Twelve years ago this morning....

I became a mother for the first time twelve years ago today, at 8:20 am, to be exact. Joshua Wesley entered the world and our lives have never been the same.

I remember everything about that morning. I remember waking Rob at about 4:30am and telling him I thought maybe I'd had a contraction. We tried to take a walk and didn't get very far (maybe 100 yards?). After some more serious contractions, we were speeding down the interstate and reached the hospital pretty shortly (I remember thinking what I would do if a police officer tried to stop us for speeding...it would have been ugly). When we reached the hospital and I was examined, we realized that I was already 10cm dilated. Joshua was born about 45 minutes after we reached the hospital.



We had decided not to find out what we were having and when the doctor announced, "it's a boy", Rob literally cried while repeating the sentence. I had thought all along that we were having a boy and I'm not even sure we'd picked out a girl name. We knew that we'd name him Joshua Wesley, in honor of Rob's childhood friend (who married my sister, but that's another story).

I gained 53 lbs while pregnant and my first thoughts after giving birth (and experiencing the joy, of course) were that I was starving - like, I'd eat anything. I remember eating a huge bowl of cereal and then it was time to call our families. Because he was our first, no one expected his arrival to occur so quickly - everyone told Rob, "you'd better bring snacks, it'll be a long day". My dad was golfing, my mother-in-law was out of state, my sister-in-law was working, and my mom was at home thinking I was a complete wimp and she didn't know how I'd make it through labor all day! Everyone (except my mother-in-law, for obvious reasons) arrived at the hospital to meet our little guy very shortly. We all fell in love with him immediately.

Josh is amazing. I like to think he's inherited his sweetness from his grandmothers. He is sensitive, but all boy. He's a great big brother, but can be annoying [to his sisters]. He loves God. He's a great friend. He's a goofball. He's thoughtful, kind, fun-loving, cautious, smart, and adorable.

I realize he's growing up. He's taken to sleeping until 9am. He just opened a facebook account. He uses words like, "sweet", "sick", and "beast" (in reference to something that's cool). Sometimes, though (well, a lot, actually) we still see glimpses of the little boy we've known for twelve years. He still loves nerf guns. He still loves to play outside with his friends. He still makes forts. He still runs when he sees a chipmunk outside (after he grabs his bb gun).





It's really hard to believe that our lives were changed twelve years ago - in some ways it seems like we've known him forever, but time sure does fly. We've loved every stage with our little guy and feel honored to be used in helping him grow into a man.