WARNING!

This blog contains personal stories. Read at your own discretion and please no negativity!

Friday, December 29, 2017

It's been 2 years...

...for a few of things.

Like:
-we moved back from Italy
-my dream came true and I lived in the same state as my sister
-my husband kept warning me that everyone at our new base was being sent to Korea
-we started our homeschool journey
- and....
since we announced a pregnancy.








What's that? You could barely read it. Here, let me enlarge it in a different way...
Photo Credit: Lindsey James Photography
Shirts made by: Olive & Rose (Brittney Jones)
Photo Credit: Lindsey James Photography
Shirts made by: Olive & Rose (Brittney Jones)
Photo Credit: Lindsey James Photography
Shirts made by: Olive & Rose (Brittney Jones)
Baby at 8.5 weeks-heartbeat 162bpm-Estimated due date July 22nd, 2018
Go ahead. I'll give you a few seconds to laugh and say "I told you so" or "I knew it".









This was NOT planned.
Not by us anyways.




As most of you know, my husband is not here with me. He is off fighting for his country...FOR AN ENTIRE YEAR. Yes, you read that right. Three hundred and sixty five miserable days (and actually it will be at least 14 days added on to that). Military blows sometimes. But its our life. It's what we chose. We knew our time was coming considering we've been very blessed not to have a single deployment, except a 6 week TDY, for 9 years! We just didn't expect to be expecting in the mix of this. 


You're probably asking yourself the same thing I've been asking myself since November 20th...
How are you gunna do this?!

My answer: by the grace of God. He brought us to it and he'll bring us through it.



See, we were DONE having kids. Finito. Basta. Gave away e.v.e.r.y.t.h.i.n.g before our recent move. Clothes, baby equipment, carriers, toys...all things baby. We were both at peace with our children. We were ready to take the next step and start our stride to retirement and me get a little mommy surgery to fill more woman-y (again don't judge). Maxtin done us in. We never wanted to experience another full year of sleepless nights. He finally started sleeping (mostly) through the night. Mommy and daddy were getting their husband and wife groove back (which is I guess what landed us here...). We were getting to spend more time with the kids all together because one of us wasn't always tending to our very needy baby. Life was perfect. God laughed at our thought of perfection. He knew that it could get even perfecter (is that even a word? I don't have a little read line under it, so it must be!)







I had been late a few days but since I weened Maxtin in June, my menstrual cycles had been a little off. Coming a little soon or a day or two late. Lasting longer than 7 days. So I thought nothing of it. Until I did start thinking. What if? The Monday before Thanksgiving (November 20th), exactly 2 weeks after Chance had left, we were out and I thought, I'll just stop at the dollar tree and buy a $1 test. IF I am, a $1 test will tell me just the same thing as a $10 test. Got my test and I confess, I left all 4 kids in the car while I made the quick run inside. Because I mean I can only imagine the look I would have gotten from the cashier when she rang up the test and my hooligans were knocking down her pretty Christmas displays. Just kidding. Well sort of. My kids are well behaved for the most part. But seriously, I do have the push start on my van, so I at least took the keys out and started it from the outside so that it was running but they couldn't control anything and locked and I gave Gracie the speech of "don't open the door for anyone...except the police...and even then, you might not want to open it...". Guys, I was literally in there for 5 minutes and I was 20 feet from them. Stop judging. A mom does what she has too, to survive by herself...sanely. Got home, ran to the bathroom then it hit me. You're suppose to wait until your first pee in the morning to get the most accurate results. Screw accurate. I needed some kind of answer. I didn't come this far to wait 8 more hours. Truth be told, had I waited, it would of probably been til like 4am and I would of compromised with myself that technically it was morning and my first pee (because I'd have definitely made sure not to go after 12am), even though I probably had just fallen asleep at 1am because I was so anxious about getting the most accurate reading... I put the drops on my test, then immediately turned away and prayed. "Please, please, please, please". Maybe I should have been more accurate with what my please was insinuating. "Wait 3 minutes" is what every test says. Again, screw 3 minutes. It was more like 45 seconds. I went back and it was like I started speaking in tongues. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no...you get the point. I was freaking out. Crying. What am I going to do? I was done. This isn't funny God. I have nothing. Not even my husband. I JUST ACCEPTED THE FACT I HAD TO TAKE CARE OF 4 KIDS ALONE FOR A YEAR, AND NOW YOU'RE GIVING ME ANOTHER?!! AND...he wasn't even awake for me to freak out with because his stupid time is 15 hours ahead of mine!! Which makes it worse if you think about it because it was like 9am or 10am the next day his time and HE WAS STILL ASLEEP! I don't get that now nor will I within the next year for sure. No seriously guys, I know he would trade every day of getting to sleep in to be here with his kids. Could you imagine...he's not on some vacation like most think...he's alone. Every holiday, every birthday, every big celebration (like this one) for an entire year...he misses. And I know that sometimes I'd like a few more hours of sleep in the morning, but he's the one making the true sacrifice, not me. Wiping my tears...I tried video chatting my sister. Not once, but twice she didn't answer. So I texted her "I don't care if you're having sex...answer me!! I NEED YOU!!" Of course that's just the humor we share but I was serious. So I called her. You know, that thing where you actually put the phone to your ear and hear someone on the other end? Almost unheard of in this generation. She said she'd be home soon and we'd chat then. Asked what was wrong and if everything was okay. I told her yes, but I really needed to talk to her. She video chats me, and hears the frantic in my voice so I just show her. The test. She's freaking EXCITED! But tries to hide it. We go over what must've "happened". 

Family and friends that don't want to know TMI, don't read the below paragraph. I'm warning you now. VIEWER DISCRETION IS ADVISED!


The week before he left we had sex twice (I tried typing intercourse but that sounds even dirtier than sex). I know, I know...twice? He's leaving and you only gave it up twice? Okay listen here judgy Judy, one- that was just the week prior to him leaving and two- we just moved into quite a big mess that we were scrambling to do last minute fix ups before he left and neither of us had much stamina...okay maybe I'm only speaking for myself. We don't do birth control and we don't do condoms. Have never liked either plus we have two birth control babies. We use whats called the "pull-out method". We keep track of my cycle (I even have an app) and usually we can gage when the ovulation period is and we just pull-out. And usually if I know we're in the clear I'll tell him he doesn't have to worry about it or if we're not in the clear I don't say anything expecting him to know (and usually he's good about keeping track too). We've realized these last two months that its a backwards concept and should be the other way around. The first of the two times I told him we were in the clear...the second of the two times I didn't say anything...except the not saying anything agreement we had, wasn't what he was thinking about. So it was as if I told him we were in the clear. Later I said to him, you heifer! You didn't pull out. I didn't say anything so I thought that was your cue. He responded with, well I wasn't thinking clearly and besides I checked the dates and we should be in the clear. I rechecked and agreed that yeah we should...

And two weeks later...

I blamed him. He just couldn't leave me alone. Not even a week before you left for a year then you'd come back and have a vasectomy because we WERE done...and you just had to prove that your swimmers were still champions. It was no ones fault. But at the time I needed someone to blame. 

Me and Myra calmly start talking but I'm still kind of throwing my pity party. I'm not going to breast feed. I'm getting every drug I can. But then the five words come out....
Maybe it'll be a GIRL!
Freaking A! My fears very slightly start turning to excitement. I ended the video chat with her because my husband had messaged me he was up. I sent him this...
along with...boy this would be good with a lemonade! See, you guys are like what?... But him, he knew. Lemonade and snickers are my two tall tales that I'm pregnant. Not really. But it's something I really craved with one of my pregnancies and it just stuck. He was in complete shock. Apologizing, poor fella. And while I thought he'd totally get me freaking out and he'd freak out just as much as me instead of getting excited like my mental----ly loving sister, he said the exact 5 words...
Maybe it'll be a GIRL!



My towel is in guys. I'm excited now. Already picking out names and planning our future as a family of 7. Maybe it will be our second girl. But our odds are it'll be our 5th boy. And while all of us, kids and family, are pulling for the pink hamburger...we'll be just as joyful and blessed for a blue hotdog. 10-14 days we'll know and hope you'll join us in celebrating!





So now world, you know our secret blessing. It's been SO hard not letting it slip and I'm SO proud of the kids because they've known just a few days shy since we've known. When we first got here, we were asked by many who had never really seen our full family together if we were going to have anymore. And I could say with absolute surety, no we were not. But then I found out right before Thanksgiving and again I got "the question". I had to learn how to re-phrase my words in hopes they wouldn't catch on by saying "we weren't planning on it" and quickly changing the subject to Maxtin. I didn't want to announce it until we had our first ultrasound and even then I thought it would be a pretty sweet Christmas gift to give to family and friends. With the help of a few friends, Olive & Rose Brittney Jones and Lindsey James Photography, here you have the Ryan's very first (and probably only) Christmas card pregnancy announcement:

Side note: everyone seems to think Chance has gained a bunch of weight, but I promise its where I cropped and enlarged his crappy cell phone picture😜


10.5 weeks!




Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
PS. We are in strong hopes and almost certainty that Chance will make it stateside in time for the birth and for a few weeks following. 

Wednesday, June 15, 2016

In the Womb; from Beginning to End

I'm going to take you guys all the way back to the beginning because what good is a book when you read the last page first?

Trying to Conceive:
June 2015- Marcus is about 1.5 years old and baby fever is starting to sit in. We start playing around with the idea of adding another little one (or two) to the Ryan's. We both would love to have twins. I mean yes, it would be a lot more work but we also have Gracie and Gavin who are more than willing to help with what they can...they are our village. I have been working out, so maybe I'll release more eggs giving two more of a chance to be fertilize OR maybe since it's our fifth pregnancy it's just time we have twins. They do run in our family, not that that always matters. But high hopes right? We would really like to have one more little girl and everyone we knew that was pregnant was having boys so maybe if we got pregnant soon the next "cycle" would be girls...I know, all of this is so logical. We know it’s all in Gods plans, but it doesn't hurt to try to plan yourself, right? Also we knew that we were moving to the desert before the baby would be born so if I didn't want to be pregnant during the summer we needed to get on this ASAP.

July 2015- No positive :(

August 2015- Getting a little discouraged from the previous month I decide to get an ovulation test kit. Yes, I know, it's typical not to get pregnant your first few tries but I don't think you guys understand; my body is like clockwork and my nickname is fertile myrtle. So I'm on my cycle, that ends, wait 7 days and guess what day it is? Hubs birthday (August 27th, 2015) and ovulation day. BAM, I get to kill two birds with one stone! Okay, TMI. On to September.

Finding out:
September 6th, 2015- 10 days after ovulation, still a few more days before I'm supposed to start again. But day in and day out all I can think about is, am I pregnant? I know this person will be reading this, so I start stalking a twin moms Facebook, going back through her timeline of how long it took after conception that she got a positive. I think it was 11 days (Hi Shannon!). It wasn't a faint positive either, it was a very vivid positive. Again, I really have my heart set on twins. So I think even on the 4th of September I took a test. Negative. Blah. These test aren't cheap either...well depending on the brand you get, and for us we've always used First Response so we're kind of biased towards them. I'm pretty sure I tested on the 5th too. Negative. Only two test come in a box so back to the store I trotted (not really, we lived off base) and finally I said well I'm probably not pregnant anyways so I'm just going to buy two $1 test. I still had one First Response from another box at the house but I was going to save that for next cycle because if I wasn't pregnant this time, by golly I was going to make sure it happened next time...like no leaving the bedroom, standing on my head, okay TMI again. Anyways, I was pretty certain we weren't pregnant. Back to September 6th, I test again using the one-dollar test. I wait the recommended 3 minutes (actually I only waited like a minute), didn't see anything so I just toss it in the trash. I knew it. We missed it again. Angry, a lot at Chance for no reason really, but in my mind it was his fault...because technically he's the only thing that I'm waiting on to become pregnant, right? I go downstairs pouting telling him that it didn't work this time either and that I wasn't sure I wanted to try anymore...blah, blah, blah. Basically being sour because it didn't work when I wanted it too. Sitting for a minute or two downstairs, I think ‘maybe, just maybe you really should wait the 3 minutes before checking it’. So I go back upstairs not really expecting anything different and in the sunlight I see the faintest line. Literally, almost non-existent. I call Chance up to take a look to make sure I wasn't making myself see something and he couldn't see anything, granted he didn't have his glasses on. He says, “lets test again in a few days”. To which I reply, “no…I'm pregnant. I KNOW it!” It was like God give me the ability to see that line even though no one else could so I would quit pouting. That night we go to our good friend’s/neighbor’s house for dinner. I'm busting at the seams. I KNOW I'm pregnant but nobody else does. Not even my husband believes it yet. So I tell them. First people to know (Hi Kayla!). I even said we're not for sure YET but I'm 99.9% sure. They congratulate us and the night ends. I think we played games and whatnot but that's irrelevant to this blog post.
September 8th, 2015- Two days after I know I'm pregnant, I take another dollar test. Hate to be the one to say it but...TOLD YA SO! Two pink lines.
Still wasn't enough for the hubs, so I take the expensive First Response.
And we have a believer! So many things start running through my head now. Sadly, first is, okay it's 12 days after conception and the line isn't that vivid so chances of twins aren't very high but I'll still keep my hopes up (and up until our first appointment I googled like a maniac about how long after conception did people get their positive; how dark their lines were; what their bellies looked like at so many weeks...yes I was a little obsessed). Second would be my biggest worry until we had an ultrasound and got through the first trimester...miscarriage. This is my fifth pregnancy; so far I've had no miscarriages and my turn has to be coming...right? I mean, everyone eventually has one don't they? Yes, we've lost a child and I would try to justify that as "my turn" but the fear was taking over and stealing my joy. And one night after asking prayer for peace at our amazing life group, God had spoken to another couple (who had lost a child previously) during their current pregnancy and they relayed the message to me...God is the giver of life. He will not taketh it away. Anytime Satan came to steal my joy I would repeat, I rebuke you Satan. My God is the giver of life!

And so our new journey began.
4 weeks

8 weeks 3 days
Confirming:
Not just the journey of adding a new member to our family but we were also about to move across the country in under 2 short months. By October 23rd, 2015, all of our stuff had been packed and put on a boat, our van had been shipped, we were living in TLF (a hotel on base), and I was 10 weeks 1 day which meant first baby doctor’s appointment! They don't see you any earlier than 10 weeks at the clinic on our last base for the "just in case" reasons. But on this visit you get an ultrasound to confirm the pregnancy. Super nervous, excited, and still hanging onto the thought of twins we peel our eyes on the monitor. Thankfully the doctor that delivered Marcus was able to do this ultrasound. Black and white images start coming across and then we see "it". Just one. But that's okay, it's there and oh wow! Obviously thriving. I've never seen a baby as active that early in an ultrasound, nor so developed!
You could already see the arm and leg nubs and it was literally wiggling around. This is my fifth pregnancy so you'd think I'd be bored of these things by now, I mean they all look the same at this stage...but nope. My mind was blown. Pictures in hand, we leave the appointment and head straight for Germany to our church retreat, where we spent our last weekend in Europe before thousands of miles to New Mexico.
Our beloved pastor and his wife
Announcing it:
Unless you were my sister, church family, or close friend you wouldn't find out until you either seen me and asked me or until we eventually revealed it on Facebook at 20 weeks. We didn't even tell our family (except my sister).

With all the kids except Gracie and Jayden, who I didn't have Facebook with when I found out I was pregnant, we've waited until after our first ultrasound to post it. Being so far from family, social media is the easiest way to keep our families up to date. I've tried being creative with how I post it besides a status of ‘We're pregnant!’ With Gavin I had bought Gracie a shirt saying ‘I'm going to be a big sister!’ and we posted a picture of her in her shirt and the ultrasound as the announcement.
With Marcus, I made signs saying ‘We planned (with the most recent family photo we had) but God laughed (with a picture of the ultrasound picture) 5+1=6’ and took pictures of Gracie holding them as our announcement.
I don't know if I've posted this before but Gavin and Marcus were birth control babies. Gavin with the nuva ring and Marcus with the pill. With announcing this one I wanted to be even more creative. Discreet actually. I wanted people to know, but not know. So being the googler I am, I start searching for ideas. I found one really great one then came up with another on my own, which I didn't go with. Each week the baby is the size of a different food. So every month I would find what food matched with how big the baby was and photograph my kids eating that food. I posted something like ‘Food Challenge: My kids are super picky (which they are) so they're going to be doing a trial of new foods’. We done poppy seeds (4 weeks), kidney beans (8 weeks), and sugar snap peas (12 weeks).
Eating poppy seed bread

Hard to believe this is how big they start out at; week 4 food

Kidney bean; 8 week food

Sugar snap pea; week 12 food


They weren't fans

By this point, me and the kids were in Kentucky visiting and stayed too busy to keep up with the Food Challenge so I stopped. One person (Hi Kaela!) caught on to it. My other idea was I had been working out for about 3 months. I had done some before photos to document my progress. So I was going to do some after photos since we had either been thinking, trying, or pregnant during those 3 months. And the last progress photo comparison would be of me 3 months prior and then 3 months into the ‘workout’ with me holding a pregnancy test. Of course, if I posted those then it wouldn't be discreet. I actually did take those photos but didn't post them, so here you go.
Before
                                         


After 5weeks 5 days
After re-reading these first few paragraphs, I've come to the conclusion that I'm an over thinker and over planner. Geez.

When me and the kids took our unexpected trip to Kentucky I had just hit 12 weeks and we were there until somewhere around 20 weeks. Being the small framed woman I am and this being my 5th pregnancy (usually you start showing earlier with each pregnancy), not many of our family members missed the bump.
12 weeks
I remember distinctly some people asking me like for example my biological father. Me, my sister, and our kids went over to his house for supper one night and after eating I of course bloated making it even more noticeable. It didn't help I had two helpings. As we were leaving, I gave him a hug and he said "are you pregnant again heifer?" Of course I laughed and had the biggest smile on my face, to which I replied "did you think I was just all of a sudden getting fat?" Another time was Thanksgiving Day, of course I'm eating again, at my grandmother’s house, my cousin (Hi Karissa!) asked me when we were going to have another to which I smiled really big and said "well actually in May". That same night I went to my dad's side of the family Thanksgiving dinner and they too noticed the bump and found out. My step dad, the person we were staying with at first, was completely oblivious to it. He didn't ask one single time. So finally one day I looked at him and asked him if he just thought I was getting fat and didn't want to offend me by asking. He said he honestly hadn't even noticed! How nice of him! We mainly didn't want to just come out and tell family because of their reactions. We didn't want any negativity. And in this day and age more than one kid is too many. To us anything more than one kid is that much more of a blessing in our lives. And of course with people finding out came the throat punching question, are you done yet? (Screams in my head) I always responded with, if that's Gods plan (funny how I say Gods plan now, but if you remember in the very beginning it was about what I had planned!). By the time we left Kentucky everyone knew we were pregnant.
16 weeks 3 days
All our babies
Planning the birth:
While in Kentucky I started to plan for the birth. Were we going to have a hospital, birth center, or home birth? Were we going to be able to pay out of pocket for the birth center or home birth? No matter which one I went with, I needed to figure out care ASAP. I posted on one Facebook page for our town asking about my options. Options! I finally had something else to choose besides a hospital. There's nothing wrong with hospitals but after you've had two non-medicated births (one already at home), no previous or current medical complications, multiple other children, and not living near family or knowing anyone well enough to trust them with your child's wellbeing...it’s just not your ideal place. Not many people had had good experiences at the local hospital (later I found it was from past experiences and most of that staff had rotated out), there was a birthing center...in El Paso, Texas an hour and a half away, and there was a midwife/student duo but the midwife was based out of El Paso also. Me and Chance discuss our options. He wasn't too keen on a home birth (still frightened from the unassisted birth of Gavin) and knew we wouldn't make it to El Paso but he also knew I really didn't want to go to the hospital. Again, where would our kids go because I would need him at the hospital at least for the first 24 hours and given my history, even with my 2nd and 4th deliveries, hospitals try to keep me for 3 days! Ain't nobody got time for that. So I contacted the midwife/student duo and started to get things set up for my dream home water birth. Of course I would be in Kentucky until around 20 weeks, so we decided it best I find care there to stay up to date with everything. So I contacted an office (funny thing, after I left KY the doctor was indicted on a charge from a little while ago where him and his ex-wife had gotten into a domestic dispute and she shot him!)  and had an appointment at 16 weeks for the quad scan and to listen to the heart beat for the first time. The only reason we opted for the quad scan this time (we've refused it every other pregnancy because the outcome didn't matter...those test aren't 100% accurate and we would still give our baby a fighting chance if anything off were to come back) is because of the scare with Marcus. It really was a silly reason as I knew if anything were wrong they could tell me from the ultrasound like they did with Marcus. But thankfully our chances of any defects came back slim to none. When the tech listened to the heartbeat I told her not to tell me what the rate was because if she did I would know the sex. For us the lower the heartrate, it’s a boy; the higher the heartrate, it’s a girl. I didn't want to find out the sex without Chance. However, she wasn't well rehearsed on ‘if it even gives a hunch, keep your mouth shut’. So after listening she said, oh yeah you'd definitely know if I told you. I guess you could take that either way, and that's what I kept telling myself so I wouldn't get so upset at her but to me it was like her saying...it’s a boy.
After that appointment, we scheduled the 20-week anatomy scan but ended up leaving for New Mexico on the day of the appointment.

Finding out the gender:
At first I didn't want to know the gender. But then we really wanted a girl and there's no way I could go throughout the entire pregnancy not knowing. It would drive me insane. Because as you seen me say above, I'm a planner. Gavin was our surprise baby but I didn't really have a preference on gender with him since we already had a boy and girl. It was pretty easy to go without knowing for him because I just bought everything gender neutral. But with this one, if it was a girl I wanted to go full on pink or just girly colors in general because Gracie didn't have all the girly stuff; she just had the hand me down stuff from Jayden, and while not having pink/girly stuff with this one wouldn't be the end of the world...I still wanted to. I’m sure I’ve shared this but the Ryan male blood line doesn’t carry many ‘x’ chromosomes. Chance is one of 9 and there’s one girl, so if this were a girl she’d probably be our last girl if we had more babies. So on the same day of our 16-week appointment in Kentucky, I snuck away without telling anyone and went to a 3D ultrasound place (Precious Views). I know, you're thinking ‘I thought you weren't going to find out without Chance?’ I didn't find out.
I go in, the lady starts the ultrasound, and I have the 3 other kids with me. Gracie is so excited. She keeps saying how she really, REALLY hopes its a girl, that she wants a sister, and it’s the cutest thing she's ever seen...? There's no fat on the baby so to me it looked like an alien or as I also like to refer to as Michael Jackson because of the nose…no offense, sorry (but it’s good to know that even on my worst days I bet she still thinks I'm gorgeous!). Gavin doesn't really care about what's going on and Marcus is trying to climb on the bed with me. The tech checks the goods first while our viewing screen is turned off and then she starts questioning about what I preferred since Gracie kept singing the song of a girl. I told her a girl. She then said "well, what does dad want?" having that 'um somebody better want a boy' behind her voice. And I said “a girl”. But then I assured her if it was a boy, we'd still be just as excited! She finished the ultrasound by letting us see the baby in 3D and 4D then printed lots of pictures, slipped the gender picture in an envelope, and put the full ultrasound on a DVD.
15 weeks 6 days

I leave and let me tell you...curiosity is killing this cat. I put the envelope in my glove box and pray for strength. My plan was this being part of Chance's Christmas gift. See, we weren't sure if we'd be back in New Mexico on Christmas so I wanted to try and make it as special as possible. He'd been wanting a Fitbit watch for a while and I thought ‘oh perfect! I’ll take the gender reveal picture, tape it inside the box so at first he's excited about the watch then once he opens it, there's a whole new level of excitement!’ I wanted to get him more for Christmas so I went and got some cologne (it was a kit that came with a bag, so inside the bag I also put the DVD of the ultrasound) and two jars of pickled bologna to put in the box. I know...you're probably thinking ‘pickled bologna’?! But that's one of his favorite foods and he hadn't had it for nearly 3 years and they don't sell it in NM. So I got all his gifts, the wrapping paper, box and packing stuff, then packed it all up. You're probably wondering how I taped the picture on the inside of the watch without looking at it. I would say very carefully. I closed my eyes really tight and pretty much guessed and felt around to put the picture on there.
On the flaps of the box I wrote Merry Christmas and told him not to open the box any further without having me on skype or without his phone being set up to record it.


The first 'layer' was the pickled bologna

This separated the pickled bologna from the cologne and watch (they're underneath)

Cologne and watch
He didn't even know the box was coming. It was all going to be a surprise. The next day I went to mail it out and almost didn't walk out of the post office without throwing a fit. The lady was trying to tell me I couldn't send the box because of the cologne. I assured her it wasn't over the limited amount, that it was just small bottles in a bag that you get from American Eagle. She kept asking me if I was sure it wasn't a big bottle and I said I'm positive. Both of us aggravated, she finally agrees to ship the box. What she didn't realize was the pickled bologna were in jars of liquid but I wasn't about to tell her that. Not to mention she would've never known about the cologne had I not filled out the wrong form to ship it. I filled out the one I'd been used to filling out when we lived in Italy which is an international form and you have to list all components in your box on the form for custom purposes. Anyways, the box was off and now I just waited and stalked the tracking. While waiting I find out that Chance is being sent out to go help with a crash site. Of course I thinking, what if the box gets there without him being there and the guy he was staying with tells him he has a box...then it won’t ALL be a surprise. So I begin praying he gets back before the box gets there and thankfully that's how it went. It was one of the longest weeks of my life! Finally, one night after he gets off work, he goes home to find the box on the porch. He then opens it and sees we need to skype. So he texts me and says to get on ASAP. Before getting on I pretty much threaten Gracie (not really) about not saying anything about the box. To just act surprised about it all. We get on, and he’s telling me about his day. Just so happens the axel to his friend’s truck wheel broke while he was driving it but thankfully he wasn’t going fast and he was able to stop the truck. Not to mention he’d worked all day and hadn’t eaten supper yet so it just wasn’t his best of days. That made me even more antsy. Boy was his day about to do a full 360 but I couldn’t tell him that! So he begins opening the box and unwrapping his gifts. First are the two jars of pickled bologna. Then I instructed him to open the watch first, of course without telling him what it was. He opens it and is ecstatic! Without my prompting he immediately starts to open the watch to check it out, and his face goes blank. Then he says in a heartbroken voice “you found out without me?” but had tears of joy in his eyes. By this time, I was busting at the seams and shouted, “No! I don’t know! You’re the first to know!” And in disbelief he says “you don’t know?!” I shouted no again and he just sat there and laughed. Evil. Pure evil. So I shouted “What is it?!” And that’s when the precious words fell from his mouth that we were being blessed with another boy.
Of course I was kind of disappointed because I really wanted a girl, but that last all of eh, 5 seconds. However, for Gracie it was another story. She was sitting right beside me and I said “did you hear that; you’re having another baby brother!” She has the maddest look on her face and tears start to fill her little eyes. “I heard him” she grumbled. So I said “what’s wrong?” She angrily answered, “I wanted a sister”. Obviously she got over that he wasn’t a girl but that doesn’t mean she don’t ride our tails about having her a sister still.

To view the gender reveal video click on the link below:

And so the name challenge began (it’s SO much harder to come up with a boy name than a girl name…I had the perfect girl name picked out, Mia Anice, and if you steal it I will come hunt you down! Other options I had for a girl were Presley, Emerson, or Miriam with Renee, after Chance’s mom, or Sue, after my mom, being the middle name) for our fourth little boy. I really wanted another ‘M’ or ‘J’ name since we had two ‘G’s, one ‘M’ and one ‘J’ (that’s fault of my OCD; I can’t stand things not being even; and the reason Marcus wasn’t a G name is because he was named after his uncle who has a very special place in our hearts). Originally, before I even got pregnant I had picked out Jeremiah, Josiah and Abel. I loved them all because they were biblical. For Jeremiah I could call him Jer-Bear (how stinkin’ cute?!). Except then I remembered after falling in love with the name that Chance’s little cousins name was Jeremiah. I remember going home after having the epiphany and saying to Chance, “we can’t use Jeremiah (all the while pouting and whatnot)!” He says why not? Um, because your cousins name is Jeremiah. It took him a minute but he had the same epiphany. Not that we couldn’t name our baby Jeremiah too, but we all want our kids to be their own person especially in their own family. A little while later as I sat in our church at Aviano, ashamedly not paying attention to the sermon, I began looking up baby names in the bible (again, I wasn’t even pregnant at the time) when I came across Josiah and a description about the person he was. 2 Kings 23:25 NLT “Never before had there been a king like Josiah, who turned to the Lord with all his heart and soul and strength, obeying all the laws of Moses. And there has never been a king like him since.” This was it. But then my step-sister, who was also pregnant with a boy, choose that name before we had made anything final. I guess that was God’s way of saying that’s just not the name I have chosen for him. Those were pretty much the only ‘J’ names I liked so I moved on to Abel and the ‘M’s. For Abel, I couldn’t find a middle name that fit and it seemed that Abel fit better as a middle name but I didn’t want it for a middle name. Then Chance chimed in saying “what about Cain Abel?” I gave him the ‘really?’ face and he honestly hadn’t put two and two together. I said think about it, then he had the a-ha moment. We both laughed. From the Bible there was Matthew, Malachi, and Micah. None of those really stuck out to me plus we have two friends with boys named Malachi. Chance really liked Matthew and one of his favorite Christian artist is Matthew Redman who sings Ten Thousand Reasons so that was his pick. I was still on the hunt. I turned to google and found Mason (I have a friend whose nephew’s name was Mason) and Maxton that I really liked. Maxton in particular because I had never heard it before and didn’t know anyone with that name. That’s like finding gold. Literally. I really didn’t want a name that I knew someone close had (Chance would beg-to-differ…the name we chose couldn’t belong to anyone else. ANYONE. He would suggest a name and I’d tell him I know someone with that name, like he suggested Jonathan but I ‘dated’ a boy in the first grade named that. Really? So any suggestion he’d make he’d say “oh wait, let me guess, your mom’s best friend’s cousin twice removed has a son named that, huh?” He thought he was real funny!). But when I looked up middle names to go with Maxton everyone was saying “don’t name your kid that. When they get into school people will start making fun of him especially if he’s on the bigger boned side saying ‘Max-weighs-a-ton’”. Really?! But truth be told, kids are mean and it was probably true. So then I thought what if I changed the last two letters to ‘in’ since when you pronounce it that’s what it sounds like anyways? I was lying in bed, super late one night and texted Chance “what about Maxtin?” He replied, “that’s it! It’s perfect!” Thinking ‘shew, first names out of the way now onto the middle name’, little did I know we’d be in this name battle until the day he was born. We’d already run out of family names that we liked for middle names (Jayden was named after Chance’s daddy Glenn, Gavin was named after Chance, and Marcus was named after his uncle Mark) so I began trying to find something personal to me and Chance. I wrote down things like where we first met, things we’d done together, cars we’d had, etc. Then I got to thinking about our first movie we watched together…The Butterfly Effect. What if we used an actors name from that movie? I looked up all the actors and found Evan. Perfect! Maxtin Evan Ryan. I loved it. Notice the past tense of that word…lovED. But I had made the mistake of telling the name to Gracie.  
No one else in the family knew the gender and since it had been decided we were going to be in Kentucky until right after Christmas I was going to buy a bunch of Hersey bars for everyone and color the H-E to reveal the gender. A double whammy Merry Christmas! However, that plan fell through when we had to up and run from Kentucky in a split seconds notice. We left two days before Christmas and arrived in New Mexico with my sister and nieces on Christmas day. Boy am I glad I wasn’t too far along in the pregnancy because that would’ve been a long 3-day car trip having to stop a pee every 20 minutes.

Half way and beyond (ha, you couldn’t read that without thinking of Buzz Lightyear could ya?)
20 weeks
We arrived in New Mexico and I had so much to do. First thing on my mind though was getting settled in our house and turning it into a home. Our household goods had just been delivered on the same day we started driving down from Kentucky. Thankfully my awesome husband had all the big stuff set up, even the Christmas tree, and I just had to sort through the other stuff. I also was not going to sit and look at plain walls again for the however many years we would be here. We didn’t do anything to our walls in South Carolina because we were in an apartment at first, then in our own home (which we got orders 28 days later to Italy), then in Italy for four years. I didn’t care if we were only here for the 2 year minimum, I was going to decorate and paint! One of my main goals was to finally set up a themed nursery. Because we had 8 people living in a 3-bedroom house, space was pretty limited and the nursery would have to be part of our master bedroom. No big deal though because the babies have always slept in our room for at least the first 8-12 months. I didn’t want the overdone Winnie the Pooh or cheesy themes. I wanted it to be something he could grow into and I wanted to incorporate scripture with it. And so a beautiful nautical nursery/master bedroom was birthed (I’m still not sure I’ll let him take the décor with him when he moves out either).

But let me tell you, being between 20 and 30 weeks pregnant and climbing a ladder is a scary thing. You can’t get as close to the walls as you used to could. And your feet/ankles/every other part of your body will suffer too. Swelling and soreness at its fineness. It was totally worth it though.
I had also painted the entryway/hallway and laundry room

The left is the aftermath swelling of painting, the right is normal
Between the time of all this Van Gogh stuff, at 21 weeks we had an emergency trip to the ER. The day was going good. I had eaten chicken and rice enchilada casserole about an hour before the pain set in. Around 3 my right side began hurting. I went to the kid’s bathroom thinking maybe I had to use it, but then I couldn’t move. The pain had intensified so greatly that I literally wiped and found myself in the floor unable to get up. Chance had just gotten home from work and was going to take a shower in the master bathroom. Thankfully the kid’s bathroom and the master bathroom share a wall (weird most days, but on this day I was thankful). I was sobbing heavily and through the tears and pain I tried hollering for someone. Yet it was more like a whisper. Again, thankfully my husband heard the cries and whisper and came to my rescue. He helped me up and asked “what’s wrong?” I replied “I don’t know, but something is terribly wrong”. The pain only intensified. It ended up making me vomit that casserole up (FYI, throwing up rice will make you fast rice for the rest of your life…I still have yet to make that casserole again even though the hubs keeps begging for it). After vomiting, Chance asked if we should go to the hospital or if I thought it was contractions/baby related. At first I was real hesitant and thought ‘if I just lay down for a little bit maybe the pain will ease’. But after a few minutes of the pain not ceasing, I decided it best we go. On our way there, we’re both worried. Mainly about the baby. But I began thinking, which side is your appendix on? What if it ruptured? That would explain the sudden pain and vomiting. The baby moved a little so that sort of put our minds at ease. We got to the ER where they sent me to the Maternal Care Unit and put me on monitors to make sure I wasn’t contracting. That wasn’t it, so they ordered an ultrasound. The ultrasound didn’t show anything either; my appendix was fine. At this point they weren’t sure what was causing the pain. After a few hours, the pain finally began to ease. The doctor came in, she’s a different ethnicity, has an accent, and talks really fast. She asked me to stay overnight but because the pain was easing and they made sure everything was fine with the baby, I told them I’d rather go home since I had other kids too. That sparked a whole other conversation of the doctor asking us first, how many of each gender we had and second, how long we would be stationed here? We told her this was our fourth boy, we had one girl and that we’d be here at least 2 years or more. She was in deep thought about something so we asked her what was it? And she said “oh I’m just trying to figure out how many babies I’ll get to deliver within the time y’all are here before you get another girl, because you know you have to try for another!” We just laughed. It made us feel good that despite society’s outlook on a big family, there’s some people all for it. They don’t look at children as financial burdens. The doctor agreed I could go home but if the pain was to return that I should come back. Thankfully all was well and we didn’t have to…that night at least.
Celebrating bubba Jayden's 8th birthday in Heaven
However, on April 1st at 33 weeks we were back. I began the day with a headache. No biggie. Then I felt like my legs were falling asleep/going numb while walking and I was having a harder time catching my breath (these two symptoms had been going on for a few days). Still no big worry since all this can be pregnancy related. Then I started seeing spots. I began to get a little worried. Not to mention, at 31/32 weeks we (me and the doctors) started noticing a large amount of blood in my urine. At first it was treated as an infection but my cultures kept coming back normal. So I posted on the birth Facebook page here in our town what was going on to which everyone thought it’d be worth going in to get checked out. People told of how it could be preeclampsia or nothing at all. Some told about how they went in with the same symptoms and had their baby the next day. I was way too early to have him but still was not convinced anything major was wrong, so I called Chance’s work (he can’t keep his cell phone on him). At first I just asked to speak with him. I just needed his particular opinion on what I should do. I trusted his judgement. But his flight chief, who answered the phone, asked if it was an emergency. To which I hesitated and said “well I’m not sure”. He said “well should I send him home?” I replied, “well I’m not sure…I don’t really know”. He probably thought I was completely crazy. I just wanted to talk to my husband. So his flight chief said, “you just tell me what I need to do. If I need to send him home, that’s what I’ll do”. So I said, “yeah sure. Just send him home”. A few minutes later I got a call from Chance. He asked what’s wrong and I told him and asked what he thinks I should do. He doesn’t seem too concerned either however I should let it be known that stillbirth has happened in my side of the family twice, so that always lies in the back of our minds. We decided it wouldn’t hurt anything to just go in and get checked out. We know how hospitals work and with it being late afternoon we decided to pick up some food to take with us just in case we were there a while. We got to the hospital, get taken back to the MCU, they hooked me up to monitors, and started running test.
Everything, again, checked out just fine. No preeclampsia; baby was good. Then I got to thinking, it is April 1st and since I didn’t get to play my prank on Chance I’ll play one on my sister. Here’s the convo:

She’s smarter than I thought. We left in hopes that we wouldn’t be back until we actually had the baby. And you’re probably now asking yourself, ‘wait, I thought I read that she was having her dream home water birth?’ Unfortunately, that didn’t pan out because of a few reasons like 1, I was already behind on care (I didn’t get my 20-week anatomy scan until after 28 weeks and still needed to do my gestational diabetes test); 2, our midwife lived in El Paso and with my previous history of fast labors she feared she wouldn’t get here in time (she had a backup midwife planned but this midwife wasn’t for sure when she’d be in our town because she was moving from TX and waiting on her last mom to deliver); 3, (this was more mine and Chance’s fear) the cord was shown to be wrapped around the baby’s neck at our anatomy scan and we feared what if something happened at birth (like he’s a huge baby and he gets stuck coming out, compromising or cutting off his oxygen supply) causing him complications or worse? Yes, the midwife would’ve been prepared however, what if the second reason applied and she wasn’t here? So as a group we decided it best for me to start getting care at the Women’s Clinic and have a hospital birth. Definitely more on the sad side, I knew that this was probably what was best for us and it felt good to have a set in stone plan.
28 weeks 4 days
28 weeks 4 days
At my 36-week appointment I went in with excruciating pain. On a scale from 1-10 I told them my pain was an 8. I hurt all over from the waist down. Most of the pain was coming from my right side, right below my rib cage, and it was constant. But then I started feeling some cramping, noticed my stomach tightening, and honestly felt like my pubic bone was going to split in half. I expressed my concerns to the doctor (there’s more than one doctor in this office so you see a different one every time because they want you to know them all so it won’t be awkward not knowing your doctor when you deliver). This doctor just happened to be the same one (different ethnicity) that seen me on our first ER visit. She brushed it off and said it was probably just growing pains and if it got worse to come back. I had also told her how the baby’s movements had decreased. Like just the night before I hadn’t felt him move hardly any. Usually every time I flip from side to side, he would flip too. But he hadn’t. I was pretty concerned but figured it was because he was running out of room or in a deep sleep, plus I had an appointment the next day. So she did a non-stress test where they hooked me up to monitors and had me press the black button every time he moved. Of course then, it was if I was lying because he moved the whole time…stinker.
35 weeks 6 days, before I got hospitalized
All was well and we went home. I was still functional just in a lot of pain, Chance went to work and about 3pm I couldn’t move due to the pain. No matter what position I was in, standing, sitting, laying, I was in over the top excruciating pain. My pain was now at a 10+. I couldn’t think straight, much less take care of 3 kids. So I called Chance’s work. This time there was no hesitation. As soon as someone picked up the phone I said “this is Sergeant Ryan’s wife (I actually called him Airman Ryan because I’m not used to saying Sergeant Ryan) and I need him home now! I’m 36 weeks pregnant and I’m going to the hospital”. He came home right away and we headed for the hospital. Guys, I’m telling you this pain was no joke. Like it was so intense that it would make you think suicidal thoughts especially if you had to ‘just deal with it’. I had no relief. I even told Chance that if they offered me a c-section right then I’d tell them while they were in there take everything out…EVERYTHING. We got checked in, they (again) hooked me up to monitors (turns out I was having contractions), checked my pee to still find blood in it, and ordered an ultrasound. The tech asked me some questions, more pertaining to birth this time since I was 36 weeks and if I was in labor they wanted to be prepared. She then asked me if I had any thoughts on hurting anyone. I laughed what I could and said “actually, yeah”. She, very puzzled, looked at me and paused then said “the doctors…….or yourself?” I said “myself; that’s how bad the pain is”. Then we started talking pain relief. Morphine. This would help take the edge off the pain. But what they didn’t know was I’d had morphine before. I had to get a shot of morphine when I was about 18 weeks pregnant with Gracie because of a migraine and not being able to hold anything down. It made me sicker than a dog. It made me feel like I was drunk and that’s a feeling I can’t stand. I don’t like being dizzy. Yes, it took the pain away but the way I felt afterwards wasn’t too much better. The tech left the room and I immediately broke down in tears. Ugly crying actually. I was in so much pain and I did not want morphine but I didn’t want to be in pain either. Why, why, why? I prayed, begging God to take the pain away. She came back in and that’s when I told her I was going to refuse the morphine. I just couldn’t take it. I’d (can’t believe I said this) rather deal with the pain than take the medicine. She said that’s fine and while I was down getting an ultrasound she would see what else I could take. So I went and had the ultrasound done. If you’ve never had a renal (kidney) ultrasound it’s a lot of “take a deep breath and hold it” “now let it go”. Except sometimes the tech forgets to tell you to let it go so you might just pass out from no air, which in essence would take the pain away for a bit (don’t worry, I didn’t pass out). Almost done, the tech asked me to flip either onto my side or back, I forget, except when I went to flip the pain intensified even more! I couldn’t move. She then said we were done and took me back to my room. The same doctor I had seen at my appointment earlier that day comes in and tells me the results…a kidney stone which was causing irritation, also causing contractions. I asked how I got the stone? They don’t run in my family and usually they’re hereditary. I’d never had one before (once you have one, you’re at a higher risk of getting more…yay!). How? She said that it was probably my diet, soda’s or something new I was consuming. Well my diet was pretty much the same day to day, I drank maybe one soda a day but I had upped my intake of water to about ¾ to 1 gallon a day. Tap water that is. She immediately retaliated “you drink from the tap? That’s poisonous!” Well I didn’t know. I’m new here and have always drank from the tap. She said that was probably 99.9% the problem and that I needed to stop drinking from the tap and get some “good” water. So note, if you live in New Mexico or have hard water…DON’T DRINK FROM THE TAP. You can get kidney stones. Side note: I kind of knew about the hard water causing kidney stones because in Italy they warned us of it and we had hard water there however, I drank if for four years (not near as much as I do now; maybe a glass or two) and never had a problem so I didn’t think anything of it. Afterwards she said “I don’t know why I didn’t think of a kidney stone when I seen you in the office today. You had all the signs…pain in your lower right side and lots of it.” Yeah, thanks. I like to think of myself as super woman sometimes, but when I tell you I’m in pain and want pain medicine, I don’t do it because I like the meds. I can’t stand taking meds. Anyways, she said the stone was about 1cm in diameter and that they were going to pump me full of fluids to try and flush it out. This would require me staying the night. Here’s the thing…this all happened at the worst timing. As much as I would rather have a baby, pass a kidney stone, and be pain free…I had a hair appointment the next day, maternity photos that Saturday and we still hadn’t done the belly cast. So being the planner I am, I said I’ll stay as long as you let me go by 10am tomorrow morning so I can make my hair appointment. They agreed. I mean there wasn’t much they could do for me anyways since I refused all the pain meds they offered. They were all narcotics and I was so afraid they’d make me sick. There’s no way I would’ve been able to handle vomiting on top of the pain. But thankfully after the ultrasound tech brought me back to my room the pain started decreasing. I’m sure it was all the praying I had done. The pain was just coming in spurts now (every few minutes). Like someone suddenly kicking me hard on the lower right side. I did end up taking an anti-depressant/sleep aid that night in hopes that I could get some sleep. But with all the fluids they had pumping through me plus being pregnant, I was in the bathroom more than sleeping. They were straining my pee to watch for sediment of the stone and before I left I had passed very little. Meaning the stone was mostly still there but for some reason the pain was almost completely gone. It would just be something I’d have to deal with and hopefully pass on my own. They assured me when I passed it I would know.

I made it to my appointment, still wiped from the pain and no sleep but I was getting my hair done. Thankfully I have an amazing husband who took great care of me and let me get some extra sleep after we got home.
After getting out of the hospital and getting my hair done
Then that Saturday we went to White Sands National Monument and took some gorgeous pregnancy photos with Living Dreams Photography (Sabine).
36 weeks 2 days, getting ready for maternity pictures that almost got cancelled due to the wind

36 weeks 2 days
Maternity photos by Living Dreams Photography


















I was now being seen weekly by the doctors. At our 36-week appointment, the one mentioned above before getting admitted, the doctor had asked us if we had had any growth scans. We told her no, that the only ultrasounds we’d had was at 10 weeks to confirm the pregnancy then our anatomy scan at 28 weeks. She said she’d schedule us for a growth scan the next appointment. So at our 37-week appointment, before meeting with the doctor, we had an ultrasound to determine how baby was ‘growing’. Going into the ultrasound I was just excited to see the baby. I haven’t had an ultrasound this late in the pregnancy since 2009 (Gracie). He would actually have meat on him and look more like a baby rather than Michael Jackson. Sorry again. I know that this far in the pregnancy it’s really hard to determine growth of the baby and guessing the weight was a bit farfetched. The tech done the ultrasound and she got all the measurements (I also asked her to check if the cord was still wrapped around his neck since it was at our anatomy scan and thankfully from what she could see it was not!). She says “he’s measuring around 34 weeks, so 3 weeks behind and I’m getting a weight of a little over 6lbs”. She then asked if my other kids were small to which I laugh and said they were actually the complete opposite. Unfortunately, since he was so low and all scrunched up we didn’t get to see his face much (he kept his hands in front of his face too) or even get any pictures. We went into another room and waited for the doctor. This was one we weren’t particularly fond of. He comes in and says, “he’s measuring a bit small which concerns me a little so I’m going to set you up for another growth scan in two weeks”. I looked at him with a huge grin on my face and in these exact words said “I call bogus”. Shocked and taken back he not jokingly said “why do you say that?” I told him about all my past pregnancies and how my babies only got bigger. I went from 7lbs ¼oz (Jayden), Gracie being my smallest at 6lbs 13.5oz, then 7lbs 13oz (Gavin), and 8lbs 8oz (Marcus). I was expecting between an 8-9lb baby. And then I really shocked him when I said those ultrasounds aren’t really accurate on reading the weight anyways. Even the tech said she couldn’t get a accurate measurement on his legs because they were all scrunched up and if one measurement is off the whole assessment could be off. Not to mention that goes by how big the bones are, not how much fat the baby has. He says “well were still going to keep an eye on him”. I said “that’s fine”. To me that just meant I got to see him more. And then I said “if you’re right and I have a small baby, that’s a-OK with me. However, I just don’t find it in my cards”. He was not happy. We scheduled the next appointment and left.

That weekend, I decided to finally pack our hospital bags.
I was proud though, because with 5 people, 6 after baby, (we aren’t close enough with anyone here yet, so it was decided that the kids would be coming with us and attending the birth then dad would go home with them at night. I actually think Gracie and Gavin wouldn’t have wanted to miss it so Marcus would be our only “challenge” but we had prepared dad to wear him on his back in the Ergo and all would be well) I hadn’t packed too much. It usually looks like we’re moving into the hospital but I only had one small luggage, the boppy pillow, breastfeeding pillow, lots of games/videos on the electronics for the kids, and the baby’s things. I also had prepared 3 of our biggest/thickest beach towels in case we had him in the van on the way to the hospital.

On Sunday, Mother’s Day, we decided it was time to make the belly cast (what better day, right?). I really like to wait until almost the last possible second so the kids can really visualize just how big I got with them. Gracie’s was done the earliest because Chance was in tech school, so on the last visit to see him before Gracie was born we done the cast in the hotel room. I was 35 weeks and 3 days (you can’t fly after 36 weeks). Then with Gavin I was 38 weeks 3 days, Marcus 38 weeks 2 days, and this one 38 weeks 3 days. We started the day out with Chance trying to let me sleep in, but again I barely slept as it was so that didn’t happen. We had cinnamon rolls for breakfast then we got to work on creating the cast. As I stood there while Chance paper macheted me, I began to feel like I was suffocating. I couldn’t seem to catch my breath. Most people do the cast while sitting, but I prefer to do them while standing just because again, the kids would get to see how big I really got. I needed to sit but we were already too far into the process for that. So I told Chance he had to hurry because I didn’t feel good. Then I began to get nauseous. I told him he really had to hurry. Poor fella was going as fast as he could but my body was at its wits end and I found myself hurled over the trashcan vomiting…with the belly cast attached to me but I could feel it starting to detach. I finished my business and told him we had to hurry and finish…as if he didn’t know that. After we were done, I found myself literally wiggling to get the cast to fully detach from me so I could go shower and lay down. Thankfully it didn’t mess up from the vomiting and wiggling.
But see, this wasn’t the first time this suffocating/vomiting thing had happened. It actually happened another time between 20 and 30 weeks where I had eaten a honey bun Little Debbie cake and a little while later (while sitting this time) felt like I couldn’t breathe, then ended up vomiting. So I just assumed maybe I couldn’t handle all the sugar or something. I hadn’t tried eating a honey bun again but the next day, after doing the belly cast, we had cinnamon rolls left over so I wanted to see if it was the food/sugar. Nope it wasn’t and those rolls were even better the second time around.    

So remember the whole loved Maxtin Evan Ryan name? Still at this point in the pregnancy I was trying to find that perfect name. I still liked Maxtin a lot but decided I really didn’t like Evan. But for Maxtin I didn’t want people to go around calling him Max. I didn’t like just Max at all, if I did I’d have just used plain old Max. I had already been to every website more than twice and nothing fit. I had even asked Gavin a few weeks prior what he thought the baby’s name should be. I gave him all the options we first had considered plus a few new options: Kingston, Sawyer, Jackson, and Caden. Oh, he was sold on Kingsman (Kingston). However, Gracie would not let go of Maxtin. So I had really gotten myself into a pickle. I couldn’t have both, therefore someone was going to get their feelings hurt. As we were driving back to base one day we finally settled the debate…and with Gavin’s blessing the baby’s first name would for sure be Maxtin. It was a good thing we didn’t live around family since we don’t like to reveal the name before the baby is born because Gavin told any and every one he came in contact with. The stranger in JC Penney’s even knew. Now we needed a middle name. This was so hard. I had picked out Andrew and Ezra (Chance loved Ezra but I didn’t think it flowed well with Maxtin). But still wasn’t set on anything. It was pretty much going to come down to after we had him, we’d decide then. We’d have to. We couldn’t say “oh well, we’ve got time”.          

For my 38th week appointment I had convinced the front ladies that I didn’t need an appointment (they usually scheduled my appointments on Thursday since that’s the day I changed weeks on) that Thursday since I had the other ultrasound scheduled for the following Monday and I really didn’t want to come see them twice in a matter of days. Not necessarily them, because we had a great relationship with the front desk ladies. They agreed.

For my 39th week appointment, we came back for the ultrasound and to see the doctor. It was the same doctor from the last appointment that I called bogus too. At this practice and most other practices like in Aviano, kids were not allowed in the ultrasound room. So unfortunately Chance had to stay out in the waiting room with the kids (same with the last ultrasounds too) but get this…they let him and the kids come in after the diagnostic part was done to “see” the baby, yet it was almost as long as the diagnostic part. I get it though, because kids aren’t interested in the blurry thing on the screen so they look elsewhere in their machinery to keep occupied. The diagnostic part was over and he was measuring at 37-weeks (still 3-weeks behind) but this time getting a weight of 7lbs 4oz. Again, I wasn’t concerned. Even if he was small, he was growing and that’s all that mattered. I still didn’t believe that he was small though. Chance and the kids came in and we got to pretty much meet our son through ultrasound.
39 weeks 4 days

I’d never seen a baby this late in the pregnancy so clear without actually birthing them. It blew my mind. Before Chance and them had come in, me and the tech talked about Jayden. She had questioned about the gender of the baby and how many of each I already had. She had a 6-month old son at home and said SIDS was one of her biggest fears. I think because of this and she knew how dear our children were to us she done her absolute best at getting us some pictures. And the baby actually cooperated, kept his hands out of his face and wasn’t lodged to far down like last time. This just made me that much more anxious to meet him. At this point I was thankful that things had turned out the way they did with us not being able to have a home birth because if it hadn’t, then we wouldn’t have gotten these extra ultrasounds nor the pictures. We went into the next room to meet with the doctor and he tells us that he’s still measuring small but he wasn’t concerned since he was still growing. He just figured my due date was off. Thing is, I knew it wasn’t because I knew almost the exact date of conception. I didn’t want to make him any unhappier with me though, so I didn’t argue. We set up our 40-week appointment for the following week (I’d actually be 40 weeks 4 days) but we were in hopes that we’d have a baby before then.
39 weeks 6 days
On my due date, Thursday May 19th and no baby in sight, I get a call from our birth photographer (Karina Schuh, The Birth-Photographer of Alamogordo) telling me how a new midwife (Elizabeth (Liz) Derry, owner of Otero Birth) had just gotten settled into town and she had brought me up to the midwife, saying how much I wanted a home birth but how it didn’t work out with the other midwife. The new midwife told our photographer that she would be interested in attending my birth if I still wanted a home birth (!!!!). See remember earlier when I said our first midwife had a backup midwife planned but she lived in Texas at the time and didn’t know when she’d be moving here? Yeah, this was that midwife! I had heard a lot of great things about her and had been seeing post on the birth Facebook page here in our town about others experiences with her. Every time I’d see a post I’d tell myself to contact her just to see if she’d be interested in attending our birth but then I’d always talk myself out of it saying, “who are you kidding? You could have a baby any day!” But after our photographer called and told me this I jumped on the opportunity. This was my sign. I called her and explained everything to her. We talked for a bit and then she said she would definitely be interested in helping us fulfill our dream home water birth! YAY! She did already have plans to be out of town that following Tuesday-Thursday so we would still continue seeing the doctors at the hospital just in case I had to deliver on those days. Only problem would be getting Chance back on board. Not that Chance was opposed to having a home birth, but he did feel more comfortable being in a hospital for two reasons; 1, my history of bleeding and 2, the scare of the cord being around the baby’s neck. Anddd he didn’t want to clean up the aftermath like he did with Gavin but the difference with having a midwife there is they take care of all that. So when he got home from work Gracie told him that I had been on the phone with someone talking about the baby; I was in the bathroom. He worriedly comes in the bathroom asking what was going on and I said nothing why? He told me what Gracie said and I said “that heifer”. He asked what she meant and I said hesitantly “Soooooo, having a home birth is back on the table…..if you want” with the biggest grin on my face. He laughed and said “oh is it?” I explained to him everything and how I just felt like it was meant to be since I had been wanting to message this midwife but my brain kept stopping me and then our photographer just calls me out of nowhere saying she had talked to the midwife for us? Come on, if there ever was fate it was now. He knew how badly I wanted this and HE thinks this is our last baby so he wanted me to get my “last wishes” sort of to say. Now that he was on board, we just had to pray that the baby didn’t come between Tuesday and Thursday.

We met and had our first appointment with the midwife the next day (Friday, one day ‘past’ due). We expressed our concerns about how I bleed more than most women after birth and she suggested that we go to a supplement store and grab some Magnesium, Calcium, and Chlorophyll. These would help control the bleeding. Huh? Wonder why no doctors ever told me about this? They’d always just given me a Pitocin shot after birth and called it good, and of course she would have some on hand just in case that was our last resort. But if I could take something natural and it have the same effect, I’d much rather do that. The knowledge a midwife has in natural ways of life over a doctor is astounding. Medicine and technology have taken over our generation so much that no one remembers what can be done by the body alone or the natural things we have access to. That’s not to say that sometimes procedures/medicine aren’t necessary because sometimes they are…but most times, they’re not. Stepping off that pedestal…that night was the release of the new Angry Birds movie. We had told the kids as long as I didn’t have the baby yet we would take them. Maybe the baby was just trying to get brownie points with the kids by waiting to come until after they had seen the movie. After we were home later that night, my kidney stone started acting up. I was up almost all night in pain. I tried Tylenol, heating pad, sleeping on the couch and nothing worked. Not only was the pain keeping me up but when I did doze off for a second I was immediately awoken to what seemed like I had tinkled on myself. I ran to the bathroom and thought man that’s weird. Never before had I had this happen and I’d never leaked fluid before or had my water break before I knew the baby was about to come so I didn’t think it was my water. Then I noticed that I had lost some of my mucus plug, so maybe it was fluid and maybe we were going to have a baby sooner than I thought. Maybe things were going to go different this time around. However, it was just a little bit of the plug so I didn’t ‘plan’ on anything happening in four days or less. After being in so much pain I decided I was going to ‘threaten’ the booger…I was going to begin painting Gracie’s room the next day (Saturday) in hopes it would coax him out. Maybe climbing the ladder and being on my feet so much would get things going. I know, everyone’s probably thinking…girl just go have sex. It’s never worked for the others and I’m not going to get all hot and sweaty for nothing…okay it wouldn’t be for nothing but who wants to be touched when they’re huge and 40+ weeks pregnant?

So Saturday, after very little sleep and still in a great deal of pain I began to notice I was starting to contract. Ha, maybe that threat worked. I was still going to go through with painting the room though because I wanted to get it done before the baby got here and it would keep my mind busy. Off to Sherwin Williams, Home Depot, and a few other places we went. In each store that I entered I was asked how much longer I had with that poor pitiful you look. I replied, “2 days overdue but hoping today is the day”. This one black older lady responded back with “when I had my kids in the 50’s (she had 6), I would go outside and sit on the hard concrete/blacktop and I swear that put me into labor every time”. I giggled inside and thought ‘that’s just what I want to do’ sarcastically, but I politely replied “maybe I’ll have to give that a try” and we parted ways. Paint in hand, we headed home and I immediately got to work thinking maybe we’d have a baby that night. However, there was something weird about these contractions. They only seemed to be noticeable when I was sitting down or resting. When I was up, climbing the ladder and whatnot they ceased. Completely opposite of how I thought contractions worked. After talking with the midwife we came to the conclusion that it was probably the kidney stone causing irritation again which was causing the contractions. Bummer. I still carried on and finished Gracie’s room…until 3am Sunday morning to be exact. 

Sunday (3 days past due date) was a pretty relaxed day. The pain from the kidney stone had died down therefore the contractions were gone. We rearranged the kid’s rooms and put Gracie in her room.
On Monday (4 days past due date) we had an appointment with our midwife in the morning. I don’t know why I said we because Chance was at work. He worked a horrible shift of 2am-12pm this week (they are constantly switching his hours). He kept saying the baby would for sure come this week because he would be getting little to no sleep all week and that’s exactly how it went with Gavin; he had just gotten off at 6am when I went into labor with Gavin (I let him nap while I labored though). She done the normal check up and asked how I felt. I said good just wished I had a baby by now. This was now the longest I’d ever been pregnant. I was ready to hold my baby. She asked if I felt like anything was going to happen anytime soon and I said no. I really hadn’t lost much of my mucus plug and usually after I lose it all that’s my sign that labor is 4 days out. All the pain had ceased. He was just super comfy. We went over signs of labor and she assured me that if I went all the way to 41 weeks 5 days she had some tricks in her bag that would for sure put me into labor. (Oh Lord! Please don’t let me go that long!) We also had our 40-week appointment at the doctor’s office that afternoon. We were seeing the newest doctor there this time, one we’d never seen before. We got taken back to our room, I went and peed in the cup (STILL had blood in my urine) but when I wiped there was more mucus plug! I went back to the room where the nurse asked if I wanted the doctor to check me. Usually before 40 weeks I won’t let them because that number is just that…a number until you’re in active labor. But since I was 40 weeks 4 days I was curious if the contractions from the irritation of the kidney stone were doing anything. So I said “yeah, why not?” The nurse walked out; I got undress to find I had lost the rest of my mucus plug! Yes! Hopefully this meant by Friday we’d be holding our newest member! The doctor came in, asked how things were going and what the plans were since we were now past 40 weeks? Ha, I knew this would be one of their first questions. I told her because of my previous experiences with inductions I would not let them induce until 42 weeks. Plus, a due date isn’t an exact date of when the baby should be born, that date could be off by 2 weeks. She hesitantly looked at us and said “well you know the risk for a still birth greatly increases after 41 weeks, right?” It didn’t seem to me like she had any compassion towards us at all. I replied, “yes I know this. If you looked in our chart (she chimes in “I did”) you’ll see that we’ve already lost one son to SIDS so we don’t take risk of losing our children lightly”. She said “I understand but I need you to understand the risk”. I said, “well it doesn’t matter anyways because I just lost the rest of my mucus plug, and going by my past two labors I’m sure we’ll have a baby by Friday”. She said “well until you have the baby I want you to come in every other day for a non-stress test (where they hook you up to monitors, you press the button every time the baby moves, and have a growth ultrasound)”. Okay lady. Just do your exam. She checks me, and remember this isn’t my first rodeo but something was different about this check. It hurt really, really bad. Worse than a pap smear, which doesn’t even hurt that bad. I’ve even had my membranes swept before with Marcus and again, this hurt worse than that. When she finished, she had blood and mucus on her glove. She said I was a 3 then said we should go home and have sex. She said it was science that semen can help dilate or thin the cervix. I laughed at her and Chance had the “told ya so” face on. She walked out and I looked at Chance and said “that hurt! Like really, really bad!” We went and scheduled our next appointment for Thursday (the ladies at the front desk can’t believe I still haven’t had him) then left. I texted the midwife and gave her the update then we decided to stop at the splash pad by our house before going home so the kids could get some energy out. I dropped Chance and the kids off so I could go home and get towels and pee. I felt wet down there and wanted to make sure I wasn’t leaking or peeing on myself again. I got to the bathroom and realized I was bleeding and had passed two very small blood clots. I know bleeding can occur after a check but I’ve NEVER had bleeding after ANY kind of cervical exam. Not after a pap smear or when I got my membranes swept with Marcus or even when I had the Mirena put in after having Jayden. So I immediately texted our midwife and told her what was going on. We came to the conclusion that the doctor probably swept my membranes and was too aggressive when she done it. That would explain all the pain. I felt violated. She didn’t even ask my consent or tell me she had done it (if she did). Not to mention, we definitely didn’t want the membranes swept at this appointment because our midwife was leaving the next morning for two days and chances are if a membrane sweep is going to work, labor will start within 24 hrs. I really didn’t want to have to go to the hospital now that we had the option of a home birth again. Plus, while we were at the doctor’s office I asked them who the on call doctor for delivering babies was this week and we had a one-day window of delivering with the doctor we actually liked. So I told the midwife that hopefully if anything, labor would start soon or nothing would come of the check. She told me that she didn’t plan on leaving until 6:30-7am the next morning and to keep her updated. I went back to the splash pad and told Chance what was going on. He was just as angry with the doctor as me. He asked me how I was feeling and I said fine; still no contractions. We let the kids play for a bit then went home to eat supper. The bleeding eventually started slowing down but I was still having discharge with blood in it. Chance was in bed super early because of his new schedule so I put the kids to bed, finished painting Gracie’s picture frame for her room, then went to bed myself. Since Friday night when my kidney stone was acting up I had been sleeping on the couch. I just found it more comfortable than the bed. My hips weren’t hurting near as bad.

Tuesday around 12am I was awoken to what seemed like I was peeing on myself again. Except this time, it was more than a tinkle. And I couldn’t stop it. I ran to the bathroom before it went all the way through my clothes and onto the couch, then noticed it was going down my leg. I literally made it to the toilet, straddled it while standing, got my underwear down just a little bit before more started coming. I knew this wasn’t pee this time. It was white and cloudy. But my water had never prematurely broken. I always knew when it was going to break because I’d have the worst contraction ever. And I wasn’t contracting at all at this point. I knew it wasn’t the whole bag of water because it was only about 1-2 cups, but still I’d never experienced anything like this. So I texted my midwife and let her know what happened, that I wasn’t contracting so I was going to lay back down and try to get some rest. Then I texted Chance because he was about to wake up and start getting ready for work at 1am. I told him what happened, that I thought he should call in because I was pretty sure my water was breaking and that if it is, when things do start happening he probably wouldn’t have time to get home. I tried going back to sleep but my mind was going 90 miles an hour. I heard Chance get up, leave, then come back. Apparently when he tried calling in no one answered so he went to leave someone a note. I finally fell asleep but off and on I would wake up to a mild contraction. Nothing too intense to keep me up so I wasn’t worried about it. Then I woke up at 6am, went to pee and felt a little crampy. But still wasn’t anything super out of the ordinary. So I sat on my exercise ball for a bit to see if I was even contracting (or possibly get the contractions to become stronger) and how far apart they were if I were. I then texted our midwife to give her an update since I knew she would be hitting the road soon. Here’s the convo with times:




Needless to say, she canceled leaving that morning. At this point I wasn’t even sure I was having steady enough contractions to consider it labor, but something was going on. This was just completely different than all the rest. The contractions were super mild with a peak of like 10 seconds. After talking with the midwife, I texted our photographer to let her know what was going on. Because I wasn’t for sure this was it, I didn’t tell her to come right away. I then came back into the living room and Chance was up. He began putting his uniform on…? I asked him where he was going. He said they told him he had to come in if I was not being admitted to the hospital or wasn’t in active labor. I said “um do they know were planning a home birth so even when I have the baby I won’t be admitted in the hospital? And did you tell them we think I’m in active labor?” He said “yeah I told them but they said I had to be in by 7:45am”. I said “well let’s set up the birthing pool before you go just in case”. At this point, the contractions were definitely there. Not close together, but they definitely had a punch behind them when they did come. Then reality started to set in and I began to worry that I was going to have this baby without anyone here. Gracie would be my only hope of help. Chance was about to leave and as things sped up, I probably should’ve told our midwife to skip Wal-Mart but in my head I was in denial that it could go that fast. I had been going to the bathroom non-stop (pooing; yeah the not so pretty part of labor…but I’d rather do it now than when I’m pushing out a baby, just saying) and I remembered our midwife telling me that a sign of labor is looser stools. I hadn’t heard anything back from the photographer so I called her at 7:14am. I let her know that things were moving quick and that we’d probably be having a baby in the next couple of hours. She said she was going to put her son on the school bus then head over. I got off the phone with her and our kids were starting to wake up. We got them up and told them today we’d get to meet the baby!
Birth Photography by Karina Schuh



They were so excited!! But you know the first thing out of their mouths besides yay? “Can we play on the iPad/Leap Pad now?” See, when I packed our hospital bags, I charged all the electronics and packed them too so I didn’t have to worry about them not being charged. We don’t let the kids play on them much anyways so it’s a reward when they do get to play them. I had also put new games on their Leap Pad and bought them head phones so that made them all the more excited about playing them. Contractions started to get more intense to where I actually had to stop what I was doing, lean on something, and breathe/moan through them. I told Chance if he left he had an 85% chance of missing the birth. This was happening super quick. I was feeling pressure but I was trying to wait for everyone to get there plus the pool still needed to be filled so I kept my legs close together. It sounds funny, but I could feel him trying to descend. I usually get into a sort of squat position while leaning over something when I feel the pressure, to open up my hips so the baby can descend. The kids at first was concerned when they seen me in pain but we assured them I was okay, that I was just working on getting baby brother out of my tummy.

They were much more relaxed then. They just went in other rooms, played the electronics and did their own thing. I was in the bathroom, again, when Chance brought me my phone because our midwife had texted at 7:25am (21 minutes prior) saying she was headed our way. How I knew it was 21 minutes prior was because I made sure to check how long it had been since she sent that text. Had she just sent it, I was going to call her and tell her she needed to step on it. But since it had been 21 minutes I knew she was close to us and then we heard a knock at the door (7:46am). Thank God! Then a few minutes later, our photographer arrived. The midwife told Chance to go ahead and start filling the pool up. She then started getting vitals on me and the baby.



I had a decent contraction afterwards then said I was going to go try and go to the bathroom again. Chance gave me that look of “yeah, bathroom. I know what’s really about to happen…I’ve done this before”. I assured them I wasn’t going to have a baby on the toilet. I would just rather make sure everything was cleared out before pushing out a baby. Or so I thought.
I went to the bathroom (kid’s bathroom in particular) and had a really bad contraction then my water officially broke. Well at least I was on the toilet, right? Marcus comes in right as this was happening with his little lips puckered up wanting a kiss. Poor fella didn’t understand exactly what was going on, he just knew mommy was in pain and he wanted to kiss it all away. Unfortunately, the pain was so bad, I couldn’t give him a kiss back.
I mustered out through the pain that my water broke and again, thankfully Chance was right next to me in the master bathroom and heard me. He hollered into the living room to tell the midwife and she came back there knowing we were getting ready to have a baby. She was already prepared with the supplies. Chance took Marcus to the living room then came back. Now let me give you guys a visual of how big this bathroom is. Imagine a bathtub sitting vertical from wall to wall. Now the sink is right beside it with about a 3-inch gap between the two (no joke, a bottle of bubble bath is all that can squeeze between the two). In front of the sink is the door. So when it swings open, it gets about ½ an inch from touching the front of the sink and blocks the tub. Then right next to the sink is the toilet. You can wash your hands while sitting on the toilet. There’s maybe a 3 ½ foot empty space to walk in. Back to the story…the midwife asked me if I felt pressure or like pushing. I said “yes”. She said “can you get off the toilet so you can get in position?” I said “no”. I couldn’t move. The pain was paralyzing and I could feel him starting to come. While this was going on, her assistant hadn’t made it to the house yet so having the kids there was a big help. They would go get her towels and what not. We had Chance get in the bathroom with me to help get me off the toilet.
She had already put down the puppy pad things (I don’t know the medical term for the human ones) to protect the floor, I got down on all fours except my butt was facing Chance. We waited for the contractions to let up for a second and I turned around so that my top half was in the bathroom facing Chance, who was sitting on the toilet (with the top closed), and my bottom half was outside of the bathroom.
The midwife and photographer was out in our tinsy hallway of about 3 feet wide. Gavin came back to investigate and I hear him disgustingly exclaim “Is that poop on her butt (where your butthole protrudes while pushing)?” Leave it to him to make light of a situation but also embarrass you! We laughingly told him to go back in the living room. I asked if the pool was ready because if so, I’d like to run and get in it just to have the baby so I could have my water birth. But unfortunately everything happened so fast, the pool was still filling up and wasn’t quite full enough. Plus, we have monster of a water heater and the scolding hot water hadn’t run out yet, so the water was too hot. It didn’t matter anyways because right after that my body started pushing the baby out. I pushed maybe 2 or 3 times and his head was out.

I remember while pushing, the pain/ring of fire was so intense that I asked the midwife if she could help. Ya know, just pull him out. She done an awesome job of keeping me calm, getting me to breathe and finish pushing. With Gavin and Marcus, I felt like I acted like an animal frantically saying “somebody help me!” over and over with Gavin and “I can’t do this!” over and over with Marcus. But with this one, I felt like I controlled myself better with the help of our midwife and Chance. Chance done an awesome job of coaching me, telling me to breathe and how awesome I was doing. Between the two of them, I think they helped me focus more on pushing. The environment was so calm. Nobody was running around the room prepping things. Gracie and Gavin came back there to watch for a second but daddy told them they might want to go back in the living room and they agreed. So the head was out and with just a few more pushes our newest baby boy was born. 8:06am.

--If you’re keeping track, from the moment I first text the midwife to tell her I MIGHT be in labor (6:29am) to when I had him (8:06am), that’s a time span of 1 hour and 37 minutes. I wasn’t even for sure I was in labor for 37 of those minutes. The midwife got there at 7:46am meaning she was only there 20 minutes prior to the birth and the photographer a few minutes less than that. I could count the total number of contractions in the 1 hour 37 minutes on my fingers and toes. And had Chance left to be at work by 7:45am he would’ve for sure missed the birth.

He immediately began to cry but only for a few seconds. He got passed between my legs up to me where I fell in love all over again.



To me, he looked small (I was expecting a 9 pounder) but perfect in every single way. We called Gracie, Gavin, and Marcus in there to meet him.

It was such a special moment as it always is. I was dying to get him in my arms and snuggle him but in the position I was in I couldn’t hold him. So Chance helped me up and we moved to the bed (yes there was a shower curtain down and puppy pad underneath me).











The kids followed us in there, Marcus more distant than the others, and had some family bonding time while we waited for the placenta to deliver.
He wasn't to sure what was going on








The placenta delivered and Chance cut the cord.
We asked Gracie if she wanted to cut it and at first she was all for it because she didn’t know exactly what she was doing. When she seen what she was going to be doing, I could tell she didn’t want to anymore. So I asked her again if she wanted to and she said “umm, no that’s okay”. The midwife taught us, including the kids, about the placenta. It was so cool to see the thing that kept him alive for 9 months.
With all the others it was whisked away. We spent some more bonding time together while the baby nursed. Then our midwife done the newborn assessment. He weighed 8lbs 3oz, 21 ½ inches long, with a 13 ½ inch circumference head!








This whole time I kept saying, oh my goodness that happened so fast! I even said “I didn’t even have time to post on Facebook for the family!” I didn’t even have time to let my sister know. I was in shock to say the least. I then got up and took a shower while the kids got to hold him for the first time.





Marcus liked the baby better in my belly

After all was said and done and everyone left, me and the baby took a nice needed nap. It was so nice to be in the comfort of our own home, in our own bed, with no nurses to bug us (I know in the hospital they’re just doing their jobs). Around noon we introduced him to the public via social media.

While the midwife was doing the newborn assessment she asked us what his name was. I looked at Chance and said, “So, what is it?” giving him final say. And without further ado world, I introduce you to Maxtin Andrew Ryan.