Kieran celebrated his birthday tonight.  6 years old. He spent much of the evening competing with his father and brothers to see who had the best shot with the new Nerf suction bullet gun. It was loud. It was messy. It was very Kieran. : )

Kieran has been a lot of fun. Never a dull moment with this boy.  Right from the beginning he was an intense little man. His birth rivals Brendan’s for Most Eventful. He was due on Valentine’s Day which was pretty cool but I didn’t think I would go that long. Still, when I woke up with a massive contraction at 1am on the 7th I didn’t think it would amount to much. I didn’t think much of the next one either.  After the next 3 or 4 it seemed like some raspberry tea was in order.  It takes a reeeeeeeeeeaally long time to make tea when you are contracting. You get the pot out and then breathe.  You fill the pot and then breathe. You look for the tea box and then breathe. Before you know it, it can be like 2am and then some.

After an hour of strong contractions I asked Allen to get up and sit with me.  He got to work filling our tub so I could try to relax and see if this was the real deal. I still smile when I remember this part of the story.  We lived on base and our government issue tub had an overflow drain about 5 inches from the bottom of the tub. He rigged up a ziplock bag and duct tape plug for the overflow drain and I finally settled in to soak.  Allen decided it was probably a good idea to pack the hospital bag.  Just in case.  Word of caution – don’t let your husband pack your hospital bag. ; )  It did keep him busy while I breathed though and for that he was grateful. <g>

That soak in the tub lasted about ten minutes. Then my water broke. That was a bad thing. I am notorious for giving birth almost immediately after my water breaks. That explains the stricken look he had upon learning this news. His only words: Please get dressed!

It takes a reeeeeeeeeeally long time to get dressed when you are contracting. You get one arm in and then you breathe.  You get another arm in then you breathe. You wonder if your clothes were always so hard to get into. Allen announced brightly that the car was warmed up and ready to go.  He looked hopeful at that point. I waddled out to the driveway, actually attempted to sit in the car. He was mentally high fiving himself and then I lurched back up.  Nope. Can’t sit. What?  Can’t sit???  How about we take the Suburban?  Its bigger and the seats are more comfortable.  Fine.

Allen backed the car out. Got the Suburban fired up and came around to help me. I made a heroic effort to bend but it just was not going to happen. I told him straight – I cannot get into the vehicle. What??  PLEASE get in the car!  More pleading followed.  Then defeat. So, like, what now????  Should he call the ambulance?  That really didn’t seem like a good idea. The only thing worse than bending right then was the prospect of bouncing along on my back on a gurney all the way to the hospital.  Agh. In that fog that is labor consciousness I assured him I was just going to go back into the house and check things out.  The man has birthed a lot of babies with me. He pretty much assessed the situation himself at that point and called the ambulance.

If you ever watched Rescue 911 you might expect the operator to whip out her handy dandy spiral bound flip book with scripted how-to-have-a-baby directions and begin to calmly explain exactly what should happen when your wife calls from the bedroom that the reason she couldn’t bend was because the baby’s head was crowning. You would be mistaken however.  You might even be put ON HOLD. I kid you not. The fire station was ON OUR CORNER. But they put the man on hold and transferred him to another unit.  He didn’t wait around for that. He threw the phone to Colin who was in charge and got back to the bedroom in time to catch the rest of the baby. It was 3am.  I kid you not again.

Colin must have given them directions because about 15 minutes later they arrived looking about as stunned as we were and even more clueless. Probably at lot more clueless since most of them had never actually seen a baby born. They were very nice however and let us show the baby to the children and rest for a bit before packing us off to the hospital.

The paper came by later that week and took pictures. Our five minutes of fame. <g> Some time later we were shopping on base and a lady recognized us and asked if he was the baby delivered by his Daddy.  Indeed. Who knows what is in store for a boy who starts out like that. Great things I am sure.