To Bentley

Four years ago today, I was almost 37 weeks pregnant and heading to the hospital with your dad. My O.B. was going to try to flip your little body around because you were breach. Your head was up in my ribs and your little feet would kick in the opposite direction causing a really strange pain in my lower region! The plan was to get to the hospital around 10:00 am, have her push and dig into my large pregnant belly until you decided to to a 180* and pray you would stay that way until delivery. And if that didn't happen, we would go home and schedule a date for a C-Section when I was a couple more weeks along. After I got onto a hospital bed, our Dr. came walking in and said, "This will hurt a little." HURT does not even describe the pain I felt as she was pushing so hard on your little head that it was popping out from under her hands. Dad and I both looked at her with a very concerned expression and said, "Are you sure this will not hurt our baby??" She said she was positive and does it all the time. Well ok then...
She then decided to hook me up to a moniter because my urine sample came back with a high level of protein and I was retaining A LOT of fluid. (which by the way is not something you want to hear when your pregnant. "Hey Megan, you are REALLY puffy, especially your face." Why thank you.)
They told me I had P.I.H (preeclamsia/toxemia) After they hooked me up to the monitor, my Dr. said, "Can't you feel that?" Me: "Oh ya, the Braxton Hicks contractions?" Dr.: "Those are NOT Braxton Hicks, You are in LABOR." She then checked to see if I was dialated. I then heard "Well his little foot is hanging out, prep for a C-Section." The tears started welling. I was so nervous, only 2 summers ago, I was graduating High School, and now I was sitting on a hospital bed about to have my stomach sliced open and my woman parts man handled while they took my baby from my womb.
I started feeling so much panic and so unprepared for what was about to happen that they had to start a morphine drip so they wouldn't have to send me to the phsyc ward. After that kicked in, I didn't care what they were doing to me.

I can't even believe I am posting this hideous picture, but it is proof at how puffy and swollen I was.

After a couple hours (or a couple minutes, I don't know, I was in and out of consiousness) They took me back to the O.R. and prepped me for my epidural. Dad was standing in front of me looking past me at the large needle that was about to enter my spine. In an instant, his face went white as a ghost and a nurse was putting a chair under him for him to sit on. I yelled to him, "DALLIN, you better not pass out!! I need you right now!!" His color came back and he said, "I know, I'm right here." And then we laughed.

I was waiting to get numb and the Dr. poked my belly with her scalpel to see if I could feel it. I said, "OW" This went on a couple times. For some reason, It took a lot to get me numb. Maybe because I was high as a kite. From the time she started to cut to the time I saw my baby, it was about 5 minutes. FIVE minutes. I was a mommy. You had a perfect little round head with tons of black hair, a loud cry and WHITE gums. When I saw you cry, your gums were showing and it looked like 2 white teeth. I layed there as they sewed me up and thought, "Was my baby born with teeth?" Is Guiness World Record going to come and take pictures?" That could have been the morphine talking, but Dallin came back and said that he noticed it too! We learned they were called milky gums and they go away after about six weeks. It took a LONG time for you to eat, I think the morphine got to you too, you were OUT. We had to put little tubes in your mouth to supplement you because you wouldn't nurse. You were already so small, we didn't want you any smaller. 6 lbs 10 oz - 19 inches long.

That first night, I was so exhausted and worried I would fall asleep while holding you that I had the nursery take you around midnight and told them to bring you back first thing in the morning. It is a miracle we made that choice because Daddy and I slept like a rock that night, I didn't even hear the nurses coming in to check me. The next morning, I woke up and dad was gone. He came back in a little while later and told me the nursery came and got him really early in the morning and told him that you stopped breathing. You were blue. They had to take you to the N.I.C.U and put you on oxygen and a lot of other monitors. I said many thanks that we decided to let you go to the nursery instead of staying in our room.

You spent the next few days in the N.I.C.U which was no fun. We couldn't wait to take you home. We did, and the rest is history and you are now FOUR years old. The fastest and greatest four years of my life. Daddy and I did not plan for you to come so soon into our lives, but you came on Heavenly Father's plan and it has been shown to me several times why you came into our lives when you did. You are our greatest blessing.

Now I am off to take you to the park for a picnic.

Posing for your T-Ball pictures last night

We love you Bentley Boy

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!

Love,

Mom & Dad