Happy Birthday Anthony!!!

I don't know where the time went, but my little tiny baby turned 5 today! I don't know what it is about 5, but I found myself tearing up in the shower this a.m. thinking about how much I love my baby. He is such a sweet boy...so polite and so very funny...he's a joy to be around and 99% of the time, very well behaved. Brian and I were really blessed when God gave us our sweet angel.

Since it's T's birthday..I thought it would be fun to post "the" picture from his birthday (this is the picture that Uncle Dave saw all the way in Iraq by the news crew that introduced his nephew to him - awesome!) and also his birth story. Some of you may remember the website I had for Anthony when he was first born (and for about 2 years)......I copied and pasted what I had written on there about his birth....(that's why it "sounds like" anthony was writing it)...

I'll be back later tonight or tomorrow w/a few pics from the Carnival today - it was a huge success!

My Birth Story

Mommy was having contractions all day on Saturday, March 1, 2003. They weren't painful, just uncomfortable. She went to bed at around 1a.m. early Sunday morning, March 2, 2003. She woke up at 4:30pm having more painful contractions. She got up and timed the contractions..they were about 3-5 minutes apart. Around 8am she woke up Daddy and said they should go to the hospital. They arrived at 9:30am and Mommy was 2-3cm dilated (remember 10cm is the magic number). After walking around Labor & Delivery for about an hour they checked Mommy again at 11am and she was 3cm. They decided to admit her. At about 11:15am Mommy's doctor came to her room and checked her again. She was 4cm. The doctor decided to break her water. Mommy was having contractions up until this point but they were not very painful. After they broke her water and started Pitocin the pain started....the contractions were every 2 minutes and lasted about 1min and 30 sec each (which means there was really only 30 sec to "relax" in between). At 12:30, Mommy was in soooo much pain that the nurse checked her again and she was 5cm, it was time for an epidural. The nurse came back and gave Mommy the bad news that the doctor was 25 minutes away. The pain continued...At 1:00pm the first epidural was put in. When the doctor tested it with some saline, there was a block in it, so they had to take that one out and put in a new one. At 1:50pm the medicine had finally kicked in and Mommy was much happier. At 2:00pm the nurse checked Mommy and found she was 8cm dilated!!! I was coming quickly and Grandma and Grandpa Mathews weren't there yet (from Wilmington). At 3:10pm Mommy said she was feeling a lot of pressure so the nurse checked her again and she was fully dilated (10cm). By the time the doctor got there it was almost 3:45pm. Mommy pushed a few times and I was born at 3:52pm. By the way, Grandma and Grandpa Mathews made it in time..they got there about 5-10 minutes before I was born.