Adler's Birthday Story

Every birthday I can remember, my mom tells me my birthday story. I know it by heart, but I still like to hear it - even at age 26. She tells how she decided to go to the hospital, all the details of that day and my arrival. She does the same thing for my sisters too. We all love to hear our birthday stories.

Here is the story I will tell Adler...

Early Sunday morning, I woke up and couldn't go back to sleep. At 38 weeks pregnant - and a list of "to-dos", something just didn't feel right. I had talked to the doctor earlier in the week because I was concerned I was leaking amniotic fluid. She assured me that if my water had broken, I would know it. Still, I just didn't feel like things were right.

Stephen was still asleep, so I turned on the TV. The only thing that was on was Birth Day Stories on the Discovery Channel. So, I watched the stories of two different families. One family had some complications in the birth which resulted to trauma to the baby. Sitting on my couch, I just felt like I needed to call the doctor again. I would hate if something went wrong with my pregnancy and all because I didn't call or didn't ask the question.

I decided to call the on-call doctor. I explained to her some of my symptoms and she recommend that we go to the hospital. By this time, Stephen was up. I apologized to him because I just knew they were going to charge $100 to be admitted to the emergency room, just for them to tell me everything was fine. He assured me that it was worth it. We wondered if we should pack a bag...we decided to throw in a couple things...just in case. As a joke, I packed Adler's "take home" outfit.

We arrived at the hospital, they had me sign a bunch of papers, answer a zillion health questions, put on a hospital gown, and put me in a delivery room. As the nurse was asking me all the questions, I said, "You people know that I'm not here to deliver a baby, but for you all to tell me that I'm OK, right?". She kinda smiled and said, "Honey, if your water has broken, you are delivering a baby today!". I said, "Well, it hasn't..". I was kinda rude.

The doctor finally arrived and after an exam confirmed my water had indeed broken and announced "We're going to have us a baby today!".

Shock, fear, anxiety, "my to do list has not be completely marked off!"

Stephen made all the phone calls. Everyone was just as excited and surprised! We had a couple pre-Adler visitors - The Fountains and the Claytons stopped by. Rylie made it back in town from Florida just in time, Raynelle and Tom were able to hop on flights from Houston to arrive before Adler.

So, from 9:30am - 4:30pm little to no progress was made. It really was about the doctors figuring out what levels of medicine to give me. By 4:30, they decided to pony up and get things going - so that's when I got the epidural. At 8:20pm, it was pushing time!

It didn't seem to take long at all, but Adler arrived at 9:23pm - healthy and screaming his little lungs out. I'll spare you the graphics, but it really was the most amazing experience ever. I will never forget what he looked like - they put him immediately right on my tummy - he was gorgeous!

So this is the story I will tell Adler - I'm sure some birthday's he'll say "mom, tell me my story again" and other's he'll say "geez, mom, not again..". But October 29th was one of the greatest days of my life and one I will always cherish and celebrate!

I love my Adler!