A good day, Happy Birthday CD!

Today, the Amazing Connor Duncan turned two. The status on my Facebook page today included something like this, "...woke up today as the mama of a two-year-old." I can hardly believe it has been two years since Connor was born.

It was Memorial Day 2007. The Saturday before, we celebrated my nephew's birthday with him at his party. A couple of people commented to me about how "ready" I looked. More people guessed whether the baby was a boy or a girl. (All guessed boy.) That evening, I covered a graduation ceremony. It was a bit tiring, but it is my favorite graduation to cover and I enjoyed doing it. On Sunday morning, I went to church. Someone commented that she didn't think I would make it to my due date. I assured her I would... or as close to it as I possibly could. We spent the afternoon and evening with my parents. Darrel and I took my mom to KMart for a few things. I remember picking out a tomato plant or something among a couple of other things in the gardening section. Mom and I had walked every Sunday that we possibly could while I was pregnant. We counted KMart as our walk that Sunday. A week earlier, the doctor told me he didn't think I would make it to my due date. I told him I would, I had to because school let out June 15 and I needed to make it to the end of school. He explained, "you don't understand...you have a big baby, I don't think you WANT to go all the way to your due date." I conceded that the baby could come a little early, but I still wanted to make it to the end of school. I joked with co-workers about having the baby trained to change his (or her) own diapers right away.

That Memorial Day was certainly one to remember. I woke up around 6:30 a.m. and thought that perhaps something was going on, but I wasn't sure what. I posed a messaged on the moms board where we were going through our pregnancies together and then decided to go back to bed. Sometime around 8 a.m. I woke up again and had a pretty good idea that perhaps my water had broken. I didn't check the message board. I woke up Darrel and suggested we go to the hospital. Off we went. By 8:30, I was in L&D and they confirmed that my water had broken. Contractions were starting, but they were pretty irregular. Darrel made some phone calls. His mom and sister came down. My parents came a bit later. It was so nice to be surrounded by so much love. We chatted and enjoyed the time together. Contractions got closer together and a bit more painful, but I made it through unmedicated. I wanted an unmedicated birth and was happy to be going along so well. Connor was "sunnyside-up" as they say. We tried everything we could to get him to roll over. After two hours of pushing, I spiked a fever and his heartrate went way up. They told me I needed a C-section. I didn't want one. For a moment, I was devastated by the thought. Then I remembered what my doctor had said to me two weeks before...I know you don't want a C-section, but if you need to have one for the health of the baby, I know you will do it. And there we were. It was necessary. They wheeled me in and prepped me. I begged them to do something to make the contractions stop. I kept asking for Darrel. Finally he came into the room. I was relieved. Joy filled Darrel's face as he saw our new baby. "It's a boy," he exclaimed. Connor Duncan remained without a name for the next two hours or so. He was born with my fever and they took him to the NICU to stabilize him. Darrel came in and talked to me. We discussed his name and agreed that he looked like a Connor. Though, I still hadn't held my little guy. They finally brought him in to me. My heart was overjoyed. I was officially a mama.

Flash-forward two years...we have been through so much in the past two years. I look at his newborn photo that my dad took of him in the NICU, the photo from when he turned one and the photo we just had taken of him for his two-year photo and my baby, my precious little baby (who wasn't all that little weighing in at close to nine pounds over three weeks before his due date) is a little boy now, BUT...he still looks the same. I can see him in ever single picture we have ever taken of him.

Today was a good day. I got up before everyone else and did a couple of things in the yard. I needed to do them and I needed some of the quiet serenity to get a few things out of my system. At one point, I cried. It is so hard to still be in the relatively early stages of grieving for Lawrence while preparing to celebrate with Connor. I prayed a little, too. And, I looked forward to wishing Connor a happy birthday. Darrel came out and checked on me a short time later. The rest of the house was up and moving. We headed to Delhi where we picked up beverages from our favorite coffee house on our way to Darrel's mom's house. Connor got a special smoothie (strawberry-banana, for the first time) as a birthday gift from the owner. We helped my mother-in-law with a few things and despite my being a little stressed about the time, we managed to complete our intended afternoon. We picked up the newspapers and then headed to the Ghiradelli Ic Cream Shop nearby where Connor got to pick out a special birthday gift and we enjoyed ice cream together. Connor napped on the way back home. We picked up some dinner and enjoyed a quiet night at home. Connor got to pop open his gift that he'd chosen and share a piece of chocolate for his final birthday treat. He'd chosen a metal lunchbox that has images of all of the state flags on it filled with a variety of the yummy chocolate squares. He had some milk and was down for the night before 10 p.m. Since most days he goes to bed around 9:30, he hadn't stayed up too much later on this special day. He seemed to have a great time. He finished off his day with a phone call to his nana and some snuggle time first with mama then with daddy.

He had his daycare birthday celebration yesterday and he has his birthday part on Saturday. Oh boy! This kid has it good. And so do we. We are so blessed to have the Amazing Connor Duncan in our lives. Happy birthday to my sweet boy!

I'll update after his party Saturday.

As an aside...on Tuesday, we received a call that the necklace I had ordered came in and so I went an picked it up from the mortuary. It is beautiful. It has Lawrence's footprint on the front and his name and angel day on the back. I put it on as soon as I got in the car and I haven't removed it.