LABOR STORY FOR THOSE WHO ASKED. THE REST OF YOU CAN SKIP DOWN TO THE PICTURES.

March 15th I had little sleep due to lots of contractions and Christine was up a lot that night. However, March 16th I woke up very energized. Because of all the contractions, I decided to pack my hospital bag and the kids bags and loaded them in the van. I did four loads of laundry, made the kids pancakes, and decided to go to Lehi to help my sister Eva clean her house, because she had just had a baby two weeks earlier. It was 11am and I was loading the kids into the van and realized that I had a doctors appointment at 1pm. I didn't want to hang around for 2 hours, I wanted to get going towards cousins. I called the doctor and tried to change my appointment and they couldn't do it. So, we loaded up and went to the park to pass the time. Finally we went to the doctor. My doctor told me I was diolated to a 3 which scared me a little because I am never early having babies, and I am usually just diolated to a 1. Oh Well! Still headed to Utah County. I was off to drop my kids off at my Sister Tina's in Saratoga Springs so that she could watch them while I cleaned Eva's house. I ended up having contractiosn all the way to Tina's and they were getting painful. Tina insisted that I leave my kids with her and drive straight back home. I felt the same way. I called Eva and told her I wouldn't be coming over. I drove straight home to Syracuse and after 2 hours in the van round trip my contractions were pretty strong. I got home around 4:30 and Andy came home around the same time. I had called him on my way home and he had no idea up to that point. We did a little more laundry and then headed to the hospital around 6:30.

Our plan was another V-bac. Jefferson my 5th baby was a C-section, Christine was a V-bac. I am so fearful that an epidural will slow labor down and something will go wrong with the baby and we will be forced to have another C-section, so, like my labor with Christine, I chose no epidural and went the crazy hard way. Andy said he doesn't want to do that again and I don't think I want to either. I dont' think it helped that I hadn't had much sleep the night before and I had only eaten the pancakes in the morning. I had no energy to go through such a long labor. He was born at 11:38pm. 7lbs 14oz Healthy and happy.

The good news is no C-section and Michael and I made it through healthy and strong. It may have been hard, but what a blessing. What Miracles. So, that's the story.

The kids stayed at Tina's until March 18th Wednesday morning and then they went to Andy's sister Suzanne's house and her husband brought them home to us that night to meet their new baby brother. Thank you everyone for all the help with our kids and our house. We are very blessed to have such wonderful family and friends. We love you all.

P.s. The fun part of the story is I called Andy's Dad on the way to my doctors appointment on March 16th to wish him a happy birthday. I actually said to him, it's too bad this little baby can't be born on your birthday. I think secretly I thought that would be fun if he was born that day. Little did I know I was in labor and he would be born on that day. So, during labor I kept looking at the clock thinking will he be born on his grandpa's birthday. He just made it in time. 11:38pm. We named him after Andy's dad Michael and my dad's name is Robert. So, two names we hadn't even thought of for our baby. Michael Robert.