Elliott's Birth Story

When I went to my 38 week appointment, the doctor checked me and I was 2 cm. dilated, near completely effaced, and baby was at -1 station. I was measuring 42 weeks and possibly had low AF. The decision to induce labor was discussed and I decided that it was the best for both of us. The "birth date" was set for Wednesday July 1st, 3 days before my due date. I was hesitant to be induced again only because I had never really experienced any labor pains and/or didn't have a fun "water breaking in public" story to tell one day to my children who will more than likely not care anyway. I decided that waiting was silly and along the same lines of trying for a natural childbirth.

The morning of July 1st I woke up and got ready complete with make-up and freshly straightened hair. Finn was dropped off the night before to spend the night with Mimi and Papa Duck. I call the hospital an hour before (as instructed) and I am told that all the beds are full and maybe they would be calling me by early afternoon. What?!? The "waiting place" is the most horrible place to be when the thing you are 'waiting' for is a human life. There is pretty much nothing that can keep my mind off that and almost immediately I started feeling nauseous. Ahhh....but John knows me all too well and decided that we should spend the morning shopping. It actually turned out to be a lovely morning, just he and I together, which is so rare these days. Then the morning came and went and soon it was the afternoon and there was still no call from the hospital. My stomach ache returned and was followed by a mild headache.

My parents arrived from Chicago around 3PM. Then finally around 4 PM the hospital called and told us they were ready for us. Finally!!! Of course we were all packed and ready to go and rushed right over there. We were checked into our room at 5:15PM.

My final belly shot at 39 Weeks

The story becomes painfully boring at this point because I am checked again for dilatation and nothing has changed from my 38 week appointment and they start the Pitocin drip at 2mg. A half an hour later it is turned to 4mg. Then another half an hour the new 'feisty' nurse turns it to 6mg, all the while I am feeling nothing and just reading magazines. At this point the nurse disappears for over and hour and the next person to walk into my room is Dr. Meckler who explains that my nurse has been working on an admin issue involving me not having an HIV test on record. Oh, please. She clears the issue and sets the pit at 7mg. It is about 7:30 PM. The Pitocin keeps getting turned up like this and around 1:30 AM they page the on call doc in to break my water. I wonder to myself if I should ask for the epidural even though I am not in any real pain, just a bit uncomfortable. I decide to wait. John falls asleep. Nothing continues to happen.

Looking a little disheveled but still smiling...

I decided to get the epidural sometime around 3 AM, mainly because I was hoping it would help me relax and get some sleep. At this point the nurse decides my fluid levels are too low and pumps my uterus with water to give the baby more room to move. At 7 AM my doctor returns and I had just been checked by the nurse and was still only 3-4 cm dilated. You've got to be kidding me. My doctor heads into surgery and I continue to wait. At this point the Pitocin is up to about 18mg. I feel no pain, just tired and hungry.

Finally somewhere around 8AM I start to feel a whole lot of pressure and I tell John that I am positive I am close to 10 cm. I feel ready to push. My nurse comes in to check and sure enough I am ready!! But my doctor isn't so they turned the Pitocin off and turned the epidural up. Fantastic...more waiting. I stayed like this until almost 11 AM when my doctor showed up and they prepared the room. Five easy pushes and 15 minutes later Elliott was here but not before he made a grand entrance, just like his big bro. This boy had the cord wrapped around his neck and so when he came out he was grayish blue instead of the nice rosy pink color he should have been. The baby nurses immediately started massaging him and extracting fluids from his mouth. I, on the other hand, nearly bled to death on the bed while being injected with several doses of blood clotters and yet somehow I could not have been happier.

The bleeding eventually stopped and they brought Elliott to me all wrapped up and looking quite pink and healthy and hungry. He immediately latches on enjoys his first meal a la boob.

You know, all the waiting was a pain in the ass. It really was and seemed sooo many times that it could have been avoided but I tell you, I would have waited an eternity to enjoy those moments after birth when he was brought back to me to eat. It was one of the happiest I had ever been in my life. I felt cheated out of this part of the experience with Finn. He was taken from me and sent to Special Care for 72 long horrible hours. So after an entire day of waiting to check into the hospital, 18 hours of a long boring pit drip, 15 minutes of painless pushing, almost an hour after birth of near bleeding to death it was all so worth it to be able to hold my baby in my arms and nourish him for the first time outside my womb. He never left my arms after that and slept by my side on the bed all through the night. Another precious and gorgeous baby boy. My second little man. Elliott William.



How so VERY easy it is to open your heart and love someone else so much, so fast. Sooo EASY.

So In Love...

I can't put him down long enough to type out a coherent sentence. Somethings I will note about this week though.
1) I love having John home and fear the day he returns back to work.
2) The boy loves Boob. His discharge weight was 7lbs 3.5oz!! Pretty darn good for a BF baby.
3) OMG..he is so darn cute. How did I get so lucky to have two really cute baby boys?

Elliott

Surprise! It's a Boy or a Girl?

I'm all about steering my children away from gender stereotypes but this, in my opinion is taking it too far. I keep Finn's hair on the long-ish side for a boy, I have let him apply lip gloss to his lips, and when he stares lovingly at himself in the mirror I choose to call him "cute" rather than "handsome". Heck, I even let him walk our streets with a little pink stroller. But if he comes to me as a Kindergartner asking if he can wear a dress to school...the answer will be a very carefully constructed and sensitive "No".

Kids can be cruel! Pops parents are paving the way for a lifetime of teasing. We live in a society where gender roles happen to be strictly defined, perhaps a bit too much, however that is the way it is. To each there own, I guess, but this is a child and he has no voice in the matter.

Welcome Home! Love Your Outfit.

The way I see it, my poor gestating fetus has been buck naked for 9 some odd months. The least I can do is dress he/she up in some fancy clothes to come home in, after all this is my area d'expertise. So I have a couple of wardrobe options depending on sex, skin tone, shape (or build if he is a he)**, and other important personal characteristics. First and foremost, the most important feature here is comfort. I am going with 100% organic cotton. I also want to pay attention to the baby's healing belly button and make it as easy as possible to change diapers. I present you with option #1:


This is a chocolate brown infant kimono with a lighter brown coffee-ish colored piping and it is so small you would think it was made for dolls. Completely adorable. Option # 2 is a cute striped number by Zutano's Itzy Bitzy line for newborns:

This, being blue, looks more boy-ish to me and even though I would have no problem dressing it on a girl, I think I would only choose option 2 over option 1 if we have a baby boy who is pushing 9+ pounds. So with that said this is a definite contender. I also purchased a few packs of sex-specific receiving blankets made By Dwell Studio for Target (ridiculously sweet/affordable line that, style-wise, is right up my alley):

**Realizing that all newborn babies look like miniature sized, old, Asian men but STILL.....

36 1/2 Weeks

This update comes a bit late (shocker, I know) as I will actually be 37 weeks on Saturday. The late afternoon exhaustion that I encountered in my first trimester has reared its ugly head and it has become hard for me to do much more during Finn's nap than surf the interwebz reading scads of other women's birth storys or the latest news on the Gosselins (Seriously- what is up with them? Quit the damn show already. Whatever it takes for your family, right Kate??).

So there's that. And my child is the size of some Swiss Chard this week I think...and weighs about as much as a crenshaw melon (that's about 6 pounds, of course, but you knew that). Baby E is moving a lot less this week - not a whole lot of room (!) - but I am moving a whole hell of a lot more....to the bathroom.

Speaking of that, I am not sleeping well these days. I have been waking up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom, which I know is very common and many women have to go several times in the night, but I never had to and until now and have enjoyed decent sleep to boot. Not to mention the heartburn/indigestion....I am averaging about 6 tums a day at this point. It is also become pretty hot in our bedroom due to the 90+ degree weather. So, I'd say that I am almost ready now. I'd say give me another 1-2 weeks to get all the rest of 'my ducks in a row' and I'll be searching the web for a good eggplant parmigiana recipe....

Where The Wild Things Are

We arrived home safely and happily from our quick getaway to the River this past weekend. It was the first of three important events that I did not want to miss by going into labor early, followed by my hair cut/color on the 25th and ending with the last day of Finn's swim class July 2nd. We had a lovely time, basking in the glory that was our cabin hideaway in Dora, Mo overlooking the quite majestic North Fork River. The idea for the vacation was conceived by John wanting to get away for his birthday to a river, other than the Meramac, either in MO and AK. Since this was what he wanted for his birthday, I decided to take the responsibility of finding the 'perfect' place. His one and only criterion, other than the river not being the Meramac, was that the cabin overlooked said river. Luckily, being the master of inter web searching that I am, I was able to locate The River of Life Farm. I evaluated each of there cabins and not shockingly chose the most expensive one only to be disappointed to find that it was booked the weekend of John's birthday. We decided this spot was too good to pass up and changed the weekend.

Upon arrival, we were not surprised why this cabin is booked solid through out the summer. I mean....WOW.....just wow. Reality far surpassed the elegant pictures that accompany their website. It was everything that one could hope for in cabin up in the trees overlooking the river. Some highlights of the weekend included sitting outside on the deck reading and listening to the peaceful sound of rushing water below, watching a bald eagle soar above us and then perch itself on a dead tree branch directly across the river from us, taking a float trip in a Canoe with virtually no one else on the river but us, and hiking (yes, me, I hiked) up a trail to a spot called "Inspiration Point" where we were able to take in spectacular views and spot more juvenile eagles and the bald eagle once again.

As much as this weekend was for John and a celebration of the beginning of his 31st year, it was also about taking a vacation for the last time, just the three of us. I often think about these days, days that Finn will never remember, as an only child. I wonder why I tried so hard. Why I decided to dedicate the entire month of May to doing fun things with him, just he and I, when he won't be able to remember the laughter and the smiles. Hopefully, one day when he is old enough to understand he will be able to read this and rifle through countless pictures and know that this was important to me as his mother. That I will be able to tell him about the month before his brother or sister was born and how much fun we had togther and how much I cherished these past 20 months of togetherness more than anything in the world and how special and beautiful it always is....most of the time. That I am so anxious and excited to see how great of a big brother he will be to the newest little duck.

* Our weekend ended with a lovely visit to The Nixon's home in Arkansas to visit with Jerry and Katy and enjoy a delicious lunch and engage in good conversation. Finn was smitten with Katy, and she got a few hugs from our new found cuddily little boy.