the ryan story

so many bloggers these days are writing the ‘birth stories’ of their children.  While I think ( personally ) that sometimes there is too much info out there, I also think that having the story of one’s grand entrance into this world, is something that , if documented properly, can be something to be shared for years to come.

21 year ago today, I gave birth to my second child. back then, there weren’t blogs ( that i know of) we did not have a computer nor, computer access) ahhhhh.. the simpler days..

The night before Ry was born ( and early the next day) is by far one of my greatest memories. In fact, many times ( like in the 1,000s) I will often in my own head relive that entire experience.

here goes.

Ryan was not due until late May. I had my appointment with my doctor early in the afternoon. It was a Thursday, the Thursday before Easter Sunday.

Sparing you the details, he told me that my baby would most likely be born early and to not dismiss any signs of early labor; he felt like the baby was not in any danger, therefore not bed rest or hospitalization like when I was later pregnant with  Ali

point taken.

I left the office excited and nervous. I stopped at Friendly’s for an ice cream cone. Toasted almond fudge in a sugar cone. It was sooo good.

I drove home to get Jason off of the bus and realized that I still had not finished Ryan’s car seat.

When Jason was a baby, car seats were not mandatory.In fact, his car seat didn’t even have a seat belt attached!

This was back in the day when money was uber-tight, Scott was working full-time and working on his masters’ degree at night, 5 days a week. He’d leave at 5am and get home at 11:00 pm. This is where our family tradition of scrambled eggs at midnight began. Eggs were cheap, and Scott and I ate scrambled eggs in bed while catching up on the day probably 3 nights of the week.

anyhooo.. I picked up a car seat from a thrift store a few weeks prior, and took the seat cover apart, made a pattern our of it, and found fabric n sale to re- the cover.

when I got home that afternoon, I decided that i should work on it. It was a good thing that I did.

I texted Scott to tell him what the doctor said.. ( that was a funny… there was no texting, there were no cell phones)

Scott’s answer, ” He can’t be born this weekend, I have a study group and a final!”

HA! trying to tell a baby when it will be born is like.. well, it’s like something 🙂

fast forward to 8 pm that night. I started feeling some signs of labor. We were about to watch 90210. I took the clock off of the wall and began timing contractions. They were quite regular, but manageable.  He said that if I still had them when the show was over, we could call the doc.

When the show was over, I was still having them. Scott said, ” are you sure you are in labor? you don’t look all crazy and breathing weird like the women on TV” ahh.. another one of Scott’s silly statements.

Now, this was our second child, but circumstances were quite different with Ry.

WE called the doc, He said to come in, Scott called him mom, I called mine and we dropped Jason off at our neighbors house.

On the way to the hospital, Scott said that he felt like we were wasting a trip. HA!

They got me all settled in my room, and sure enough, I was in labor. Scott was watching Johnny Carson and Cheers Reruns. I felt pretty good, all things considering.  Shortly after midnight I started to have some intense cramping, so the gave me something for the pain.

Which sped up the labor, and seconds later, they told me to push. I was in shock. I remember asking them ,” already? I haven’t  been here that long”

now this is the interesting part.  Ry wasn’t expected until the end of May. When I went into labor, I never thought about the date. At all.  Until I began to push… and out of the blue, I looked at Scott and said, ” I’m giving birth on the same day that my meme did” I didn’t think of this ahead of time, It was the strangest thing that all of a sudden I thought of this.

You see, my Uncle Ricky was born on April 8th and at 12:24 am, Ryan entered the world.

He was tiny, yet perfect.

and I had just had the pain meds kick in. and let me tell you, I thought I was beautiful. Like unbelievably beautiful. And i told everyone. I men EVERYONE .. “look at me, I’m sooo beautiful! I just gave birth and I’m sooo beautiful!

Let me tell you, I saw pictures later.. and I was anything but beautiful.

My mom and sister were at the hospital, they brought us Dunkin donuts. I ate a glazed munchkin.

Scott never called his parents back because he was afraid he’d wake them. What he found out later was that my Mother in law spent the night awake waiting for a phone call.

Silly boy.

Scott went home in the morning and picked Jason up from our neighbor to bring him up to see us. My neighbor later told me that he slapped the Polaroid of Ryan on the table as proud as can be, stating, ” he’s a beautiful, healthy baby boy”

( yeah, no cell phone, no instant camera, no digital.. good ol fashioned Polaroid.)

6 perfect pounds.

Big brotherso proud!

we went home the Friday before Easter, Good friday. I remember panicking that Jason would wonder why the Easter bunny wouldn’t have had a basket for his new baby brother.

The bunny ended up coming up with a great idea of filling a baby bottle with jelly beans 😉

I remember my mother in law telling me the story of my sister-in-law,Karen  going to her house the Friday morning and when my mother-in-law stated, ” Ryan has arrived” My sister-in-law said, ” Ryan who? ”

It had all happened so fast that family members didn’t know he had arrived until he was already here.

Now I mentioned that my sister was at the hospital with my mom. That’s because even though Jodie and Scott’s younger sister , Kristin were away at college, they were both home for easter weekend, so everyone got to meet Ryan 🙂

and Scott made his study group AND aced his final 😉

see… I told you I wasn’t as beautiful as I thought!

but Ryan was all of that and more.

21 years ago today, this little boy became my soul mate ❤