I was born 11:24pm, December 15th, 2001, at Saint Francis Hospital in Milwaukee, WI. It was quite the traumatic experience, let me tell you. First my mommy, Anna Benjamin, and daddy, Tim Benjamin, went to the doctor on Thursday, December 13th in the afternoon for an exam, one of many in the past couple weeks. You see, my mommy was preclamptic, which meant that unless she was lying down on her left side, the weight of my body on her arteries made her blood pressure rise and that made the doctors nervous. Well this time the doctor said enough-is-enough and decided that it was time to get me out.

So off mommy and daddy drove to St. Francis hospital in Milwaukee. Mommy was hooked up to a machine that monitored her blood pressure, her contractions, and my heart beat. And I was sure to give mommy plenty of good kicks to let knew I was okay. That night the nurse gave mommy some stuff to make the future induction of labor quicker. The next morning, the nurses began to induce labor by giving mommy "Pitosin" intravenously. Mommy had regular contractions all day and she squeezed daddy's hand to help ease the pain, but not much happened. I wasn't ready to come out, no sir.

So they took her off the Petosin Friday night and gave her some more stuff to make labor go quicker. And on Saturday morning, they gave her more Pitosin to induce labor again. She had a lot of contractions again, and I was starting to get tired of it. So about 8:40am, I decided to tear mommy's bag of waters to speed things up a bit. Mommy kept having contractions all day until about 9:00pm that night. Fortunately, an anesthesiologist came in around noon to give mommy an epidural so the contractions didn't hurt so much. After 9:00pm, my tiny little space started to get really cramped because mommy started to push me out. I could hear her screaming a bit and yelling "Get him out!" and I did my best to get out, but there wasn't much I could do.

Finally after 2 and a half hours of that bologna, the doctor, Dr. Hayes, put a vacuum suction-cup on the top of my head and helped pull me out. Boy that hurt a lot!, and I have a bruise on my little head to prove it. The doctor stuck a tube in mouth and then in my nose to help me start breathing the air. Then he pulled me all the way out and passed me over to the nurses. The nurses weighed me and took me away from mommy to put me in an incubator with oxygen because I was having a little trouble breathing. You see, since the doctor pulled me out so quick (so mommy wouldn't hurt so much) I still had a little fluid left in my lungs. Daddy came and watched over me for a little while to make sure I was okay and took some pictures of me, but then he had to go back to mommy to make sure she was okay, too, because she had to get some stitches.

Daddy was gone for a few hours, but then he came back around 7am the next morning to make sure I was still okay and to take some pictures of me. Then he went back to mommy. It turned out that mommy hemorrhaged a lot over night and got some blood clots inside of her that caused a lot pain, so another doctor did some surgery on her to remove the clots and sewed her back up really good. Daddy watched me from outside the nursery while mommy was in surgery, coincidentally while a different doctor was taking a little bit of my blood. Daddy cried a little bit knowing that the two people he loved the most were in pain.

Around noon on Sunday, the 16th, mommy had been out of surgery for about an hour and was almost fully awake, and after a few tests the doctors found that I could breathe normal air just fine. So I finally got to spend a little time with mommy and daddy. The nurse gave me some formula overnight since mommy was in pain and during her surgery, but I didn't like it much. Luckily mommy gave some of the good home-grown breast milk when I got to see her so I can grow up to be healthy and smart.

I almost forgot to tell you my birth statistics:
Weight: 7 lbs, 6 oz
Length: 20 inches
Head circumference: 14 inches
Chest circumference: 13 inches

Anyway, as mommy started to feel better, I've been able to spend more time with her and daddy. Mommy got moved to a regular hospital room on Monday and I got to hang out with her and daddy quite a bit. I sure do like to sleep a lot: in my bassinet, on daddy's chest, in mommy's lap and while she's feeding me. I'm a pretty quiet baby for the most part, but if something's really wrong I'm sure to let mommy and daddy know about it. Everyone says I look a lot like daddy and I'm pretty much bald like daddy was when he was born, and mommy keeps saying "He's soooo cute" to daddy -- I think she's talking about me.

I also had a few visitors today: Uncle Jeffrey Benjamin came to see me, and pseudo uncle/aunt Rick and Sherrie Bird came to see me, too. They think I'm very cute too, of course!

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