Happy Birthday Nathan!!

Eight years ago today, I became a mother. I was so excited, and so happy be having a baby. He was a wiggly one, and loved to put his little bum up in my left ribs. It hurt so bad, and near the end when he was running out of room, I would constantly be pushing back at him so he would get off my ribs. They were bruised from the inside, I promise. It was the dead of summer in Mesa, so I was always HOT and sweaty. This picture was taken 2 days before Nathan was born. I felt so huge, ugly, and uncomfortable.On August 30, my sweet sister Heidi decided that we were going to walk that baby out. We went to lunch, shopping, and got pedicures. It was a lovely afternoon. About 4:15 pm, while standing in Susie's Deals in Chandler, I started having some pretty consistent contractions, and told Heidi. We kept on shopping, and I was getting a bit uncomfortable, and she could tell that I was not focused on clothes anymore! We went back to her house, and paced her small hallway and tried to relax while she made a few calls. I think she called my mom and David. I left her house promptly, and headed home. By this time it was about 4:45pm, RUSH HOUR, driving surface streets from Chandler back to Mesa. It was a long, hard, painful drive that I can't hardly remember. It was stop and go traffic, I was driving and was contracting about every 3 to 4 minutes. They were getting harder, and I could hardly breath through them anymore. By the time I got home it was nearly an hour later. I went inside, and David, being as naive as can be, tells me to go lay down and make sure that they were real (don't blame him, it was his first time with this labor stuff!). I did go lay down, but only because I was not feeling up to standing.

It was only about 10 minutes and 3 contractions later that I came out of our bedroom with the hospital bag in hand. It was time to go. We called both sets of parents, telling them it was "go-time", got back into the car, and headed back into rush hour traffic, toward the hospital. We got there around 7 pm. The next 5.5 hours were filled with lots of contractions, ice chips, my family and David coaching, and a very welcome dose of Pitocin (sp?).
When my OB/GYN broke my water during labor it was filled with meconium. That means that Nathan had already had his first bowel movement inside the uterus. That is a bad thing, by the way. If a baby inhales the poop into their lungs it could really make them sick or potentially kill them. They warned me that he would not cry right off, until they had cleared his airway of the meconiom. So they got him all sucked out, but he did not begin to breath or cry on his own. He was not responding. It was a tense time in the delivery room. The nurses began giving him oxygen and "bagging him". At the time, I had no idea what was going on. It was my first time to have a baby, and so I thought this was all normal. Finally, after I don't know how long, there was the sweet sound of a infant cry.

It was 12:40am on August 31, 2002 that our sweet Nathan Reese Peterson was born. It was not until later that night, that my mom came in and told me what a miracle it was that Nathan was alive and breathing. She explained that everything that had happened was NOT normal, and that he could very well have never begun breathing on his own. David and I cried together, and said a prayer of thanks for Nathans' first breaths, and his continued breaths. I remember it like it was yesterday...

Anyway, I will wipe the tears, and continue. The first 5 months of his life he cried almost constantly. He was an extremely colicky baby. I was new to this "mommy" thing and spent MANY hours crying with him. It was a exciting new adventure, but honestly it was also a sad and lonely time for me. After about 5 months he slowly came out of his crying, and became a joy. He was such a fun baby. He and I would play on the floor together for hours. He was so entertaining!!
And ever since then Nathan has consistently been a joy. He is such a bright, smart kid, and such a wonderful oldest brother. He has had the burden of having to mature much quicker then most kids. He became a big brother at 15 months. He then became a big brother again when he was only 27 months old. He was 4 when number 4 was born and just barely 5 when our last and fifth child was born. BUT, the blessing of getting to mature so quickly is that he excels at school. He is very young for 3rd grade, yet is reading at a 6 grade level. He does very well in all subjects, and finds such a joy in learning. I love that about him. He has a natural built-in desire to do good, and to please. He makes me smile everyday. Happy eighth birthday my goose-a-roose!!!!

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