Joseph- August 10,1998

Joseph- 2 months old

Twelve summers ago, I was pregnant with our third child.   By early August I was more than ready to meet our little guy.  My doctor let me choose the day for induction even though I wasn't really due for a couple more weeks.  I chose Monday, August 10 (my grandparents' anniversary), instead of waiting 3 more days so we could share a birthday.

On August 9, Mikaela and Jacob spent the night at grandma and grandpa's house.  I was up early on Monday morning (August 10) to make the trip to the hospital.  I took my time getting dressed, fixing my hair, and putting on makeup.  We arrived at the hospital around 7am and began the pitocin to start my labor.  By 10am, Elsie checked me and noted that things weren't progressing much.  She told me that if things didn't happen before early evening, the pitocin would be stopped for the night, restarted in the morning, and the baby would be born the next day.  I was less than thrilled with the idea of spending two days having a baby.  Then soon afterward, I experienced an intense period of pain for about 15 minutes straight, and we told the nursing staff.  No one checked, otherwise they would have known that the baby had completely turned and was in a breech position.  Within a short time, my contractions had progressed to the point of being ready to push.  I was screaming and the nurses were trying to keep me quiet.  I kept thinking maybe I was really wimpy this time and not able to handle the pain. The nurses tried to make me wait until the doctor arrived.  As the doctor walked in, a nurse remarked, "I thought you said he had a lot of hai..."  And then I realized that our little fellow was coming into the world backwards.

Joseph's Hospital photo - 1 day old

After making it halfway out in a breech position, Joe became stuck. Boy did I wish I had taken some drugs!  Eventually the doctor managed to manually extract our little guy, who wasn't crying or breathing.  After what seemed like an eternity of rubbing and working on him, the staff finally was able to make our boy cry.  I was so relieved to hear him.

Joseph - 9 months old

Joseph was born at 11:58am.  He weighed 7 lbs. 4 1/2oz. (our biggest baby yet).  Steve accompanied him to the nursery to be measured and monitored. He had a full head of dark hair and dark blue eyes. We had been a little unsure about the name, but I let Steve make the final call in a moment of weakness exhaustion.  So our third child was named Joseph Steven.  Joseph means "Jehovah will add another child", and we truly felt our Joseph was added by God to our family.  With his dark skin and hair, Joe was quite a beauty by the time we brought him home to his adoring older siblings.

So that's the story of the day Joseph was born.

Joseph- 12 years old, today

Joseph is creative, funny, sweet, and bright.  He adds a lot of fun and laughter to our family.