Baby Ry turns 1

Thats right, my baby is one! (ok, his birthday was in March....I know I'm such a looser!) AND I have an announcement to make!! This is the longest I have gone without being pregnant since I started having kids! Crazy huh! It's a good thing I am about to get a new niece, AND they live closer now, so I can get my baby fix!

We had a fun time with Ryker for his birthday. Jacob was kind enough to put together a super sweet cake for him, and we had family over to help celebrate. He is THE SWEETEST baby ever! He started walking right after his birthday and the boys LOVE teaching him all sorts of funny faces and laugh like crazy when he learns to do it on command! He has been such a joy to our family.

Kepping with tradition over the past year, I get to write his birth story.

I kept telling the Dr. over the last 3 months of my pregnancy that he was going to be a really big baby. As it got closer I kept asking for an ultrasound to check his size. Finally 3 weeks before my due date he did one and it said that he was 9 lbs., which could be off 1 pound either direction. So he scheduled my enduction at Banner Gateway. We ended going in at like 9 at night on a Sunday. My parents and Cassie & Jeremiah came down to see me for a while and hopefully be the first to meet our new baby. Things were moving really slow so they decided to go home and get some rest. This was the 1st time I ever had any problems w/my epidural. I wasn't getting any pain relief on the left side of my belly. They called the anethesiologist in 2 times to try and figure out what was going on.He finally put medication directly into my back and that not only made me completely numb, but it finally took all the pain away. The nurse was having me roll from side to side to get the medication to kind of spread out. One time she rolled me to the left side and Rykers heartbeat went down instantly, to like 30 or 40. That was the WORST sound I have ever heard. To hear his heartbeat that slow, and the nurse trying franticlly to get it to come back up, shot horrible fear all the way through me. She rolled me back over, saying that it would come back up, but it didn't. After several min she pressed her panic button and there were nurses flooding my room and they were all yelling for someone to get the Dr. because they needed to get the baby out right now and to get me ready for a C-cection. I started crying and Devin was trying to be brave for me, and I really thought I was going to loose my baby. Right as the Dr. walked into the room, Rykers heartrate started coming back up and he checked me and I was ready to start pushing. So I called my mom & they headed down to the hospital (I think it was about 6:30am when I called them) By the time they got there I had started pushing. I was so numb that after the 1st push I asked the Dr. if I was even doing anything and he said, "oh yeah, your doing great!" That is the weirdest feeling, to be pushing and feel absolutely nothing. Well, after he was born, about 3 pushes later, we realized why my epidural needed to be so good. They laid him on the scale & Devin & I were like holy cow I bet he is almost 10 lbs! When the nurses told me he was 11 lbs I just couldn't stop laughing! I asked them 3 times if they were kidding, and just kept laughing. I knew he was big but I never thought he was going to be that big!! It was so fun having my family come in and asking them to take bets on how big he was.....no one guessed 11lbs. He was perfect and beautiful and I was so glad he was here safely. He was the largest baby that had been born at that hospital and it was so funny because I would have nurses knock on my door all day asking if they could see the 11 lb. baby. When we went by the nursery when we were leaving the nurses there told us people would come by and ask where the 11 lb baby was and they would tell them, "the mom is so selfish! She keeps him all to himself" Haha! It was really funny! The kids were so excited to come and meet their new baby and he was an instant hit! He was such a sweetheart from day one. Very rarely did he give me any troubles!

I am so blessed to have had 8 beautiful healthy babies! Will there be more in our future? Only time will tell!