Happy Birthday, Michael!

The Birth Day Story
It was 5:37am on January 14, 2003 that Michael Cornelius James was delivered into this world. It was the first time that I had a natural birth. No epidural (sorry, honey) and only 2mg of Nubain. No that is NOT cheating.

Labor began during dinner that evening. Tom was home from Bismarck. He had been living with my parents as he completed his third year of medical school on the UND Bismarck campus. We decided to spend the year apart and see each other on weekends as much as possible rather than uproot the kids from school and such. Tom's attending physician, Dr. Tello, graciously gave Tom 3 days off to be home for Michael's birth. That is if he came on his scheduled due date--January 13. If not, well who knows. Lucky for us, that evening around 5pm labor began. We were dining with friends that night. The Waterman's make incredible homemade Chinese food and I didn't want to miss it so I didn't say anything. But once we returned home I went straight into a hot bath to try and speed things up. I remember that I couldn't get the water quite hot enough out of the faucet so I had Tom warm some up on the stove! No kidding! The tub must have been around 100 degrees. But it worked. The labor progressed nicely and around midnight we called Tom's parents to come sit with the kids and we made our way to the hospital.

I had decided against an OB/GYN this time around. In the three previous deliveries with the OB/GYN my doctor didn't ever deliver as it wasn't his night on call. I wanted the doctor who knew me to deliver so I went with a family practice doc. Dr. Moyer was at the hospital shortly after we arrived and hardly left the room until Michael was born. He even held my hand through contractions! He was great. Others present in the room were Tom and Jeanne Waterman (photographer). Nana and Hattie were in and out, too. Hattie really wanted to be there when her new baby brother was born. She was 6 years old at the time. We thought she would be okay. And she handled it very well until the 'real' labor set in. She didn't like to see mommy in pain so she waited with Nana just outside the door. As I said before, Michael's birth was au natural so there was a bit of noise aka screaming at the top of my lungs! As soon as Hattie heard him cry, she came right into the room. I asked her if she was okay.
"Yeah."
"Were you scared?"
"Yeah."
"What scared you the most?"
"The screaming. But don't worry, Mom. You only scared half of me."
Too sweet.

The Celebration
Tom was first call on Monday so he had Tuesday off. We planned on taking Michael up to Granite Peak for his first skiing lesson as a birthday present. One of Tom's co-workers gave us some of her kids outgrown equipment and it was just his size. Best of all, she included a helmet! Unfortunately the weather didn't cooperate. The temperture plummeted. Rather than risk loss of fingers and toes, we opted for bowling. The celebration continued into Wednesday. We made Michael's requested lunch: little smokies and mac-n-cheese out of the blue box (Thanks, Jen). We went to his favorite restaurant for dinner--Applebee's. The servers sang to him and brought him an oreo sundae. He thought that was pretty special. When we got home we decorated his cake as a skiing hill complete with pine trees, a chalet, and of course skiers and snowboarders. Thomas, Isabelle, and Michael designed the cake. It looked great. We (Mom) forgot to buy candles so we had to use the long matches for the fireplace. They don't burn very long so Michael ended up only being able to blow two of them out. Love you, Cowboy. Hope you enjoyed your day.