Kristen Marie is 24!!

July 16, 1985......I was staying at my mom and dad's house with the two boys. We were living in Logan at the time, but I was going to have the baby in Pocatello, so the doctor had suggested I stay in Poky until the baby was born. I had had a rough pregnancy with this one. We knew I was going to have to have my tubes tied right after having the baby. I had developed Ulcerative Colitis during the pregnancy, and the doctors had actually told me that my best option was to have an abortion. It was a pretty stressful time for us. I could not bring myself to end the pregnancy, so the doctors were prepared for me to have a baby with a lot of problems, or a baby that died shortly after birth. This third pregnancy was the first time that I had an ultrasound. The doctor told me from the image that we were having a third boy. (Boy were they wrong!) So, the entire pregnancy, we had talked to our little "Michael". About 4:00 in the morning, I woke up realizing that the labor pains had begun. I quietly went to the kitchen to call Greg in Logan to get him on the road. After talking to him, I was going to go back to bed for awhile. My dad came out in the hall and asked me what I was doing up. I told him I had called Greg and was heading back to bed. My dad informed me that I as heading to the hospital immediately. He wanted no part of me having a baby there! I told him that the pains had just begun, and it was going to be awhile yet, but he still made me get ready to leave. My mom got up to drive me to the hospital. We got on the road, and I realized I had forgotten the camera (remember....the labor pains are not that intense yet), so we headed back to her house to grab it. My dad came storming out of the house, and wasn't going to let us in to get it. (I did get my way and got the camera though.) It was too funny! Greg got to the hospital in record time (and then informed me that he had been driving on empty for part of the way...which scared me....what if he would have run out of gas and missed everything?). Every time that I would lay down at the hospital, my labor pains would go away, so I spent most of the labor time walking the halls. I had Kristen "natural" which was not my choice. Because they were going to take me in for surgery later to tie my tubes, they didn't want me to have any anesthetic in my system. It hurt like crazy, but I sure felt great afterwards....I felt like I could have run a marathon. Anyway, imagine our surprise when they said, "It's a girl!" I knew right off we were in trouble. Greg had done the fist pump yell for both of the boys......but when he saw his little girl, he just sat there with tears streaking down his face. I knew she was going to be spoiled from that time on. Kris was a perfectly healthy little girl, no side-effects from my problems or from the medicines I had been taking. She was definitely our "miracle baby" as my Grandma Brown would always say. We had not picked out a girl name, and I am really weird about having my babies named fast.....so, a lady in the next recovery room was reading a book and the author's name was Kristen....so that is how she was named. I have sure loved having a daughter. I love all my kids equally, but it is sure nice to have another girl in my corner! Kris is a wonderfully "artsy" person. She is very talented. She can draw, paint, act, sing, dance, choreograph......anything at all that takes creativity. She is a wonderful wife (and she picked a great husband) and mother to two beautiful little girls. Happy Birthday Sissy!