This is my sweet angel, Ty Gabriel Sampson. He was born on April 27, 2009. He was 7 pounds and nine ounces and 21" long.

The rollercoaster ride that I have been on for the past nine months finally ended on April 27 with the arrival of our son, Ty Gabriel. See the last post for how the ride began. This pregnancy was anything but normal for me. At my first ultrasound my doctor changed my due date from May 5 to May 22. No pregnant woman ever takes that news very well, but there is no arguing because doctors know best, right? Instead of being sick for the usual 4 months, it didn't subside until month six. That really sucked! My heart goes out to all those that are sick their entire pregnancy, time passes so slowly. The tired, I can't get up off the couch feeling lasted until a couple weeks before I gave birth. I am just thankful for a husband who is obsessive about a clean house and is willing to do it himself, with a smile! That is the craziest part about this pregnancy, is that Sean and I have never gotten along better, even though this was by far my hardest one. We have had some big changes in our world during this time period. We moved to Lindon in November and Sean took a job with a company called Qualtrics in January. After trying to weather the economic gloom in the construction world, we decided to partner up with another company who handles the day-to-day, so Sean could take this job. Both changes were scary, but have turned out to be better than we could have imagined. We love our house, we love our ward, and we love having a paycheck. At week 28 my contractions started and my cervix began to change. So my doctor put me on partial bed rest. Yeah right, is the thought that went through my head. Four other crazy boys to take care of and you think I will be able to lay down. And no more gym, whatever! That is a death sentence to me. The people who deserve huge accolades are the amazing, wonderful, and tireless ladies in my ward. They brought in meals several days a week and helped to watch my boys a couple days a week. Without their help, me or my family would never have survived. My last two boys were born 3 weeks early and 6 pounds 1 ounce. They were sick all the time, spit up endlessly, and were extremely colicky. So my goal was to get to week 38, hoping for a bigger baby that would be happier and healthy. At week 34 I didn't know how I was going to last any longer. My husband told me that he was going to buy me an eye patch and started calling me Jack Sparrow, because I limped around like a peg-legged pirate. Sleeping was non-existent due to contractions. Food lost its savor. Life was as miserable as it possibly could be. With every pregnancy I would go to the hospital at least two times before they would admit me to have the baby. So this time I was going to wait until I knew they would keep me. Finally, Sunday April 26 my contractions started getting harder. After being up all night with contractions, at 5 am I told Sean we were going to the hospital. I called Steve (Austin's Dad) and told him that we were going to the hospital. He and Austin came over and we left. I had been dilated to a three for a couple of weeks and I have never gotten past a three without pitocen before. When I got to the hospital I was at a three and a half. After contracting every two minutes for an hour, I actually got to a four and a half on my own. They told me that they were going to admit me. Both Sean and I were flabbergasted. They asked if I wanted my epidural, I said duh, of course! The anesthesiologist came in and gave me my drugs. Right after he was done, I started to feel really dizzy and my blood pressure dropped and freaked out the doctor, nurse, and Sean. They gave me epinephrine and then my heart and the babies heart started pumping like crazy. After that everything calmed down for a while, so much so that my contractions went down to practically nothing. They did not give me pitocen after the epidural. Come to find out that they had two emergency c-sections and two scheduled c-sections over the next few hours and they were trying to put me off. We waited, and waited, and waited and I did not progress very much at all. At this point they decide to hook me up to some pitocen but very little. They kept increasing the amount and at this point the epidural had worn off. The nurse comes in to check and the pump is not even on. So she gets the anesthesiologist and he gives me another shot through the IV and tells me to press the button every twenty minutes. This is when labor really kicked in. The epidural was slowly waring off so I sent for the anesthesiologist again. I didn't hear back from anyone for a while. I thought I was going to die. I sent Sean to go get the nurse because I felt like pushing. The nurse and doctor came in and checked me and I was dilated to a 10. Then the bad news came. The anesthesiologist was in one of those darn c-sections and could not come to fix it. So I got to deliver sweet baby Ty with no drugs. This brought me back to Austin's delivery. 3 hours of pushing with no drugs either. How did I survive that? So I was pushing and pushing and then the doctor says stop pushing. He sounded quite freaked out. No one told me what was going on. Then he told me to push again and the baby came out. The doctor was trying to get him to breathe, but he would not take a breath. At this point the room became really crowed with four more nurses running into the room. I was told later that when his head came out the cord was wrapped around his neck twice and he was completely blue. Sean was very freaked out. They finally got him breathing after a couple of minutes. Those were a really long couple of minutes. They took him up to the nursery and checked his blood sugar. It was at 30, which is really low. It should be in the 80's. He was so lethargic that he would not drink from a bottle. So they put in an IV and gave him sugar water intravenously. They put him in the NICU (newborn intensive care). That sucked because I could not take him to my room. I could only have limited visitors to see the baby. We finally got him nursing that night and he went into the regular nursery the next night. The other babies in the NICU were so tiny and some were not doing well at all. One was life flighted to Primary Children's Hospital because he got pneumonia. I was so glad that my baby was doing well. It breaks your heart to see little babies hooked up to all these crazy monitors and tubes going in and out of their tiny arms, hands, and feet. Since we have been home from the hospital everything has been wonderful. I am so grateful that Heavenly Father sent me such a sweet baby. The boys are having so much fun dotting over him. Jack has even come around. We only had four days of crazy screaming and crying. Now he gives him kisses on the head and tries to help put his binky back in his mouth. So after taking Ty to his pediatrician he tells me that he was definitely full term. Of course Moms always know!