happy birthday, little man!

Hi Grayson - 


I wanted to wish you the happiest birthday any 1 year old has ever had, and to tell you that you are positively the most wonderful thing in our lives and we love you more every minute.


To commemorate your 1st birthday, Daddy and I have each provided our rendition of the best day ever - the day you were born :)

April 27, 2009, 2:31pm


Grayson's Birthday [as remembered by Daddy]:

“Honey, I think I’m in Labor”, those were the words that woke me up at 2 o’clock in the morning on Monday, April 27, 2009. I was in a pretty good sleep even though your mom was getting up every hour and I would wake but then fall back asleep. Anyways, after you Mother woke me up from saying that I’m pretty sure I let it set in for maybe a second and then jumped out of bed and stood in the doorway and asked, “how do you know?”( I’m sure a lot of people mostly women will give me a hard time about asking your mommy that).

Well she informed me that she knew because she had been getting up every hour and besides that was having contractions and other things that she looked up were happening. So well we got up at yes 2 in the morning and I was thinking well just because she’s having contractions doesn’t mean that your Mom was going to have you or that we were even going to have to go to the Hospital today. So that being said, we headed downstairs to hang out and see how long the contractions were and how many minutes between they were.

I prepared my coffee but I didn’t start to make it because I didn’t want to drink any coffee that early in the morning, just in case we weren’t actually going to go to the hospital and were going to go back to sleep at some point. I decided that along with a sheet of paper, and our trusty stop watch that I bought just for this reason, I would time the contractions while watching and recording the movie Role Models. We had already watched it just a few hours before we went to bed, but I really liked it, and your Mom liked it enough to watch it again too (you can’t watch this movie until you are 17 or 18 years old because it is rated R for adult watching only). While I was timing, watching, and recording your mother was updating her facebook, and photography website if I recall right.

However after a couple hours I think your mom really knew that you were coming because, after the movie, she took a shower and said she was going to get ready to go to the hospital after that (of course after she talked to the Dr.). That’s about the time that I said well if mommy thinks so then I better drink my coffee because on 3 hrs of sleep this could be a really long (special) day. Well, your mommy got ready, and called the Dr. around 5:30am or so in the morning and before heading to the Hospital I made a trip to the store to get something for your mom and gum for me if I was going to be breathing in your face all day trying to help her. When I got home, we called Grandma & Grandpa Wucherer and told them we were heading to the hospital along with Grandma H, and Auntie Krista. After doing so, we packed up and off we went.

We got to the hospital around 7:30 am and were sent to the triage room to see if they really thought your Mom was in labor. We waited a little bit and then Nurse Rita came into the room and hooked Mommy up to some machines to check things out that way to see what the people at the hospital thought. Well at first Nurse Rita didn’t seem like she was convinced that you were for sure coming except for the fact that your mother’s contractions were 3 to 5 minutes apart and the closer they are the closer you are to coming. After about an hour or so some other things pointed to the direction that in fact you were coming whether we were ready or not.  I’d like to say we were ready for you, well at least we were as ready as we were going to be.

Because all signs pointed to you coming, we were told we were moving to our next destination which was the delivery room, but first, we had to go for a walk to see if that could possibly speed things up.  In some ways I think it sped things up, but I think mostly it made your Mom uncomfortable to be walking around the hospital hallways with only a robe on. We did walk for a little bit and got you mom some water, but ultimately we just went back to the room so your Mother could feel more at ease that she was in private.

When we got to the room all of our stuff was there and your mom took a seat to fight the pain she was having. I tried to figure out what it was that I could do to help your mom out, so I went to the front desk and asked for an exercise ball (no, not for your mom to exercise), so that maybe your mommy could try different positions to make herself more comfortable. I don’t think she even used it once, but I just decided that then maybe I’ll just use it for my chair which I did and I was pretty comfortable most of the time. At this time in the day it was pretty much for the most part your mother and I, not even too much talking going on. I was sitting there trying to do a couple of things; one, help in whatever way I could, but not by asking, two, waiting for direction, and three, being as quiet as possible unless instructed to talk. Your mom had to concentrate a lot that day and if I would have just sat their talking or rubbing her back with out her wanting me to it could have been very annoying to her. Prior to this day, we talked about this and both felt it was best that I kind of just wait for your mommy to tell me when she really needed me to help her, but otherwise just wait. That’s not to say that I didn’t want to help in every way possible, but it just seemed that this was the best way to do things. I did help, I still am not sure how much I did, but that’s only because your mother was amazing that day. I don’t know if I’ve ever really thought I could fall more in love with your mom, but after seeing her take care of you for 9 months in utero and then on that day, I now know that I did fall more in love with her just seeing how she handled it all. Okay fine. Enough of the sappy stuff.

I don’t want to sit here and skip things but part of the day did sort of just kind of become a blur because of how fast things moved along. At one point your Grandma H and Uncle Kyle stopped in the room to see how your mom was doing and then we sent them off to sit and wait until it was time.  Grandma W also stopped by but didn’t come in at that time, instead asked me how things were going and then said she’d go upstairs and hang out with Aunt Jennifer and Cousin Samantha in their room.  Again, things progressed and your mom was doing just a wonderful job, and the hospital people were giving her medicine to feel better too when things were too rough to handle. At one point in the day we watched some TV, we brought the “Office” and watched a couple episodes of that while your mommy fought the pain away.

I remember when it got to the point and your mom just wanted to push and be done with it. She even said to Nurse Rita, “If you tell me right now that I can push you will be my favorite person.” Nurse Rita said, “you can push now.” That meant it was go time and you were ready to make your arrival and change our lives forever. I don’t want to get into much detail about this but one thing that I did do before I was given some directions by Nurse Rita was I made sure, Grandma H, Grandma W, and even Autnie Krista (she wasn’t really supposed to be in the room but your mom was in the room when your cousin was born, so I guess it’s a fair trade) were in the room and ready to take pictures when it was time.

It took about an hour of your mommy working really hard to bring you into this world. It was the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen. Again I’m not going to get into details, but I will say that I was so proud and amazed by what was happening that I would not have wanted to miss it for the world.  When you arrived I looked down and saw your little boy part and then turned quickly to your mother and said “it’s a boy”. Remember we didn’t’ know if  you were a boy or girl because we wanted it to be a surprise, and it sure was, a wonderful  wonderful  fantastic surprise and worth waiting for. So after wiping you down, weighing you and making sure you seemed 100% grade A they gave you back to your mother and she hugged you and I think if you and her didn’t need to get cleaned up even more and that we’d have to leave the room she may still be holding you right there. 

 

So many visitors came to see you that day including your cousin Samantha who as you know was born the day before you in that same very hospital (we have a picture to prove it). You had even more visitors the next day too. 

Grayson's Birthday [as remembered by Mommy]:

Dear Grayson Turner –

You came to us a week early (THANK YOU!), on April 27^th, 2009. 

I should preface this by saying that on Sunday, April 26^th, your cousin Samantha decided to make her debut – a whole week late…. we visited her and Aunt Jenny at the hospital that night. Since I had predicted your arrival to be April 25^th, and you hadn’t cooperated with that, I was somewhat sad that Samantha was here and you weren’t (I was also bummed about having to go to work on Monday!). After we visited with Aunt Jenny & met Samantha, as we were leaving, I jokingly said “Maybe we’ll see you guys later…” – you were to be born at the same hospital. Everyone kind of laughed, while deep down I just hoped with all my might! I should also say that at that point, Mommy had been doing just about everything she could think of to induce labor – bounced on an exercise ball, ate spicy food & pineapple non-stop, went for walks every night with Daddy….

Anyway, Daddy & I went home that night, had nachos for dinner (with extra hot sauce), and rented a movie (Role Models – good movie, but you won’t be old enough to watch it for at least 15 years, sorry.). While we were watching the movie, Mommy started noticing that she was having some pretty intense back pain – what I thought might be contractions – so, I started paying attention to how often they were coming and how long they were. At that point, they were only coming about every 10-12 minutes, so I didn’t think it made sense to mention it to Daddy. We went to bed at about 10:30 that night. At 1:30am, I woke to stronger pains that were coming more consistently – about every 6 minutes or so. I got up and used the bathroom, thought about waking Daddy up for a while, but again decided against it and tried to go back to sleep. 30 minutes later I was up again, and this time I decided to search the internet to determine if maybe my contractions were the onset of labor. My worry was that I had so wanted you to come that weekend, that maybe I had convinced myself that my braxton hicks (fake contractions) were actually labor….

At 2:30 Mom used the bathroom again and based on that (I’ll spare you the details), she decided to wake up Daddy. So, I opened the bathroom door and said “Nic…?”, “Yeah?”, said a sleepy Daddy. “Umm, I’m pretty sure that I’m in labor.” “Nuh-uh… how do you know?”, questioned your non-believer father. So I explained to him that my contractions were getting stronger and closer together. At that point, he got up, and we came downstairs, turned on the TV and waited. Daddy grabbed his stop watch and we started timing my contractions to determine their length and how far apart they were. We actually ended up watching Role Models again!

By 4am, I was certain I was in labor. So, I showered, got ready, ate some cereal and called the doctor. I also sat down, opened this file and wrote you a letter – unfortunately, somewhere in the craziness of it all, the file did not save correctly, so the letter was lost – that still makes me want to cry… but, it happens. Anyway, when the doctor called back, she asked a few questions – How far apart were my contractions? Between 3 and 4 minutes. What was my status at my last appointment? I was dilated a fingertip, my cervix was very soft and the baby had dropped. Is this my first child? Yep!... she told me that I probably had some time, so I should take a shower, eat some breakfast… I spared her the explanation of how I was so excited and full of adrenaline that I had already done these things. After we talked with the doc, we called Auntie Krista, Grandma H, and Grandma & Grandpa W.

At 7am, we decided to head to the hospital. Luckily, we were very well prepared – we’d had our bags ready and set out for a week already! The car ride to the hospital was no picnic. My contractions were about 3 minutes apart at that point, and confined to the front seat of our car, I couldn’t exactly maneuver myself into positions that helped ease the pain… so, the ride to the hospital was an interesting 20 minutes. When we got to the hospital, they set us up in a triage room. They have to check to make sure you are actually in labor before admitting you. It was here that we met Nurse Rita – the most wonderful nurse on the planet. They hooked us up to monitors that measured my contractions and your heart rate. Nurse Rita asked about our contractions, which at that point were coming about 3 minutes apart. While to me this seemed like active labor, she reminded us that unfortunately, the timing and intensity of contractions is not necessarily a sign that you are in labor, you aren’t in labor until you are dilating and effaced. When she checked me, I was 90% effaced (YES!), but still only dilated a fingertip (NOOOO!). I was worried they were going to send us home – and Mommy’s contractions were so strong at that point that she didn’t think she could handle being sent home! However, Nurse Rita told us that if we walked the halls, that should help progress labor and then she could probably get us into a room. So… we walked! We did laps of the labor and delivery wing of the Women’s Pavilion for about an hour. Then we were admitted and got to hang out in our own room.

Once we were in the room (about 9:30am), they checked me again – at this point I was dilated 1.5cm… so we’d made some progress! My contractions continued to get stronger and closer together – and the only thing that helped was breathing. I tried a birthing ball, but it was worthless. Rocking in the rocking chair seemed to help for a bit, but once I hit a certain point, nothing really helped. An hour later, when they checked me again, I was at 3.5cm – at this point, I asked for something for the pain. They gave me Nubain, which is a narcotic that helps “take the edge off” the pain. Basically, this dulled the contractions and made Mommy sleepy for about 15-20 minutes. Sadly, when it wore off, the pain was 100 times worse.

At about that time, a nurse came in to tell me that Grandma H had arrived. I had made it very clear that I did NOT want anyone in the room until after I’d had my epidural and was pushing. When Grandma H & Uncle Kyle walked in, I said “Hi”, but then as a contraction set in I quickly changed my tune and said “I told you that you are NOT allowed in here right now – you can’t be in here right now!”

Daddy was really good at keeping Mommy calm, even though I could tell he was super nervous. He was very good at suggesting things to do, reminding me to breathe and rubbing my back during the contractions. When the Nubain wore off, every time I had a contraction I would start shaking afterward. I kept telling Dad that I didn’t think that was normal, but he kept me calm. And actually, Nurse Rita told me that shaking was a good sign – it meant that my adrenaline was kicking in and that you were coming very soon.

Not long after the Nubain wore off, I asked about having an epidural. Nurse Rita paged for the anesthesiologist. In the meantime, my contractions were making me miserable, and I kept telling Daddy how badly it “sucked”. Daddy says he remembers me saying “Oh my word!” during a lot of my contractions… I don’t really remember this, but… at least I didn’t swear! Waiting on the anesthesiologist was THE WORST. My contractions were coming about every minute and a half – and it seemed like it took him an hour to get there. A lot of people talk about being afraid to have an epidural, because they have to put a big needle in your spine, but I wasn’t worried about it at all. As long as it was going to help with the pain, YES PLEASE.

The epidural didn’t actually feel like much at all, and it only took about a minute to kick in, which was nice. From there, Mommy was numb from about the middle of her stomach to the bottoms of her thighs. It was glorious. As I turned to lay back down after the ep was put in, I felt a tremendous “gush” (GROSS, Mom!) – to which my tactful response was “Uhhh, a whole bunch of stuff just came out” – my water had broken… PROGRESS! The nurse checked me once again, and we were at 7cm… ALMOST there! So, at this point, we decided to watch TV…. Here, it gets a little fuzzy. Mommy remembers Daddy trying to put on Las Vegas, and saying that I didn’t think it was appropriate. Daddy says he tried to put on Crimincal Minds and that I told him that show could be too depressing… at any rate, we ended up watching a few episodes of The Office.

The epidural made all of the contractions feel basically like nothing. BUT, an hour or so later, Mommy started to feel all kinds of pressure, which was incredibly uncomfortable. The thing about pressure, is that it makes you want to push – in fact, the only thing that will help make the pain go away is pushing… and, you can’t push until you are at 10cm. So, we had to deal with this pressure thing for quite a while. At some point in there, we told your Grandmothers and auntie Krista that it was time to come into the room. Mommy was having a pretty awful time with the pressure, but Daddy was very good at helping to keep her calm.

At around 1pm, the nurse came to check Mom again – at this point, I couldn’t NOT push anymore… so I told the nurse “if you tell me I can push, you’ll be my favorite person”, to which she replied “You can push!”. She directed Daddy to hold one of Mom’s legs to help with the pushing process – pretty sure Dad was expecting to be at the head of the bed and was NOT prepared to be in on the action – but he dealt with it very well.

Pushing was… well, it was hard as hell – it took everything I had to bring you into this world, kid. At one point, Nurse Rita was giving me encouragement and she said “Look at that, Dad – tell mom what you see”, and Daddy said “Whoa, I see the head – and it has HAIR!”. We weren’t expecting you to have hair at all ( I think I mentioned this in an earlier letter). This was pretty motivating, as I at least knew you were making your way – even if it seemed like it was taking forever! We pushed for about 40 minutes, and then Nurse Rita told me to stop pushing and told another nurse to page the doctor. Well, our doctor did not return the pages and also was not showing up – I could tell Nurse Rita was getting annoyed by this – she kept saying “Page her again!”… I overheard one of the other nurses say “She’s in her office with a patient right now” – to which your Mom replied “I am NOT waiting for her!”. They must have known I meant business, because they let me go back to pushing. Luckily, Dr. Moore arrived about 5 minutes before you arrived – JUST in time to catch you!

When you finally came out – it was the GREATEST relief Mom has ever felt. All the pain was gone immediately, and replaced with adrenaline and unbelievable joy. I heard Daddy say “Its a boy” – I KNEW it! You were put in a towel on Mommy’s chest, and you cried just a little bit. I looked down at you and said “Oh, honey – Mommy knows, that was hard!”. The nurses took you to weigh & measure you – and Daddy went to the warmer with you – at which point I heard him [for some reason proudly] exclaim “His balls are HUGE!”… oh, Dad. Auntie Kris and the Grandmas were dying to know your name, so I told them “Grayson” – they all seemed to like it.

You were bundled and given one of those dorky hospital hats, and then we got to hold you. You were so content! We spent the first hour or so just staring at you, and you back at us. I’ve never seen your Daddy smile so big. You looked alot like a Wucherer – except, you had RED hair – and we’re still not sure where that came from.