Birth Story....Eli

Oh, this birth story is quite the shocking one! Both Eli's conception and his birth were definitely not what we expected.

If you have been keeping up, I was pregnant and miscarried, I was pregnant with combining fertility drugs and and IUI procedure, and had a healthy baby, Sam, and I was pregnant with only using 2 types of fertility drugs and had a healthy baby, Meri Hobbs. So after our experiences, we knew we needed help getting pregnant, so once again, we didn't get back on birth control.

That was our first mistake! One night, right after Meri Hobbs had turned one, I realized I had been feeling weird for a few days.  We were having Bible School that week, and our local pharmacist/BFF was at the church helping with Bible School. I told him and his wife what was going on, and they convinced me I needed to take a pregnancy test. He ran up to his store and got me one...the digital kind that tells you either "pregnant" or "not pregnant". No squinting at lines and trying to determine if there was really something there or not.  So, I went home a few minutes early to take the test. I was shocked when it was positive. I didn't think we were able to get pregnant on our own!

Eddie got home a little bit later and I met him at the door and showed him the test. "Is this a joke?" was his question! Umm, yeah...I got some random pregnant lady to come tee-tee on this stick for me so I could freak you out....of course it's not a joke!!

We got over the shock that we would have two babies nineteen months apart, plus a 4 year old, and we started getting excited! When we found out it was going to be another boy, we got busy turning Sam's room into a room he could share with a brother.

The big brother and big sister

Nothing out of the ordinary with the pregnancy. I had gestational diabetes again, but there wasn't too much to it.

So, we were all set to be induced on January 6th....had to be at the hospital at 5 am to get started. At this time, we lived in the middle of nowhere, so that meant we had to leave our house at 4 am. So I had to get up to shower, etc at 3 am. Fun times.

We get to the hospital and I'm ready to roll at 5. I am being monitored and my Pitocin is flowing. Everyone has told me how fast this will go since this is my third baby. I should have a baby by lunch, no problem! Well, that's not quite how it happened.

When it was finally time to get my epidural, the anesthesiologist came in to do her thing. Let me first say that getting the epidural is not a fun experience. You have to arch your back like a cat and bend so far over that you can't breathe. Hello...I have this basketball in my belly...I can't touch my toes! So they are telling you to bend over...farther, to be very still, and not to move when they jab you with this humongo needle. Not an easy feat, I tell you. So, all 4 times I have gotten an epidural, I have been crazy nervous. Like, crying almost to the point of hyperventilating nervous. The idea of a tube being thread up my spine just weirds me out big time. So, epidurals - I don't like them. But I like the alternative even less, so here I was arching like a cat and crying like a baby.

OK, so she started inserting the needle. Oops, that didn't work. Let me try again. She tried inserting the catheter three different times on two different needle pokes. None of it worked. On the third needle poke, when she drew back her syringe, she drew back blood. That didn't work. I was hysterical and Eddie was about to pass out. Thankfully, the nurse noticed his state and told him to switch places with her so she could hold my hand and he could sit down. Unfortunately, no one offered to switch places with me. Hmph. Then the anesthesiologist tried again, and thinks it's a success. She asked the standard questions about if I felt dizzy or had a ringing in my ears...which I couldn't hear because of the ringing in my ears and I couldn't answer for feeling so dizzy. So, she declared it a loss and said it just wasn't gonna work. She wasn't able to try again. She had reached her limit.

Oh. My. Word. I was terrified. OK, I had changed my mind. I am not ready to have this baby. Take all these tubes out of my arms, I am going home. There was no way I could have this baby without an epidural. But that was exactly what I was about to do. Looking back now, yes, it did hurt, but I think more than the pain was the fear of not knowing what it would be like. I remember I kept telling Eddie that I couldn't do it. This was the absolute scariest moment (well, hours worth of moments) in my entire life. The contractions weren't as bad as I would have imagined. Having the monitor there helped because Eddie could tell me when it was going back down. So I could at least tell myself I was about to get a break.

I asked the nurse if I could at least have a Tylenol. She went out to get a local block but by the time she got back I had started pushing. OK, have you seen those Lifetime movies where the women are screaming like maniacs and you are thinking, "whatever...nobody really acts like that." Umm, I acted like that. I screamed louder and longer than I thought I would have been capable of. It was crazy. I was crazy. (In my defense, I DIDN'T scream "You did this to me" to Eddie. I especially hate that part in the Lifetime movies!) But I had also never felt pain like that. Wow. I'll skip over that part! :) And ps...no epidural also means the clean-up after had no pain relief. That was bad.

And the consolation that it was going to be so much quicker since it was my third? Nope. Didn't happen. It was longer. 19 hours. My other two were 12 and 13. He didn't even come on the same day I was induced. 12:09 am the next day. Little stinker!

After Eli was born, he had some blood issues (something was low? or high? I can't remember), so he was kept in the special needs nursery for close monitoring. He also had jaundice and was under the light. This also was not too big of a deal. He didn't have too many tubes...just an IV, and we were able to go in every three hours and hold and feed him. He was sent home with a biliblanket  and all was well soon.

For all the trouble he was to get here, Eli is such a sweet-natured little boy. I will take 19 hours worth of pain any day for another Eli! I am having so much fun watching him grow and learn. Our verse for Eli is John 1:16, "From the fullness of his grace, we have received one blessing after another." Eli is one of our greatest blessings from our Father!

Sweet big brother!

Eli today