That is right my blog friends Elijah Nicholas has arrived and we could not be happier. Eli came on 10/22/2011 at 1:10am, he weighed 6 lbs and 4 oz and was 19 inches long.
FRESH BABY ELI!
So how did Eli get here? Okay, we all know generally how babies get here but how did my little man enter the world? Well, I am going to share a pared down version of my birth story. I know when I was pregnant that I reached a certain point and reading birth stories just freaked me out so I vowed not to read them anymore and not to write my own. I have now decided to go against that for the purpose of documenting the experience. All that being said if birth stories freak you out stop reading here and pick up a few paragraphs down . . . .
Eli’s World Debut
As most of you know my due date was 10/19/2011 and they day came and went with no baby. I actually had a Dr.’s appt on the 19th and set an induction for 10/24/2011. Praying all along that my sweet Eli would decide to come on his own, and sure enough he did. At about 4am on Friday I felt what I thought was my water breaking but I was not entirely sure. It was not the free flowing river that you always see in the movies or on TV. So I woke Nick up and told him not to panic my water broke and I might be having contractions. I downloaded a contraction timer app on my phone (very useful by the way) and started timing. The contractions appeared to be about 8 minutes apart. So I got in the shower and started gathering up a few things we had not previously packed in anticipation of heading to the hospital. Well, as I was doing all this my contractions spaced out and then just kind of stopped. So we put the breaks on the dash to the hospital and decided to call the Dr’s office and see if I could come in. I called at 8:15 and told them what was going on and they told me to come in immediately. We grabbed our stuff pretty much knowing we would not be back for a few days and headed for the office. They did confirm at the Dr.’s office that my water had indeed broken and they immediately sent me to Labor & Delivery.
Now here honestly come the worst part of my entire labor and delivery experience. The dreaded IV! Yes, that is right the IV was honestly the worst part of the whole thing. As most of you know I have issues with needles and blood so when they came to do the IV and said they were going to get blood at the same time this was a double whammy for me. Add all that to the fact that I was nervous and stressed, well lets just say it was a recipe for disaster. I did not actually go out but those nurses worked really hard to make sure I did not. The 2nd worse thing about this experience was the lack of food I was labor for roughly 21 hours and survived on ice chips alone. I understand the reasoning behind the food thing, but as Nick says it is just torture ,right below waterboarding. So I have my IV and my ice chips and so they started dropping Pitocin, something to jump start my contractions. They did this for a while and then stopped up because I was contracting on my own. While all this was going on I got to meet the Doctor who was on call, who I had naturally never seen before but I think it turned out to be a blessing that he was the one who was there. God always has a plan!
So I had been contracting for a while but it was not really bad so I had held off on the epidural. After talking to the Doctor I decided to go ahead and get it. For anyone considering an epidural BE NOT AFRAID! It was nothing and honestly the most wonderful thing! Ohhh and mine was on a pump so no fear of the “Epidural running out.” (I think this is how they do most of them now). Now my progression was very slow and they decided to drop the Pitocin again and when they did this all of a sudden I had 6 nurses in my room and they are sticking me on oxygen. Scary! As it turns out when they turned the Pitocin back on it caused babies heart rate to drop so they had to stop it quickly. At this point I had a conversation with my Doctor about the progress. He told me that I was progressing and there was really no reason they I could not have this baby on my own without a c-section. I had told him that I really wanted to avoid a c-section if I could, and he felt that as long as I stayed good and baby stayed good we could just wait it out. AND so we did! I was told later on that there was only 1 other doctor that would have been that patient with me, so it truly was a blessing that a Dr. I did not even know was on call.
I started pushing at about midnight and Elijah Nicholas arrived at 1:10am on Saturday, October 22nd. They did have to use the vacuum to help get him out, which caused a bruise on his head that is gone now. He came out with the cord wrapped around his neck 3 times, which they quickly took care of and Nick got to cut the cord. They handed him to me and he was wide eyed and looking around like he wanted to discuss what he and I had just been through.
While I was pushing the only thing I could think was I get to Eli and I get to eat. Seeing Eli was truly a beautiful moment that can not be truly described. Here was this little perfect person who I had loved for 9 months and now I loved even more.
I was also extremely grateful for my mom who made the 3am Waffle House run and brought me back a pecan waffle and bacon. I never knew a waffle could taste that good!
Much love to our family who also waited patiently at the hospital and all the family and friends that sent texts and called to check in on us. We love you all and we want you to know that your love and support is invaluable to us.
We are so glad you are here Eli and love you more than words can express!
Holding our bundle of joy
With a very proud and excited Daddy
Bringing Home Baby
We were released from the hospital at noon on Sunday and we took our precious guy home. We all (including the cats) have been going through an adjustment period but things have been going really well. It is hard to imagine life without him.
The Acorn has arrived
Eli is truly a gift from God and we feel so blessed to have him! Please continue to keep us in your prayers as we work our way through parenthood.
We love you Eli and are so glad you are here!
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