Time Travel Tuesday--Birth Stories

Annie's Time Travel Tuesday topic today is "Birth Stories". My first thought was of Ammah Grace's birth story...it always comes to mind because it was so dramatic...but then I decided that (a)we talk a lot about Ammah Grace's story as it is, and (b) it would take a much larger post to adequately tell it. I'll try to hit some highlights from the girls' births soon, but for today, we'll start with Peter, since he is the oldest (and has one of the funniest stories:)).

The part that wasn't funny...36 hours of excruciating back labor with only two low doses of stadol. I was determined *not* to have an epidural (I was much more afraid of the needle involved with that than of labor itself!) Billy was in front of me feeding me ice chips, applying chapstick to my dry lips, having his hand crushed to powder ;-), and constantly talking me through the whole thing. My brother was on *back duty*...rubbing my back wherever the latest pain hit, as I barked out, "higher", "lower", "right", "left", etc. At one point, he had to have a break, so my mom took over. Now, for those who don't know my mom IRL...she is a little tiny woman, and has the boniest hands known to man. Three seconds into her shift on *back duty*, I yelled, "Get her bony hands AWAY from me," at which point, Billy took over back duty for a few minutes while my mom stood in with the ice chips.

The part that we still laugh about...We had decided with Peter (our first) that we wouldn't find out if he was a boy or a girl. However, I think we *all* thought deep down that he was a girl. For one thing, my MIL had declared that I looked like I was having a girl, and she had only been wrong once in years of guessing. I had told Billy months before that I only wanted him in the delivery room when I actually delivered (after hearing about the crowd in my SIL's room when my niece was born.) So my mom and brother were in the room until I started pushing, and then they went out in the hall to wait with my grandfather, my aunt, and our pastor.

When Peter finally arrived and Billy went out to tell everyone the good news, he announced, "It's a boy!"...and my mom immediately replied..."It is NOT." Not, mind you, because she was disappointed or wanted one more than the other, but because Billy had been telling everyone for months that he was going to come out and tell everyone "It's a Basset Hound!" Billy's reputation for practical jokes was such that my mom was just sure that whatever he came out with, it would be the opposite. She didn't believe that Peter was a boy until she saw for herself!