Our boy is FIVE!

Happy Happy 5th birthday to our baby!

Owen was born on a Monday, the day after Father's Day. I had a doctor's appointment that day, and I was 41 weeks, 1 day pregnant. I'd gone 9 days overdue with Lauren and I was at the end of my rope being 8 days overdue with Owen. My mom and Lauren had come to the appointment with me. While waiting in the waiting room I realized I was having contractions. They hooked me up to a machine to time the contractions. So, of course, they stopped. My doctor told me to go home, but I'd been through it before and I ignored his advice and crossed the parking lot to the hospital. Women's intuition! I called Adam and told him to hit the road and join me. My mom waited for him to get there, then she headed home with Lauren.

The nurses told me to walk the halls for an hour so they could process the paperwork. I lasted 45 minutes, and by the time the nurse checked me, it was go time. The took us to a room and as I laid down in the bed my water broke. Instead of trying to clean it up, we just moved to an empty room across the hall.

My local family was all at the hospital by this time: Adam (of course!), Lauren, my mom and dad, my brother and Talia, my aunts and an uncle. We knew it was a boy, and labor was obviously moving fast, so everyone was excited to meet the little guy. Adam and my parents were in the room with me, and my mom was pacing around, nervous. The anesthesiologist rushed in, literally, to do the epidural and my mom went out to the waiting room, not wanting to watch. Adam said that anesthesiologist was working fast, ripping packages open and that things were flying everywhere.

A few minutes later, after he was done, my dad went out to the waiting room to get my mom. He announced to my family, "She had it." He meant the epidural. The nervous Noni exclaimed, "She had it?? The baby? Already?" My dad said, "The epidural." My mother, in disbelief, says, "It's a GIRL?!?!" And they say hearing loss isn't hereditary! That story never gets old.

Once Owen was born, everyone joined us in my room. We were all talking, you know Italians. I was just staring at him, memorizing his face. He was wide awake, and he had the biggest eyes. He reminded of Squirt on Finding Nemo.

I told everyone, "I hate to say this about my baby, but he looks just like a turtle." My brother said, "I was thinking the exact same thing, but I didn't want to say it!" We called him Tortuga, spanish for turtle, for quite a while after that!