6 years ago today Jason and I became parents. 6 years ago today we took on the biggest responsibilty of our lives. We stopped being a young couple with relatively little care in the world, to become people whose sole responsibility was to provide everything (love, care, provisions) to an innocent little life. 6 years ago to today we fell in love -- with each other (all over again) and with a beautiful, healthy baby boy. 6 years ago today we knew God's greatest joy!!
The history of Collin Jay Dorman.....
After being married for barely a year, Jason and I decided we wanted to become parents. At the time, Jason's mom was pretty sick and we knew we wanted her to know the joy of being a grandma (again). After 7 long months of trying, one Saturday morning I took a test. Having become a pro at taking home pregnancy tests I had become accustomed to seeing only 1 line. To my great surprise and excitement a 2nd faint line started to show up!! I ran to our bedroom, woke up Jason, and said to him "come look at something and tell me what you see". His eyes got big and do you know what his response was??!! "Let's go get some orange juice". What??!! After about a 2 second trip to the kitchen for orange juice (I still don't know where that came from) we both ran back to the bathroom to look at the test again. Sure enough, the faint 2nd line had become a little darker. We were pregnant!!
The first 32 weeks of pregnancy went very well for us. At 20 weeks we joyfully found out we were expecting a little boy! But at 33 weeks things took a bit of a scary turn. On a weekend trip to Burch Run with my mom, I started experiencing occassional contractions. A week later they became regularly spaced apart and I was sent to ob/triage for observation. After determining I was experiencing pre-term contractions and that I had an infection, they decided to keep me over night to see if antibiotics and IV fluids would stop the contractions. The next day I was released and instructed to stop working.
The next 6 weeks seemed to take forever! While the doc had thought I would go early, Collin Jay was having none of that! Oh no.....not him! He thought it was fun to keep mom laid up with contractions, but only with ones that basically just caused me discomfort and sleepless nights but not ones that brought on labor progression!! The little booger :)
November 11, 2003 -- my due date. At my appt that day the doc decided to schedule us for induction on the 13th. She said that if the hospital had room, they would call us very early in the morning and tell us to come on in. November 12, 2003 -- Jason and I spent our last evening child-free doing whatever last minute preperations were necessary. I later found out that Jay also made a quick trip to the jewelry store to pick up a beautiful necklace with a November gemstone pendant. Throughout the night I stayed awake with contractions. We were experiencing a major wind storm that night and I was just too uncomfortable to sleep. I didn't think much of the contractions since I'd been experiencing them for 7 weeks. At about 4:00 am I went to use the restroom and discovered a new "sign" common at the end of pregnancy that indicated labor might actually be approaching on its own! I called the doc's after hours number and soon had a call back from the on-call doc. I told her about my increasingly painful contractions and the new "sign". She said I better come on in, even though the hospital hadn't called to say there was room for me. I woke up Jay and said it was time to go. It was at about that time that I realized my prayers had been answered ~~ I had gone into labor on my own!! Unfortunately, Jay had not come to the same conclusion. He had heard the phone ring and assumed it was just the hospital calling to say they had room for me. He didn't understand the changes I'd gone through over the night, and he was taking his sweet old time getting ready to go! We got in the car and I said (not too nicely) "We HAVE to go....I'm in labor!". His eyes got big again and he finally got his butt in gear! 2 minutes down the road I instructed Jay to pull over so that I could promptly throw up on the side of the road. Okay, I'll be honest.....not everything made it outside the car. Hey ~~ give me a break, I was in labor!! Thank you Grandpa Bob for making sure that was cleaned up before we were released from the hospital ;)
At the hospital they determined I was about 3-4 cm dilated. We were later told by several nurses that were so busy that day and the next few that we would NOT have been called to come in for an induction! In fact, they said that during times of full moon and major wind storms they often see a lot more women go into labor. For the next couple hours I battled major back labor, constant shakes, nausea, and an epidural that did not work. At about 10:00 am things had progressed nicely (I was at about a 5) but Collin started showing signs of distress with each contraction. His heart rate kept dropping, my blood pressure kept rising, and no amount of repositioning seemed to calm him down. C-Section here we come!
Collin Jay Dorman was delivered safely a little after noon on November 13, 2003! First thing he did -- pee on the doctor! He weighed in at a whopping 8 lbs 15oz! Holy cow that's a big boy! While they were finishing up with me Jason stayed glued to Collin's side, amazed at his beautiful little boy! I just wanted to see him and finally hold him! Within a few hours we were settled into a room and began the life of a family of 3 :)
Since the day he was born, Collin has done nothing but bring happiness and laughter to the world. If he's not telling you tall tales that only his amazingly wild imagination could come up with, he's keeping you laughing with his crazy talking eyebrows :) And while he definitely gave this new set of parents a run for their money in the beginning (can you say Colic??), we have never ceased to be amazed at how lucky we are to be his mommy and daddy. Today Collin is truly a wonderful little man: he is an extremely kind, generous, loving, sweet, and smart little boy. Casey is the luckiest little brother ever, because he has Collin wrapped around his little demanding finger ;) We love you Collin Jay!!
Stay tuned for Casey's story, coming to a blog near you on December 10, 2009!!
