The story of Sam...

It was about 11:30 pm, I was laying in bed and super uncomfortable. Mark and I started timing contractions about 1am and realized they were close so we decided to go to the hospital. We called Grandma and told her we were on our way. We woke up a sleeping little Joshua and headed to Grandma's house. We got to the hospital at about 2:30 am. My baby had been breech the entire pregnancy but miraculously had changed to the head down position just days before....or so we thought. When we got to the hospital the nurse checked to see how far along I was and said....I'm just going to get the ultrasound machine to see how this baby is positioned. I just don't think that's a head I'm feeling. The ultrasound machine confirmed my WORST fear. He was still breech and because I was in labor there was nothing they could do to turn him. They tried to stop my labor twice to no avail so at 7am we delivered our baby boy via cesarean. I was SO not happy about this. I'd been watching "A Baby Story" religiously every day and they always seemed to cry and have a really hard time when the doctors said they needed to do a c-section. It was my worst fear, though I really wasn't sure why...I just knew it must not be a good thing if it made everyone so unhappy. I was SO excited when the doctor told me he had turned and SOOOO upset when they said he either turned back, or never turned at all. Grr. Add to that the fact that we had been up since about 6am the day before (Mark and I had awoke early the day before and couldn't go back to sleep so we spent the day getting things done) and I was not in good shape. Either was Mark. I remember looking at him at one point and he looked green, really truly green and now I completely understand that expression whereas I hadn't before. We had an AMAZING anesthesiologist that was the saving grace of this whole experience. I remember bawling my eyes out and him wheeling me into the operating room and telling me how brave I was being. Although I wanted to SCREAM at him that this ISN'T WHAT BRAVERY LOOKS LIKE it did make me feel so much better. Also, as they strapped my arms down to the bars on the table I was crying that Mark could only hold one of my hands and the anesthesiologist happily said, "I'll hold your other hand for you!" and he did...through the WHOLE thing. Mark and I were so pleased with him, and we were lucky enough to get him again when we had Will, he was so funny and had a little photo shoot with Mark, the baby and I while they were stitching me up. ....sorry, I got carried away... ANYWAY, it was a really really yucky morning but the best part about the experience was the birth of this amazing little man that we call Sam. He was 7 pounds 1 ounce and 18 1/2 inches long. We noticed the little dimple in his chin before we noticed anything else! We also thought he had a TON of hair...until we had Gabriel and realized what a ton of hair really looks like. :) He made it all worth it and I'd do it all again right this very second if I needed to. I just LOVE this boy. Love love LOVE him. He is without doubt the smartest and wittiest little 6 year old I've ever met. We've been able to see his mind at work from the minute he was born. He's ALWAYS been such a thinker, he really has such a brilliant little mind. He's also VERY competitive...and absolutely COMMANDS fairness in every sense of the word around this house. He has always been a favorite with his teachers, I remember asking his preschool teacher how he was one day and she said "Oh...OH, he is so good... he is JUST SO good!" and I said "Really?, because he can be a challenge at home sometimes" and she didn't believe me AT ALL. Then, during Sam's first official parent teacher conference for Kindergarten at the beginning of the year his teacher said "I just wish I had 30 Samuel's" it was so funny. He is always so good about following the rules and trying to be a good boy. He is also absolutely strikingly beautiful, people stop us all the time at the places we go to tell us how beautiful he is. We love him SO much and don't know what we'd do without him in our family. We love you Mr. SIX!!!


When I was One,
I had just begun.

When I was Two,
I was nearly new.

When I was Three,
I was hardly Me.

When I was Four,
I was not much more.

When I was Five,
I was just alive.

But now I am Six, I'm as clever as clever.
So I think I'll be six now for ever and ever.

-- A.A. Milne

This poem is perfectly Sam. He IS clever as ever, and he says he already "feels bigger" now that he is six"

Sorry about the billions of pictures...when I pulled out the CD for 2002 I couldn't decide which pictures to post so I posted them all....and now I'm going to go cry for a bit. Seriously, how can they grow up SO STINKING FAST!!!!
Everytime Mark would see this picture he'd say "there's my crooked head boys!" That's all I think about when I look at this picture now. :)



For all my family out there reading this, this is a picture of our cousin Shanel giving Sam his first haircut. I LOVE the expression on his face here!!

Oh! He also lost his FIRST TOOTH today!! What a day of milestones for this wonderful little man. He was SO excited and had to call daddy at work and call and wake up Grandma (she's an hour behind us so it was like 7am..YIKES) So fun!!