, young man, with the baby blue eyes and chocolate brown hair, prince of my heart, a happy eleventh birthday to you. May we enjoy many more.