Elliot's Birth Story

Dear Elliot,

As is often the case, your coming was an adventure!

The last few days before your arrival, I could tell we were getting ready for action. I was not feeling quite normal… lower back aching, sporadic contractions, and generally kind of icky. On Wednesday, Grammy and Grandad checked in to see how things were going, and they decided to get their bases covered at home and come up on Thursday, even though there wasn’t any real activity going on.

Thursday Daddy went to class, and your big brothers and I decided to go walk around Burnsville Center, ride on the toy cars there, and have a little treat. (A flashback to the day before Josiah was born.) During afternoon snoozes, Grammy and Grandad arrived, and it was lots of fun to play with them outside and have a nice evening together. Although I felt kind of bad for them to change their plans and come up before there was any real labor news, it was a relief to have some extra help around already. Grandad joked that midnight on Friday morning was a full moon.

That night, I woke up with a fairly hard contraction around 11pm, and then another came around midnight. For the next hour or so, the contractions were every 20 min, then 15, then 10. They weren’t super hard, though, so I was debating whether to call my doctor. (But I tested positive for the Type B Strep, so they wanted me to get 4 hours of antibiotics during labor, so my doctor had warned me not to wait too long… especially since this was baby #3.) Then I noticed Ben was not in bed.

I went out to the living room to see what he was doing, and he was lying on the floor, massaging his head. He said he’d had a terrible headache since 11:30pm. We decided to go back to bed for a little longer, and I heard his breathing deepen as he fell asleep. But the contractions continued, so I reluctantly went back to the living room, called my doctor, and he said it would probably be good to get checked out at the hospital. So, I called Grammy (they were staying at the Livingstons) and she said they’d put on clothes and head right over. Then I went and woke up poor Daddy, but at least his headache was feeling better by then.

We got to the hospital and settled in to the “maternal assessment” room. After another hour of only moderate, sporadic contractions, I was at “maybe 2.5.” We decided to head home and just go to my scheduled doctor appointment at 8:15am and see what the news was there.

Back at home around 4am, we slept a few hours and then I headed to my normally scheduled checkup. By that time, I was at a 3 or maybe 3.5, but contractions were pretty scattered and short, so we decided to go about our day as normal. Ben went to a coffee shop to do schoolwork, I did a little computer work, and the boys ran some errands with Grandad and Grammy. Around noon I decided to go for a walk, and I got some nice hard contractions doing hills. J It was a beautiful day, and I had sort of forgotten how pleasant it was to take a walk by myself. Back home, contractions died down again.

After a nap on the couch, around 3, I started having some harder contractions. They had come and gone already so much, I pretty much ignored them, but they did seem to be a bit more regular, maybe every 15 min. Ben and I took a walk (which was full of contractions), and then Ben took the boys to a playground while Grandad picked up supper. Around 5, Grammy and I decided to walk out and see the boys, and I was moving very slowly, hard contractions coming quite frequently through the walk. Once we got home and the contractions didn’t slow down, I decided maybe this was the real deal after all, and I told Ben we should probably think about heading to the hospital again. We waited until Grandad got back with supper (because, if possible, a man should go through labor having eaten supper!), but I was definitely ready to go by then.

We got to the hospital around 6:30pm, and this time we were ushered a normal room. It took a long time for a nurse to come and see us, and it was almost time for the “changing of the guard” for shifts, so she said she would just get things started before our real nurse came.  Another nurse came to get things rolling too.

Then she checked me.

“Oh.” 

She double-checked. Then she said to the other nurse, “Um, she’s at about a 9.5.” Well, that was during a contraction, so they decided I was at maybe an 8 otherwise. But the activity in the room picked up considerably.

Oops. Probably not the 4 hours of antibiotics they were hoping for… I thought to myself.

I think that means I don’t get an epidural.

Laboring was a known pain, and the contractions were still spaced a minute or two apart, so I had a little relief between them. I got a fan, which helped a lot, and some nitric oxide, which didn’t.

The doctor arrived, I was fully dilated, about 20 (horrible) min of pushing or so, and at 7:47pm you were here! Your cord was wrapped around your neck, but you cried right away, and what a joy and relief to snuggle you on my chest at last!

We are so thankful for God’s mercy in bringing you to our home and helping us every step of the way!