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

Birth Story - Meri Hobbs

So after the time we had getting pregnant the first time and again with Sam, we didn't think we needed to get on a birth control after Sam was born. We moved to Georgia right after Sam turned a year old. I found a new doctor, told him our issues, and decided what we wanted to do.

Just shy of Sam turning 2, we decided we were ready to start trying for another baby. My new doctor said that since we knew combining Clomid and Glucophage worked for us, let's skip all the other stuff and get straight to that. So we did, and we were pregnant on month 2 of trying that! Woohoo!

When we found out we were having a girl, we were beyond excited (and scared!).  I ended up having gestational diabetes with this pregnancy, which was not really that big of a deal. I had to meet with a dietician weekly and check my blood sugar 4 times a day. I also had to have non-stress tests every other week, then every week, then twice a week as the due date got closer. I never had any issues, though, until the very end when my sugar would get a little wacky. So they put me on a pill that took care of it.

It was an uneventful pregnancy, and I again loved {almost} every minute of it! Because of the diabetes and the fact that we lived an hour away from civilization my hospital, we were gonna be induced this time.  Which meant that, again, I got to experience the wonder-drug Pitocin. We got to the hospital about 5:00 am to get things rolling.

I progressed very slowly, and that night about 5:00, the nurse came and checked me and I was still at 6 cm. She said they were changing shifts, and the new nurse would come and check me again in about an hour. My parents, Eddie's parents, and our honorary parents (who Meri Hobbs is named after) had all driven over for the big event.  When they saw how long this was going to take, they all decided to take Sam and to go eat supper.

A few minutes later, I start feeling really uncomfortable.  I was telling Eddie that I was feeling a lot of pressure. Something was going on. I called the nurse to come check it out for me. She got in there...oh yeah! This baby was coming!!

Eddie called his mom's cell phone, his mom's husband's cell phone, my mom's cell phone, my dad's cell phone, Big Ben's cell phone, Mrs. Brenda's cell phone....NO ONE answered!!! We knew the restaurant that his parents were going to eat, so he tried to call it. It was a Japanese Steakhouse...they had no clue what Eddie was trying to tell them!

So, after 13 hours in labor, Miss Meri Hobbs was born on May 18, 2007 weighing 7 pounds 3 ounces, and was 20 inches long.  She was born about 10 minutes before all the grandparents arrived!!

By the time she arrived, we had a digital camera, so I can include pics in this one!

Sam was a little nervous to come see his baby sister!

Now he decides to check her out!

Here's the big brother waiting for us when we got home from the hospital!

Our verse for Meri Hobbs was 2 Corinthians 9:15...."Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift!"

We are still thankful that God sent us this precious gift. The joy that Meri Hobbs has brought us is indescribable! Our prayer is that Meri Hobbs will grow into a Godly young woman who seeks to be holy as He is holy.

Birth Story - Sam, Part 2

*Read Part 1 here*

So, we get to the hospital and the super duper friendly lady at admissions got us checked in. We got in a "room" and were told to wait. I asked the nurse if I could at least wait while sitting on the potty. This was getting kinda gross! So I did.

They finally came and hooked me up to monitors, etc. I was still thinking ahead to my mortification if they told me I had just peed my pants...and to go back home and quit wasting their time. It didn't help any when Eddie asked her, "Has anyone ever come in here and been mistaken like that?" Her response: "Every day." Yikes!

They tested me to see if my water had broken by placing some sort of strip thing against the water. If it turned a certain color, it was confirmed. If not, it was urine. But I passed...my water had broken. I was relieved I wasn't being sent back home, but I was so scared, too! We were about to have a baby! A week and half early!!!

We were then moved to a Labor & Delivery room and made all the calls letting everyone know.

I progressed very slowly and they finally decided to give me pitocin to speed up the process. I had heard horror stories about that evil drug, so I wasn't pumped, but at least we were getting the show on the road. I also got my epidural, so all was well.

All in all, my labor was pretty boring. It totaled about 12 hours, with a couple of that being used for pushing.  I ended up having Sam at 6:50 am. I tried to rest during the night, but my brother, who had driven over from Arkansas for the event, dubbed himself the official cameraman. He came in hourly to film us. He would also film the waiting room. And the clock. And offer commentary. Thanks, Uncle Hendu.

My doctor was not the one that was on call, but had told the nurses to call him when I was ready to deliver. They called him around 5:30, then proceeded to ask me not to push until he got there. Umm, what?! I passed on that plan, had a different doctor deliver for me, and my sweet doctor walked in just as they were cutting the umbilical cord! Oops!

Sam arrived weighing 8 lbs, 6 oz. He was a bundle of perfection. He is our precious gift from God after wondering if we would ever have a baby. (Read that here).  Our verse for this child was so fitting, as it was the same prayer of thanksgiving that Hannah said after receiving her Samuel in the midst of a struggle with barrenness. 

"I prayed for this child, and the Lord has granted me what I asked of Him." (II Samuel 1:27)

Our desire is to, like Hannah, dedicate this child to the Lord that he may be used of Him all the days of his life.

Birth Stories - Sam

Before my memory is completely gone, I am going to share the birth stories of my children so they will have them.

We'll start with Sam. As I shared here, we had tried to have a baby with no luck so far. After the miscarriage, we took some time off from actively trying to have a baby to let ourselves grieve. Then, we tried another few rounds of Clomid with no luck. We tried combining Clomid with Glucophage, again with no luck. We tried adding progesterone suppositories (oh, what fun!). Nada. It had been about a year since the miscarriage and our doctor referred us to Nashville Fertility Clinic. That was so overwhelming. I don't remember a whole lot of details. Just a bunch of shots, sonograms, tests, and loads of information! Long story short, we did IUI and were pregnant on the first try! Score! Of course, we were terrified about another miscarriage, and I went in for WAY too many sonograms just to make sure everything was ok. Which, praise God, it was!!

I loved being pregnant! I loved feeling every kick and wiggle. I complained my fair share about my back hurting and not getting enough sleep and having to pee too often. But I was loving every second of this miracle inside me!

At that point, I was teaching school. I only had an assistant part-time, so that was fun trying to NOT have to use the restroom when she wasn't with me. But my students and my team teacher were very understanding. (They really had no choice, huh?!) Sam was due on December 30, 2004. I had put in my resignation to my principal and was only going to work up until the kids got out for Christmas break, which was Friday, December 17. The last day of school came and went.  I had worked extra hard to get everything ready for the new teacher that would take my place the next semester. I had 6 weeks worth of lesson plans for her and tried to get everything organized. I was tired! But, I would have almost two weeks to rest and get everything ready for the baby.

That Sunday, after church, I was going to take a nap. I wasn't resting real well in the bed, so I was sleeping in the recliner. Eddie had a church council meeting at the church, so he wasn't home.  About 4:00, I woke up from my nap with a strong urge to use the restroom. Like, an oops, I'm too late. I called the church just hoping someone would hear the phone and answer.  The other minister at the church left the meeting to answer the phone, which annoyed Eddie at the time! ha! But I'm so glad he did!

He got Eddie on the phone, and I told him, "Either I just peed my pants or my water just broke." Of course, neither of us knew which it was, so he put me on the phone with an experienced mom! She couldn't officially diagnose me either, so she told me to go to the hospital. YIKES! I had been to the hospital once before with Braxton Hicks contractions and was so embarrassed when they sent me home. So I was not feeling being turned away again. But I didn't know what else to do.

Eddie came home to pick me up and while he was on his way, I packed my bag. (I planned on having two weeks to get this done!) I was so nervous as I sat there and waited on him.

To be continued....