We named him Ryan....

Ryan and his wife Jennifer at Thanksgiving this year.

It was a snowy morning and I was wide awake at 5 a.m., sitting up in bed, absolutely petrified. I watch out the window as great big, fat snowflakes came down but my mind was going even faster then the snowflakes, for this was the day...this was the day my baby was to be born!

As I sat there waiting, in the dark, all by myself...all of a sudden a person appeared in the doorway....covered in snow! It was my hubby, he too had been awake early and had kissed our little girl goodbye (they had stayed overnight at his brother's house) and had driven through the city, slipping and sliding to get to the hospital...the next couple of hours were a blur as the hospital woke up and they prepared to do my c-section.

Thirty-two years ago in London, Ontario, Canada they didn't allow husbands to be in the room when they delivered babies by 'section' so poor hubby had to wait in the hallway. Two years earlier when I had birthed our daughter, it had been after lengthy labour that had stalled at 7cms dilated....the contractions kept going but not the dilation so they decided to do a section...the next day my OB said that it was a good thing that they had since the baby's head hadn't come down,...there was a bone in the way, and he would have had to pull so hard that she surely would have had brain damage...I was grateful. So, second baby was a 'planned' section but this time I didn't want to be put out as I had for the first, so an epidural was planned. Now with the first baby, I had two epidurals...the first didn't take.....so when they put the epidural in for this baby, I lay there and mused.....that poke was a lot higher than I remember the other two. Sure enough, when my OB did the incision...the traditional 6" navel to pubic bone...I felt this hot searing pain when the cut got to the bottom...I let out a gasp! Immediately, my OB said, 'did you feel that' ...'Yes', I said. I felt some local freezing going in.

Within minutes, my OB was leaning his face over the drape and telling me....".it's a boy",...I said.."What"...."it's a boy!"......I was shocked,...I was sure I was having another girl...a boy...wow!

O my goodness.....I didn't have one piece of blue baby clothing...good grief!

My mom came by later that day and brought me a whole layette of blue clothing and my grandmother gave our new baby boy a small little blue teddy bear...almost the same size as the baby. I think he still has that little teddy bear!

He was a tiny little guy...6lbs, 7 oz......all he wanted to do was sleep....and ironically enough...he still loves to sleep! Now he's much bigger.....he grew to be 5'10''...and well, I'm not sure how much he weighs..:0)

We named him Ryan...which means 'little king'......I never wanted to tell him the meaning...I was afraid he'd use it against us...hehe....it was not a popular name back then....people kept saying...'you mean..Bryan'...'no, I mean Ryan....no B'......and they'd give me weird looks....

Today, even though Ryan still loves to sleep, he's a very hard worker and what some people call a professional student.....it seems like he's been in school forever...but he's coming to the tail end of achieving his Ph.D in Theology and on the side working for contractors, refinishing wood...doors, floors etc. He's a good kid and we love him.....even if he forgets his mother's birthday! :0)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY RYAN!