Oh, Happy, Happy Day!

On a hot summer day about 26-1/2 years ago, a friend snapped this picture of us after church just days before I gave birth to Cami.  She was overdue and I remember walking many miles trying to get her to come on her own, but she stubbornly stayed put and had to be induced to come.

Fast forward to early Monday morning and Cami and Garrett snapped this picture on their way to the hospital for Cami to give birth to their second child.    She was scheduled to be induced later that morning, but went into labor on her own and bypassed the waiting time.

A few hours later...Oliver Glen was born. 

Oliver weighed 8 lbs. 1 oz.  and is perfect in every way. Cami had had had some minor health issues pop up during her pregnancy, but overall it was an uneventful labor and delivery. 

We are already completely smitten with sweet little Oliver and can't wait to meet him in a couple weeks (when Garrett's paternity leave is over).   I am over the moon to be on Gigi duty again!

Oh, happy, happy day!

19 years ago today!

 Nineteen years ago today, this little chubster came into the world with a bang.   Born eight days late, early in the morning on the day he was scheduled to be induced, he made sure none of us overlooked this 4th child.   My pregnancy with him had been one of my easiest, but his birth proved to be the most complicated.

  

At some point during labor his heart rate started dropping, thick meconium was present when my waters broke,  and the doctors realized the cord was wrapped around his neck. Everything after that was a whirlwind and though ultimately he was born without a c-section, his APGAR score when he was born was only a 2.  He was rushed to the NICU as soon as he was born and stayed there for a week.     At nearly 9 pounds, he was by far the giant of the NICU, but definitely still had his fair share of issues.  He was on oxygen and had tubes and wires coming out of his head and arms.  It was a very mentally and physically exhausting time for all of us, which didn't end when he came home.   Ultimately he was readmitted to the hospital a few weeks later for lingering issues and a few weeks after that I developed mastitis, which was pretty much horrible too.  

He was by far our hardest baby and toddler, which we attribute to all the poking and prodding he got during his first and fifth weeks of life.   We really just felt like he needed a little extra reassurance that all was right with the world and as such needed to be snuggled and held pretty much all the time. We remarked many times that we were glad that he was our 4th child and not our 1st, or we may not have ever gotten to Ellie.   

With the rough start though....he had a smile that could light up the world and honestly it was that smile that got us through those exhausting first months of his life.   

 

Somewhere along the way, the crying stopped and he turned into a happy, well-adjusted kid.   We are thrilled to celebrate another trip around the sun with him and in honor of his 19th birthday, here are 19 things you may or may not know about him....

1. he was born 8 days late on the morning I was scheduled to be induced

2. he was almost 9 pounds when he was born

3. he had the most difficult birth of all my kids and spent 2 weeks in the NICU 

4. he was by far my hardest baby and toddler

5.  he cried A LOT and needed to be held pretty much 24/7

6.  his first word was, "uh oh" and it was usually followed by throwing something across the room

7.  we called him our "baby scientist" because he was always trying to figure out how things worked or how big a crash they'd make

8.  he one time broke his foot after getting it run over by a full shopping cart at Costco

9.  that foot is still half-size smaller than the other foot

10.  he is the king of board games and usually beats us

11. he will race ahead on family hikes when he's feeling irritated about something

12.  At almost 6'2", he's the tallest Goold by a few inches

13. he'd rather do 1000 math problems than have to write a paper

14.he's the best traveled of all the Goold kids (and recently passed up Glen too) -- 25 countries and counting

15. he's got a fun sense of humor and has never outgrown his love of a good "what if" question

16. most of the way through high school he did ~ 200 push-ups a day

17.  he's a master cookie baker and even makes me delicious gluten free versions of my favorites

18. he loves nature and is somewhat of a bird identifying expert (though he's not as familiar with western species yet)

19.  he has great friends--young and old -- and we are grateful for the light and joy he brings to our family!

Emma's Birth Story

 In honor of Emma's 13th birthday today, here is her birth story.

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When I found out that our third child was due on Halloween, I told everybody that I hoped that she'd be born any day but that day.  But she had other ideas...

  We had moved cross country when Spencer was only 10-days old, then moved cross country again when I was 32-weeks pregnant with Cami.  After that I decided I was done with moving anytime even remotely close to having a baby and that is why we have our biggest space between Emma and Cami.   They are three years and four-and-a-half months apart.

With the bigger space between them (and the rosy eighteen months without having to buy any diapers), I was actually quite excited to be pregnant again.  As with my pregnancy with Cami, I had mild morning sickness during the first few months, but it wasn't much to speak of other than  having a strong aversion to cantaloupes.  Grocery shopping was absolutely torturous, because  I could instantly smell the cantaloupes above everything else as soon as I walked into the store, which would set off my nausea and make the whole rest of the shopping trip miserable.  Luckily the nausea only lasted the first trimester, but it was another couple of years before I could stomach eating cantaloupe again.

The rest of the pregnancy was relatively easy.  I exercised the whole way through--doing aerobics and often walking at least 4 miles a day.   In fact, a lot of the memories associated with the last month or two I spent pregnant with her were of  long walks on gorgeous autumn days.

When I went into labor naturally on the night of October 30, I still held out hope that she would be born before midnight.  Besides avoiding Halloween, the rest of our family's birthdays all fell on multiples of 5 (Glen and I on the 25th, Spence on the 30th, and Cami on the 15th) and I thought it would be cool to keep up the "tradition".

Alas, Emma had her own plan.

The clock ticked past midnight and I was still in labor, although in my labor frenzied mind I started worrying that they'd forgotten to turn the clock backs for time change that had occurred two days before.  I knew I was getting somewhat close to the end and I must have asked the nurse a gazillion times whether the clocks had been changed or not.  She assured me that they had and at some point after midnight I finally accepted that Emma was going to be born on Halloween whether I liked it or not.  (fyi--she has always absolutely loved having her birthday being on Halloween)

In the meantime Glen's mom was arriving from Colorado that night to help.  It was  before we had cell phones, so we ended up having to page her at the airport to let her know that we wouldn't be there to pick her up.  She ended taking a taxi to our house instead.

Finally at 1:40am our little pumpkin was born....very promptly on her due date.    At 7-lbs. 13-oz., she was the smallest of all my babies.  I had exercised so much during my pregnancy that I got a lot of comments from the nurses about how young and fit I looked for having three kids.  Other than being very tired from having given birth in the middle of the night and my roommate having the most annoying husband in the world, the hospital stay was pretty uneventful.

I remember Glen bringing Spence and Cami to the hospital on Halloween night.  They were in their costumes and so excited about meeting their new sister (and going trick-or-treating right afterward).

  We were between cameras at the time, so every picture we have of her as a baby was taken by someone else.  She was definitely our least photographed child, despite her absolutely loving being in the limelight.

From day one, she was my wiggliest, loudest, and most active baby.  She was cheerful as can be, but never stopped moving and got into more mischief than any of my other kids combined.  There was one week when I called poison control about her three times during the week...once for eating three entire packs of gum in one sitting.   She's thirteen now and  is a hard-working, determined , and still always has to have something to do--whether it be reading a book, cooking us breakfast, exercising, playing the piano, or singing.

Speaking of singing, I will finish up Emma's birthday post with a little video of Emma when she was 2-1/2 years-old, singing, "Families Can Be Together Forever." In addition to seeing what our ugly old bathrooms used to look like, you'll also see that non-stop motion I mentioned earlier and the fact that she is the only one of our kids to have strongly inherited the musical genes from Glen's side of the family.  She's loved to sing from the time she was little and still brings joy and beauty to our home to this day with her lovely music (clarinet, piano, and singing)!

We love our sweet Emma!  Happy 13th birthday!

For more fun Emma facts and pictures, make sure to check out her autobiography or this post that shares other fun facts about Emma and mentions how she won a big prize basket from a local girl scout troop because she was the first baby girl born on Juliet Gordon Low's birthday (the founder of girl scouts).   

Adam's Birth Story

This is a tad long and most likely not very interesting to anyone else but my family, but in honor of Adam's eleventh birthday today, I've finally written down his birth story in more detail (by far the most memorable of all my birth stories):

I remember thinking when I found out that our fourth child was due on October 8th, that I hoped he wasn't born before the school deadline at the end of September.  I'd seen friends waver in their decisions whether to send their boys with late birthdays forward to kindergarten or hold them back a year, and I knew that that kind of choice would be hard to make.

Turned out to be a non-issue though when not only did the school deadline pass, but my due date also came and went with nary a centimeter of progress. After three kids, I knew well that babies are much easier in than out and I was not stressed at all by his lateness. I do remember trying a few old wives' tale tricks to get him to come on his own, but alas nothing worked and  eventually my OB scheduled me to be induced on the morning of October 16th.

In general I've always had somewhat easy pregnancies.  I had had some very minor morning sickness in the first trimester, but it had otherwise been a very easy and uneventful pregnancy.  I  don't remember where my comfort level was during those last few weeks of being pregnant with Adam, but I do remember well what was going on in the news at the time.

October 2002 was the month that the DC snipers were terrorizing our area.  No one knew where and when they would strike next and so the whole area went on lockdown.  The kids' sport's seasons were canceled, school field trips were postponed, and everyone was jittery.  Being nine months pregnant, I was more than happy to put myself out of the target zone and hibernate away at home as much as I could.  Every day though I was glued to the news and would cringe every time I'd hear sirens.

the newspaper headline from the day he was born

During the evening before my scheduled induction I started with the signs of early labor.  I am a slow laborer, so I knew not to panic or rush, but we did start counting contractions.  My mom was there and she helped us put the kids to bed.  Around midnight I knew that this was the real deal and we headed to the hospital.

After three previous uneventful deliveries, I expected this one to be no different.  Once again, Adam had his own plans.

Sometime after they started monitoring me, it was discovered that Adam was not tolerating labor very well.  His heart rate would dip dramatically during contractions and when my water broke, it was filled with thick meconium.

This is when everything kicked into high gear.  Suddenly the room filled with doctors and they put an oxygen mask on me.  It was smack dab in the middle of the night and I was exhausted and scared.   Luckily I was progressing quickly enough at that point that they did not need to do a c-section.

Finally at 4:04am Adam was born into the world limp and blue.  The cord had been wrapped around his neck and the doctors were worried about him inhaling the meconium, so he was intubated before he could take a breath.  His APGAR score at birth was 2.

Those first few silent minutes of his life were endless for me.   They'd told me that they wouldn't let him go past a certain time without breathing, but the clock that was closest to me was not working, so I couldn't tell what time it was.  I was convinced that the doctors were referring to my broken clock, so I kept telling anyone who would listen that it had been longer than they thought it had been and they needed to let him breathe.  Finally a nurse reassured me that they were using a more accurate clock and that he would breathe when it was time.

 Finally after a few minutes (maybe 3 or 4 minutes...I can't remember)  I heard his precious cry for the first time.  It was a weak and raspy mew,  because the tubes they had placed down his throat had temporarily damaged his vocal cords, but I couldn't have been happier to hear it.
At five minutes old, his APGAR score was 9 and  the worst was definitely behind us.

They let me "hold" him for about 5 seconds (for this picture) before they whisked him off to the NICU for a gazillion pokes and prods and I did not see him again for about 24 hours.   Finally after a little over a day, they let me go to him, hold him, and start nursing him.  He weighed in at 8 lbs. 12 oz. and was quite literally the baby giant in the NICU.

I am also convinced that he was also the most stubborn baby there.  

Despite only being less than a week old, he completely and utterly refused to take bottles.   Normally I do not want my newborn babies to take bottles, but once I was released from the hospital after the standard 48-hours after delivery, I no longer had a bed at the hospital. We would go to visit him from 6am-midnight every day, so that he could nurse whenever he wanted, but since we had to go home at night to try to get a little rest, it was a bottle or nothing at night.

It would break my heart when we came back in the morning and the nurses would complain that he'd cried the entire night and never taken more than a sip or two of breastmilk from the bottle.  After a full week of this exhausting routine of driving back and forth (all the while, still on edge about the sniper) he was finally released and we all went home together.

Unfortunately that difficult early week of life took a toll on Adam and he spent the next year-and-a-half recuperating from it.  We are convinced that that week of  oxygen tubes,   IV's (in the arm and head),  nights without his mommy, and countless heel pokes, made him a little insecure about what this world had to offer him and he needed a lot of extra reassurance that this life was going to be okay.   I am certain that he cried more than our other four children combined ever did and we pretty much held him 24/7 until he could walk.  Not surprisingly my memories from his first year of life are embarrassingly few.  (thank goodness for our very crappy camera)

I like to think, though, that all those kinked necks and sore arms from holding him day and night  paid off.  In amongst the oft relentless screaming, he had a smile that could light up the world!

Adam is eleven years old today and has long ago outgrown his baby neediness.  He is now even-keeled, quick-witted, and genuinely fun to be around.   I love the extra time I'm getting to spend with him this year while he is being homeschooled and I am grateful every day for the light and joy he brings into our family.

And in honor of Adam's eleventh birthday today, here is a glimpse at Adam in NUMB3RS:

1st and only of our kids to walk before they were a year old (11-months old)
2nd of the 2 boys in our family
3 sisters means he knows how to get along with girls
4th kid in our family
5-weeks old and he ended up in the hospital for another week
6 x 53 = easy mental math for Adam
7-days in the NICU
8-lbs. 12-oz. birth weight (2nd biggest in our family)
9 months old when he started talking ("uh oh" was his favorite word to utter as he threw things off his high chair)
10 times a day he asks a "What if..." question
11-years-old today!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ADAM!!!!!!

his "coming home from the hospital" outfit

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