Fultz Family: Connor at 10

Beautiful Connor--

Can it really be true? You have lived a decade of your life upon this land?

You, my first born...my "much wanted" little guy...are becoming more handsome and taller every single day!

Daddy showed some co workers images of you at work, and yes...honey, they think you are gorgeous!Your precious grins aren't huge smiles that stop traffic, but they are reflective images of the reflective mind you innately have been given.

You have become aware of people and their ability to make a joke with you in this last year...years prior you would stand straight faced, making it an awkward silence amongst all of us. Just this past week, you were approached at church by a gentleman who was being funny with us, and you sat silently, but grinned so politely.

I love that about you Connor. In public, you are so good at politely engaging in fun conversations. Yes, at home, you, Daddy and Aiden go to town and make the faces, impersonate the voices, and do what boys do, but you are so very polite and reserved publicly.

My fireworks started in the night of July 3, 2003...I tossed in intense contractions all night long.

Thinking it was impossible to go into labor on your due date with your first child, I sent my husband away to work and layed on the little blue couch in the little basement apartment and started timing the contractions. Surely, they were increasing intensity and getting closer together. So, like any first mother, I allowed my husband to work his entire day! It was only until around 1pm, as I recall. I went up stairs and rocked in his Dad's recliner, hiding my pain from any passer by (AKA-Mom). When he walked in, dirty from the side jobs he had been doing, I made eye contact with him and we spoke without words. I followed him downstairs and let him know that my eyes were telling the truth, I was gonna' have a baby.

Steve showered, and we went for a long hot walk together to get things moving. Being that we intentionally ignored the family to take a walk on an above 100 degree day on the fourth of July, I pretty much would assume they knew something was happening! Steve was such a gentleman and began to jog with me here and there...mind you, he hates to run with a passion.

I remember getting home and feeling that we needed to call the doctor since the contractions were only 3 minutes apart and reaching the "I need to stop and brace myself while breathing slowly in and out" just to get through a single contraction. We arrived at the hospital at 5pm, was checked and was 0.5cm. Technically, they should have sent me home, but the monitors showed active labor, and they simply hooked me to fluids and said "walk around"! I walked...and walked...and walked. The contractions became unbearable, and I recall the first time in which I broke into a puddle of tears. I was wearing a hideous gown...on in front and another in back to cover me as a robe. Steve was walking ahead of me down a hallway and as I had a contraction, I stopped while he slowly inched forward. I gave him no warning it was coming, bit it did...and he came instinctively to comfort me. He took my arms with his two hands and said, "Breath in and out with me..." I didn't have the heart to tell him that his breath was making things harder, and all I could do was back away and slam my forearms against the hospital wall in pain. He walked away...hurt that I blocked him out at such a critical time, and I gushed tears, felling alone in my severe pain.

I got to the room and was a whopping 1 cm...she said she could stretch me to a 1.5, and then the tears wouldn't stop. They offered some kinda drugs...I denied them thinking I had a long way to go, I'll need them later.

Later turned into screaming for hours on end, crying until my eyes were almost swollen shut, weeping as the 12 o clock hour passed, and then praying every time the nurse checked me something would change. She finally checked me at 4am, and stretched me to a 3cm dilation. It was against their policy to have me there that long in such a long first stage of labor, but by their devices which monitored me and the baby, and my screaming and crying, they weren't sending me home. I received an epidural and thanked everyone in the room 5 minutes after the epidural was set in place and infusing. I remember being so fatigued but feeling the pressure of the contractions...dozing off a few times, and then at 0800 the doctor came to check me. I was 10cm. As the nurse said, my body was so tense and needed help to relax, that's all I needed to dilate. Of course, with the epidural, I received pitocin.

After 30 minutes of pushing, my first born boy was born at 8:34 am, weighing 7 pound 11 ounces and measuring 20 1/2 inches.

That was the beginning of Crystal...Daughter...Wife...Mother...Sister...and Friend,

for it is by the lessons I have learned as a mother that I have become a better Woman to my God, Child, Helpmate, Beautiful Sisters, Mommy, and Support.

Connor you took lots of life outta me that day, and almost lost me.

I started bleeding out and it was caught by a nurse during a normal vital signs check. I was so tired, I felt it was from a longer than 24 hour labor, but she checked my blood pressure as I was laying down on my back. It was 70/40 something. She had asked about the bleeding and I had recalled with Steve that there was a big clot passed. I stayed cozy, falling into a sleep, and she told me to turn to my left side. I did, and there were no changes...that's when I knew something was wrong because she became frantic.

She grabbed me and said, "Sit up", but my natural body wanted to resist because I was so comfortable, just drifting off. She took my pressure and still no change so she started to push on my tummy as hard as she could while she called another nurse to pump more pitocin into my IV fluids.

If that's what death is when you are bleeding out, it was so peaceful, a natural sweet sleep you enter into. BUT...God saved me that day for Daddy, You, Aiden. Shane, Lydia, Maya and others who may need me...and whom I may so desperately need.

At ten, you are brilliant Connor:

Your math skills are phenomenal. If there are 30 minutes until games end at 7pm, you correct me to each minute, "No Mom, that would be 27 minutes!" We asked you today to add 2/8 plus 1/4..."Oh that's easy, it's 1/2". Your mind is capable of using information and compounding it so that verbalizing things is one simple step...I am quite opposite! You must get some of that from your Daddy! You are even, as you enter 5th grade, at a 9th grade math level!

Your reading is brilliant as well. While you enjoy alone reading time, you prefer when we all read novels together as a family. You love to take things in, draw conclusions regarding the endings of stories, draw associations...and there are times you leave me, Daddy, and Aiden in the dust with your insight to the picture that is playing out before your very eyes...or in your mind.

You adore being a scout and earning awards. We were swimming, and being that you have only taken a few swimming lessons a good 6 years ago, you know basics. You had to jump in, do a forward dive, swim back and forth across the pool with the strokes of your choice, tread water for 30 seconds. save a life, and teach many things on top of it all. You did it all...and even when you swallowed mouths full of water, and I saw tears swell in your eyes, I could almost hear yourself saying, "I will do this and get my awards. I will do this!" You did. You have the drive to be perfect in all things.

You LOVE Lego's and have decided in this year that you would love to become an engineer in order to create new sets for children when you grow up.

My cat...Tigger...has become yours. When you left for school I would find him curled on your bed, and as I walked the house tonight when each child was in bed, Tigger wandered confused. I asked hm to follow me, which he did; I opened the door and my wide awake little Connor couldn't sleep. Luckily Tigger was lonely and he made his place at your head...and you both dozed off together.

You are happy being you...and you really don't seem to follow trends or allow other people's groups effect who you are! I was told that you are one of the most behaved children by your primary teachers this year...and that you are so smart. You are my dear, you always have been.

You are only inches from my height, we wear the same show size, our hands are just about the same size, and your hugs have almost cracked my back.

Please Connor, stay beautiful...you are endowed with inner and outer beauty...and I say that in the manner that Joseph Smith said about a man who hold the priesthood righteously, and in your case...a young boy who lives in dignity and truth.