Boy or Girl?

Back in the day when I was having my children, they didn't tell you if you were going to have a girl or a boy.  It was a guessing game until they were actually born.   We had a little boy, Bryan, who was 2 years old, and I wanted a little girl but would have been happy too if Bryan had a little brother to play with.   I just wanted a healthy baby.   So all the preparations went in to welcoming this new baby to our family.  Could I possibly love this child as much as I loved Bryan?   What would he or she look like?  Would he or she be a good baby?  I had been spoiled because Bryan slept through the night by the time he was 6 weeks old.   I didn't know all babies don't do that.

My doctor, Dr. Clover, decided to schedule me to be induced because he was going to be gone for a week and he knew I was very nervous and wanted him to be there.  So I went to the hospital on or shortly after our baby's due date.   Things progressed along as they should.  At one point, they decided to give me a drug to help with the pain and shortly after they did things moved along very quickly and the baby decided it was time to come.

I was rushed into an operating room and Marv had to put on all kinds of hospital attire so he could witness the birth.   I remember hearing the doctor and nurses talking about the drug they had given me and hoped the baby would be okay.  The baby needed some help so Dr. Clover used forceps to help deliver the baby.  She was born sunny side up and was having a hard time wanting to be awake because of the drug they had given me.  It apparently went right into her system.

I was so excited to know did I have a boy or a girl.  I was told I had a beautiful little girl.  She didn't want to cry at first and so they just held her up for me to see and whisked her to a place in the operating room to work on.  I kept saying, "Is she okay?"  but no one would answer me.  They finished taking care of me and I guess they took her off to the nursery where they could take care of her because they said I would see her in a little while.

So our sweet baby girl, Christie Lynne Paxton,  was born on November 28, 1978,  at the Cottonwood Hospital in Murray, Utah.   We her parents, Marvin Lee Paxton and Vickie Lynne Hayes were so excited to have a little girl because now we had a boy and a girl.   She had blonde hair and not very much of it.  She also was very pale.  She weighed 6 lbs 12 oz and was 21 inches long.  She was a sleepy little baby.

It was a very long time before I ever got to hold my new baby girl.  They kept telling me it would be awhile.   When I had my first baby, Bryan, I was able to hold and snuggle him from the start and he was given to me really soon after I had been put in my room for as long as I wanted him there.  This was a new experience for me not to see my baby.

When they finally brought her to me many hours after delivery, I was finally told that she had been having a hard time because of the drug they had given me and it had caused her to be sleepy.  They told me to try to nurse her but she wasn't too willing to do that either.  I totally unwrapped her to make her wake up but to no avail.

We stayed in the hospital for a few days until they thought it was safe for her to go home.  Even after we got home we had hospital nurses calling to check on her a few times a day to see if she was starting to wake up more and nursing.   After we got home, she was starting to do better every day.  Maybe that is why she hated drugs so much throughout her life.  Ha Ha!

One funny experience I had while I was in the hospital with her was that Al Hunt, a good friend of Marv's, came to the hospital with a big bouquet of roses for me.  They let him back to see me thinking he was my husband.  I was so surprised to see him.  It was a fun surprise.  Back then the only people who could come to your room was your spouse but I guess when he had the bouquet of flowers and they didn't ask if he was my husband, he didn't have to say it wasn't and got to come say hello. 

Her big brother, Bryan, was so excited to see her when she came home for the hospital.  He was a good big brother and loved her.   See how sweet he is to her.  We lived on Carl Circle in Bennion, Utah, when she was born.  I think my mother was at our home when  I went to the hospital because she would have known that I was being induced on a certain day.  Always so grateful for a mother that came to help.  I don't know what I would have done without her.   She always stayed at least a week after I had the baby to help me get some rest.

The answers to my questions at the first of this post were definitely answered.  Yes, I could love her as much as I loved Bryan.  She came with her own unique qualities but I found a mother's heart has plenty of love for all her children.  What did she look like?  Well she was very fair in her skin color like her Dad and Bryan had more of an olive tone to his skin, more like me and my side of the family.  So they were both very different but both very special and loved.  Was she a good baby?  She was pretty good and she did start sleeping through the night by the time she was 6 to 8 weeks old.  She did cry more than Bryan especially if she was hungry.  All in all she too was an easy baby to have around.

Bryan with Christie when she came home.  He sure loved his new little sister.

Mom with Christie and Bryan just home from the hospital.  Flowers are from Marv.

The above picture shows her Uncle Michael (Hayes) holding her with Bryan standing and her Great Uncle Les smiling by Bryan.  She is loved by many.

This was her blessing day.  Her dress was given to her by a lady I worked with at the attorney's office.  It was white with little pink flowers on it.  She looked so cute.

Marv, Vickie with Bryan and Christie on her blessing day at their  home in  Bennion, Utah.

Bryan and Christie with Grandpa Robert E. Hayes and Grandma DeVola King Hayes after Christie came home from hospital.  They lived in Preston, Idaho at the time.

  

Grandma Hayes (DeVola King) with Christie.  Why are you crying Christie?  You loved Grandma Hayes.  It must have been dinner time because she always got cranky around dinner time.  

Christie and Bryan with Aunt Vi (King) and Uncle Les (Nuhn).  Aunt Vi is her Grandma Hayes's Sister.  Vi raised Grandma Hayes from the age of 2 when their mother passed away so she was more like a grandma to us then an aunt.  This was right after she came home from the hospital.  They lived in Layton, Utah.

People in the above story and pictures

• Christie Lynne Paxton Perkins b. 28 November 1978, Murray, Utah; d. 26 April 2018, Cedar City, Utah
• Vickie Lynne Hayes Paxton (mother) b. 30 Dec 1953, American Fork, Utah; 
• Marvin Lee Paxton (father) b. 21 April 1948, Salt Lake City, Utah
• Bryan Lee Paxton (brother) b. 16 September 1976, Aberdeen, South Dakota
• DeVola King Hayes (grandmother) b. 21 March 1930, North Logan, Utah; d. 11 October 2007, Layton, Utah
• Robert Eskelson Hayes (grandfather) b. 29 July 1930, Rupert, Idaho; d. 22 April 2013, Swan Lake, Idaho
• Michael David Hayes (uncle) b. 15 Dec 1967, Logan, Utah
• Violet King Nuhn (great aunt) b. 15 September 1914, North Logan, Utah; d. 18 Mar 2006, Roy, Utah
• Leslie Carvel Nuhn (great uncle) b. 20 July 1920, Providence, Utah; d. 14 January 2004, Layton, Utah

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