Where He Leads I'll Follow: Elijah's birth story

(Pulled over from my old blog)

Whew, what a month it has been. I seriously cannot believe we are already hitting 4 weeks since Elijah was born. AND I haven't even posted about it yet. My sincerest apologies. So without further delay, here is finally the birth story:

Elijah Matthew finally made his debut at 1:55 am on March 6th. He weighed in at 7 lbs 13 oz and was 21 3/4 inches long.

I was scheduled to be induced at 9:00 am on March 5th. Well, other women kept coming in in active labor and so we kept getting pushed back. We finally got the ball rolling at 2:30 pm. I was already starving and was really tired since I had been up since 3 am. The contractions took about an hour to start up. I figured it would take about 4 or 5 hours...boy was I WRONG! I put off getting my water broke for a little while because I wanted to be sure the contractions were pretty steady. At about 10:00 pm I finally agreed to have it done and the contractions really picked up. Bad part was though that I was already exhausted from not sleeping. I kept laboring through and at about 12:30 the contractions were really strong and I asked to be checked. I was a 6 at this time but they knew it wouldn't be much longer. My cervix was still a bit posterior and so she pulled that forward (um big OUCH when in active labor!!!) and wanted me to lay on my side to try to help it along. Well, I don't tolerate labor well at all when I'm laying down in bed. The contractions were one on top of each other and the pitocin was causing them not to build up in pain level but started of really strong. I finally told DH I couldn't do it anymore. He tried to encourage me along, and was absolutely wonderful, but after a few more contractions I said I had enough. It was about 12:30 am at the point and I was beat. I hadn't eaten since 7 am and was out of energy.

So, he calls the nurse to get the epidural started. They actually got in there really really quick. Apparently they were already up on the labor floor. I talked to them about my really bad experience and how sick I had gotten. Apparently my blood pressure is low and it can drop even more with an epidural. Me getting sick last time was from that, and I never knew it. The nurse really kept up with my blood pressure and I didn't get sick at all. It took a little while to take but slowly but surely they eased off. After awhile I could only feel them in 1 spot. At a little after 1 they finally went away in that spot but I was having pain in the nether regions (completely doable after the contractions I was having!). The nurse told me it was the baby coming down. She rushed out and rang the doctor and told him to hurry! She didn't even want to check me because she knew if she put my legs up the baby would be out. The doctor arrived about 10 minutes later, suited up, and we were off! After only about 3 sets of pushes he was here! I had no tears whatsoever, which is a first. I am sooooo pleased with that to say the least.

Right after I got the epidural I turned to my husband and said you know, I'm not even disappointed in having to get an epidural this time. I wasn't expecting to, but I really tried my best. It was obvious it was the pitocin making my contractions so bad because they turned it down when I was getting my epidural and they really spread out and weren't as hard. No, it wasn't what I wanted, but neither was the induction. Plus, the epidural experience was a thousand times better than with Faith.

So after all of that, we are now the parents of 3 children. How surreal! (oh, and he looks just like Faith did. Unfortunately got the bigger nose too). Here are some pictures!