Nine Years Ago Today!

I can't believe Wyatt is nine years old today! It's amazing! It is so weird, and funny, to think of what we were all doing nine years ago, waiting for him to arrive!
My God -- he was two weeks overdue, and so I was 42 weeks pregnant! Forty-two weeks! ARGH! I was under the care of a midwife, and had read way too much on the internet, and so made the decision to go "natural" and boy, if I could do it over again, I would have hooked myself up to all the drugs I could get my hands on! Wyatt had to be extracted. We joke now that it is a sign of a stubborn personality trait, but really he's not a stubborn person. Persistent, maybe, but not too bad. I think he would make a good lawyer.
So after 28 hours of labor, and three hours of pushing, with not a lot of progress, someone suggested that "we perform a c-section." At that point, they could have handed me a Swiss Army knife and I would have done the job myself. But at some early hour in the morning, they hooked me up and took him out, and I will never forget the moment I finally got to see that beautiful little face of the boy who had been living in my belly for almost 10 months. The minute we locked eyes, he stopped crying! And I said to him, "Hello! Hello!" It was like meeting my best friend! I kissed him a number of times and then he was off for official stuff, with Troy following closely behind at my paranoid urgings! "Troy! Go with him! Stay with him!"
Wouldn't want him to get switched with another baby!
The grandparents were all there, and had been hanging out at our house, waiting, for so long that shortly after Wyatt was born, they had to leave and get back to their lives!
Troy and I sat and looked at Wyatt and tried to decide: what does he look like? Should we name him Wyatt? Or Alexander? He actually looked more like an Alexander, because he had a very distinct nose. But we went with Wyatt, because we liked it best, and there was an Alex who lived a few houses down who was a real spaz.
And so it was that we took him home, driving about 40 m.p.h. because we were so freaked out about our precious cargo!
I remember he was no bigger than a football, and the first night we were home, it was so cold outside, and I was lying in bed, looking over at him in his bassinet. It seemed so far away from me, and much too cold for him to be in there all by himself! So I picked him up and carefully tucked him into bed beside me, and I remember he fit perfectly in the crook of my arm, and that was how we slept. It seemed like the right thing.
There was a man in our community at the time, whom Troy and I referred to as "Mystic Man." He taught various classes on astrology and topics like auras and stuff, and had a show on the local cable access channel. For our first outing with Wyatt, Troy and I walked up to the Starbucks in our village, with Wyatt bundled up in his carefully selected Italian pram. As we were walking in, Mystic Man was walking out. He looked at Wyatt, smiled, and then beamed at his female companion, saying, "Mm, Happy Soul!"
He is a happy soul. And an old soul. He is so funny and observant, and smart. He makes us laugh like nobody else, with his comments about people and life. We love spending time with him and have been through so much together, learning about how to become a family. I didn't know anything about babies or parenting when Wyatt was born, and I roll my eyes at some of the things I used to do, but it's probably only natural to be a freak to some extent when you're a first-time mother. I hope he won't have to spend too much time on the analyst's couch when he's a grown-up. He's a wonderful boy and he really is special. I wish him nothing but the best in life.
Happy Birthday to my baby.