Welcome Baby Elijah

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Elijah Jakob
March 19, 2010 at 7:47 pm
7 lbs 5 oz and 18.5 inches

Yes, this is well overdue, but what can you say I'm a mother to three! My last post was written on the morning Elijah was born. We scheduled an induction, as we did with Ethan, to avoid going into labor in LA traffic (as our hospital is in Orange County, a good 70 miles away). Ethan was delivered three hours after the pitocin entered my body so we knew I experience quick deliveries.

Feeling guilty about the induction and forcibly rushing the baby out before he's good and ready I told Ed that I wanted to feel some of the contractions to not completely rob myself of the whole birthing experience. After the nurses hooked up my IV and started me on pitocin I began to have contractions. At first they were a good 5 minutes apart. The pain threshold was a 3, but grew within the hour. By two hours I was feeling discomfort. The nurse was entering in my paperwork. It seemed to take hours. In that time, the pain went from 5 to 10!!! I told the nurse to please get the anesthesiologist. Apparently you can have an epidural at anytime as long as you can sit still. Great, get me the doctor. The pain was so unbearable. I was surprised how quickly it was came on. I hadn't taken a labor class since Izzy almost four years ago so I had forgotten about all the breathing techniques to get you through the pain. I started to think about all those mothers that chose to deliver naturally and thought...why!!! Give me the f'in drugs already. Where's that anesthesiologist?

After about twenty more minutes he finally arrived. I almost couldn't sit through it. My body was so stiff trying to keep myself still. The drugs couldn't seem to enter my body fast enough. I had to take additional hits of the stuff. Twenty minutes later the nurses finally decide to check my cervix and wouldn't you know I was dilated to 10 centimeters and the baby's head was down in position. I was going to have the baby. Good god, I almost had this baby without drugs! Three and a half pushes later and Elijah (Eli) was born.