Happy 1st Birthday, Tyler!

Well, here I am, up at midnight with too much on my mind to sleep, so I thought I would come blog! :) It is officially Tyler's birthday (as of a few minutes ago), and I have to admit, I'm struggling a little bit with the fact that he turns one today. I guess the past year flew by so fast, even faster than it did with Gavin, and it's just hard to believe that he's a little boy now and not my baby anymore. But I guess I can't turn back time, so I just need to enjoy him while I have him! Anyway, I thought it might be kind of fun to tell the story about what happened exactly one year ago from today, so here goes...

The night before Tyler was born, my family got together in Salt Lake for our annual tradition of eating at the Old Spaghetti Factory and then going to see the lights at Temple Squre. The first question out of my mom's mouth when she saw me was, "How you feeling, Ash?" I said (with definite irritaion in my voice), "Way too good to be having this baby anytime soon..." (Initially, I was supposed to be induced on the 13th so there was no possible way that Gavin and Ty would have the same birthday. But at my appointment on the 6th, my doctor said he just wasn't comfortable inducing me because I wasn't dilated at all, so I was really freaked out about the chance that the kids would have the same birthday. Plus, I didn't want to have Ty too close to Christmas, just for convenience sake... So I was really not a happy camper about still being pregnant and not even progressing at all.)

Well, after dinner, we went to go see the lights at Temple Square and I told the entire family that I was dead set on walking myself into labor that night because I was just ready to have this baby. And sure enough, at 4:30 the next morning, I woke up with contractions! This actually scared me pretty bad though because I was induced with Gavin, so I wasn't sure if I was in labor or what. All I knew was that I felt really sick about every 5 minutes! :) The best part was that while I was timing contractions, I sat there in bed watching TV and Greg would turn to me every 5 minutes and say, "Are you ok?" When I would say "yes," he would promptly roll back over and fall asleep for another 5 minutes, then the whole thing would start over again. What a typical man to sleep through part of his wife's labor! :)

Well, I held out as long as I could but around 6:00, I realized that the contractions were getting closer together. I started to get worried and decided it was finally time to pack a bag (yeah, I hadn't done that yet... ha ha), wake Gavin up, and call my parents to come get him. We got to the hospital at 6:45 to be told I was 90% effaced and dilated to a 5! (Pretty quick considering I was dilated to a 3 with Gavin for almost 3 weeks...) Around 7:30, the anesthesiologist walked in and asked if I was ready for my epidural. At the point, I was dilated to a 7, but I was still handling the pain really well so I said I didn't think I needed one yet, but he said he might as well do it since he was already there. So I gave in and sure enough, about 30 minutes later, the really hard, painful contractions started coming, and unfortunately, my epidural had only worked on my right side. The nurses had me roll over on my left side in hopes that the epidural would work its way down, but it never did, making for a really painful labor and delivery (as for all you women who have had your babies naturally, I don't know how you did it! Just feeling the pain on one side was excruciating!!!).

The details from there are probably more than you men want to know, but basically things went really quickly from there. In fact, our doctor had to be pulled out of a C-section to come deliver Ty, and he was born at 8:58 AM. And honestly, I had no idea a newborn baby could be so incredibly calm and happy after just being born. It was the best! I remember hearing him cry for maybe a couple seconds when they were cleaning him off, but that's it. And his temperament to this day is the exact same. He is just the happiest boy you will meet! You just look at him and he smiles. Anyway, I put some pictures below to show how he's grown up within the past year. I don't have any pictures from the day he was born because we didn't have our digital camera then, but they start around the time he was 2 weeks. (Too bad for all of you... I know you wanted to see how incredibly hot I look after giving birth! :) ) Until next time! -Ash

Ty at about 2 weeks. He looks a lot like an alien to me!

Around 1 month, big head and all!

On his blessing day (almost 2 months). I know, he looks really gaunt and skinny in this. At his 2 month appointment, he only weighed in at 8 pounds and that's when the doctor told me to stop breastfeeding and start formula. He really chunked up after that!

About 3 months. See the extra chunkiness? :) Good ol' formula!

4 months. I love this picture of him!

Getting stronger at 6 months (Sorry the picture is small, it won't go bigger!)

Sitting up at 9 months.

And here we are at the 1 year mark - he's crawling and into everything! But we love him to pieces and are thrilled to have him as part of our family.