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May 2011 George with Grandma Peggy and Tasha
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| George's graduation from LHS 2008, with Peter and Alan |
We'd moved to Houston, TX from our home in Colorado in August of 1989, and later in November learned that we were expecting baby number two the following summer. This turned out to be the healthiest pregnancy of all three, reasonable weight gain, stayed active, but was also put on bed rest and Brethine around week 33 for early contractions. This time, we were hooked up with good insurance and a "high risk" doctor in one of the best medical centers in Houston. Every morning I had to wrap a sensor belt around my growing tummy and send in the record of contractions to the doctor so they could monitor how I was doing on bed rest. Finally came the time to go off the medication and let nature take its course. For six more weeks I had contractions every 3 minutes. We bought and moved into our first house in Katy, TX that early June, and I was sure this baby would come early, or at the latest, on his due date (like his brother), which was June 24. His due date came and went and the doctor could tell that the baby was getting pretty big, so he scheduled an induction for June 29, which was pretty cool because it was my grandmother's birthday, as well as George's Aunt Janis' birthday. All was scheduled, and we got to the hospital first thing that Friday morning, started the oxytocin drip, and read the day away. The contractions got going pretty good by 3 p.m. when the nurses changed shifts. My new nurse came in and discontinued the oxytocin and said my contractions were well under way, and that I no longer had my own nurse so I could not be on oxytocin. I got up to go to the bathroom, and came back to the bed and all contractions stopped. When the doctor came at 5 or 6 p.m., he decided to send me home and we would try again the next week if the baby hadn't already decided to arrive in his own time. The next earliest date for induction was almost a full week away, since the following two days were the weekend, the doctor was booked for Monday and Tuesday, and Wednesday was the 4th of July.
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| George, 1 day |
I had fully expected to be going home with a baby in arms, not with a big tummy. My mother had come to help, but had to leave for a class reunion, and my mother-in-law arrived. Those next 6 days I tried everything I could comfortably do that the doctor suggested, drank beer, went for walks, relaxed in the tub...still the morning of July 5 arrived and I still hadn't delivered. We went back to the hospital, this time my husband at the time dropped me off with the instructions that if or as things got going to call and he'd come from work. I started another novel that morning once the prostaglandin was in place (the doctor finally took me seriously about the success of prostaglandin with the first delivery.) Another was inserted on the doctor's lunch hour. Around 5 p.m., as I was finishing the novel begun that morning, the doctor broke my water, and George's dad was finished working for the day, so came to the hospital for the last bit of labor and delivery. He was born at 8:59p.m. at 9 pounds 5 ounces. As it turned out, he was gestationally calculated to be only 38 weeks, rather than the almost 42 weeks calculated from LMP, so he might have been even a bit longer had we not got him going. All went well with the delivery, and we got to take George home to his new family the next day.
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Christmas 1990, George 6 mos., Alan 2 1/2 yrs.
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Twenty-one years have passed since that day, which is, of course, amazing to me. George is senior at CU-Boulder majoring in Applied Math and Molecular Biology and has sights on graduate programs at Princeton and MIT. As with your brothers, I am very proud of you, George, and excited to see where your adult path leads you.
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| George with Alan, 1992 Slidell, LA |
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| George fetching his dad a beer, with Alan and GG (Great Grandma) | | |
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| More Slidell, LA |
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| George at Gma JoAnn and Gpa Pete's house, 16 mos. |
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| George in Slidell, LA (with Alan) loving the face in the sprinkler sensation, over and over and over |
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| George, Steven, and Alan messing around in Grandma Peggy's yard in Golden. |
Happy 21st Birthday, George!!
Love,
Mom
