Benson's Story

(I cannot find the file that has his newborn pictures on it. This is the earliest I could find! Hopefully it shows up!)

When I found out I was pregnant, I could not believe it. I literally took 4 home tests. I then went into SUU's health center and had them give me a test as well. Wow, talk about needing to be convinced! It was the end of December when I found out. Note to self: never take a pregnancy test right before class and when your husband is not home! What was I thinking?! Anyway, I went to class as usual but didn't remember a single thing that was talked about that day! As soon as it was done, I ran to Walmart to pick up the aforementioned tests! ;-) When I told Ben, he couldn't believe it either. We had literally just briefly talked about maybe "trying" to have a baby... Ready or not!

We waited until Valentine's day to tell our families about this little baby. We wanted to make sure we were in the "safe" zone. I was so nervous! I can still remember that night. You would have thought that I was an unwed 15 year old about to tell her parents that she was expecting. Holy smokes. It was so fun though! We gave them both a book called "Grandparents are Special"! Benson was the first grand child on both sides. Not to mention the first great-grand child for 3 sets of our grandparents! So exciting!

We were living in Cedar City at the time and attending SUU. Ben was very involved with football and school at the time. I was also going to school and working for a physical therapist. We were seeing Dr. Jarid Gray and really liked him. My due date was September 24, 2005. I expressed my concern of this little guy being born right during football season! In fact, my due date was during a weekend the team would be away on a road trip... Dr. Gray was awesome and settled my nerves by letting me schedule an induction date for the week before when we knew Ben would be around. :-)

My pregnancy was really pretty good. I remember being a little tired in the beginning. I ate a lot of hot dogs and I LOVED pepperoni pizza! I was never sick and I don't think I ever threw up. I shouldn't brag but I really have been so blessed to have easy pregnancies. I did a lot of traveling while I was pregnant. I went to Boston in the spring. Back and forth to Salt Lake and we went to Island Park. I am also almost 100% sure he was conceived in Chicago. (that counts right?)

Well, Benson came into our lives on September 19th, 2005 at 11:11 p.m. He weighed 7lbs. 9oz. and was 20 inches long.

Delivery= Wow. People can tell you over and over again what its like or how it was for them but until you do it.... you will never truly know. It is amazing and awful, beautiful and gross, wonderful and hard. Wow... We got to the hospital, Valley View Medical Center, at midnight on the 19th so that I could be induced as scheduled. They gave me two doses of some medicine to help soften my cervix. Then at about 11:00 am they started the pitocin. They had to keep upping the dose though because nothing was happening. I was dilating but very slowly and there were no contractions. At about 1:30 pm Dr. Gray came and broke my water. There was no turning back at that point. This seemed to help a little because I started to move a little faster. Around 5 pm they came and gave me my epidural. YEAH! However, still no baby. He must have been pretty comfortable in there because it wasn't until about 6 hours later with 2 hours of pushing that he finally came out. It was 11:11 pm. When he came out he wasn't breathing and it took them about 45 seconds to get him going. His cry was music to my ears. Ben did get to cut the cord though. He was absolutely perfect. He really is a beautiful baby. It was a very, very long day but we are so glad that he is here. It's amazing!!


Here are some of the notes that I wrote down in his scrapbook about that day...

You are absolutely perfect. After an extremely long day, with almost 24 hours of delivery, you came! You are beautiful and I cannot believe that you are MINE! You had so much hair and a perfect little face. You were very handsome right away! Everyone said that you were a perfect combination of me and your dad. You were delivered by Dr. Gray and your dad was such an amazing coach... I couldn't have done it without him! It was so funny because during your delivery there was a football game on and so in between each contraction the boys would watch some of the game so it'll be no surprise if you love the game as much as your dad! We had a very hard time naming you. We went to the hospital with a few in mind but nothing we loved. After you were born, the birth certificate lady kept coming and asking if we had a name yet... we felt a lot of pressure so we decided to name you. For about 12 hours you were Brady Benjamin. Your dad just did not feel good about it so he went for a walk. When he came back, he begged me to let him name you Benson Parker. I couldn't say no and I cannot imagine you as anything else. Benson is so perfect for you. It means "son of Benjamin" and "brave heart"! It couldn't be more perfect. You are the sunshine in our lives! We both love you so much! More then we ever knew possible.