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This is a story with roots in 2001 which is the year we decided to build a turkey farm and I found out I was pregnant after signing the papers on a half a million dollar loan. I’ll sum it up with it was a bad deal and we lost money!

I took a job with the Sheriff’s office back in March of 2004. Money was really tight after the farm and we were trying to save our shirts. I started on my anniversary and I got pregnant that day, too. Some women can be one day late and know they are pregnant, but I’m not like that. I never have anything to count from. So June rolled around and I had been sick for months and I couldn’t figure out what was wrong. My husband thought I was pregnant, but I argued that surely I would know -it’s not like I had never been pregnant before. Well, I woke up one day and couldn’t button my pants so I stopped at Wal-Mart for some pants with an elastic waist band and a pregnancy test. When I got to work I changed my pants and took the test while I was in the restroom and sure enough I was pregnant. My hands shook so hard that I couldn’t dial the phone to call my husband and my boss thought I must be dieing. She took it as hard as I did. We didn’t tell the Sheriff until it became so obvious that we couldn’t keep it from him. He really gave me a hard time about going and getting myself pregnant and vowed never to start anyone on their anniversary again. He really liked me, so it was all in fun. I loved that job.

My husband was overjoyed, but I was overwhelmed. This was when we decided to move out here to our little house.

Max was due on February 20th (understand that this means that I was pregnant for six weeks shy of a year!). I decided to turn in my resignation for the fourth of March. I was hoping to have him on the sixth of March which is my husband’s grandmother’s birthday (see previous blog). Well, he didn’t come and he still didn’t come. I have really big babies and I began to worry. A baby gains ½ a pound every week at the end. His position was wrong. He was positioned to come out face up (also see previous blog) and this is hard with a really big baby. I’m all for waiting and letting nature take it’s course, but I was afraid that I would end up trying to have a 13 lb. baby in the wrong position and that is a justifiable reason to worry. My midwife, doctor and I all agreed that if his position was wrong I could end up with a c-section, but if he weighed a ton I could also end up with a c-section so we decided to turn him to the right position and break my water. This was planned for the 20th of March.

Chaney’s birthday party was planned for that day so my husband managed it without me. I figured I’d be going pretty good by the time he got home, but I was not. We turned him and broke my water, and he just put himself right back into that bad position. I had done it before so I just set to mind to do it again, but nothing felt right. If you’ve ever had labor you know it has a rhythm. This was all wrong. I knew pretty early on that it wasn’t going to work, but I gave it my best shot. At about midnight I couldn’t take it any longer and we went to the hospital. It was strange, I was having a contraction in the bathroom floor and my husband came in and asked what me what I was going to do, and I said that I was going to have one more contraction and go to the hospital. After that contraction I just stood up slipped on my bad shoes and left and everything was ready for me to go.

My doctor showed up for the c-section and everything was going fine. I could watch in the big light above the operating table. She cut me open and saw Max in there and then cut me open some more- he was too big to come out of the original incision. When she held him up the whole room drew a breath. He was so fat! Since it was a planned homebirth I didn’t have a bag packed for him. I had 3-6 months clothes for him, but not with me. The nurses tried to fit a little hospital shirt on him, but it wouldn’t go. He weighed 11 pounds and four ounces. He was a very sweet baby.

Little Max is three years old today. They grow up too fast. I wish I could have just one more.