Today's Grooming Report: Elliott's arrival

So, a dear friend very sweetly and tactfully reminded me this weekend that I never typed up Elliott's birth story. It's not that I had forgotten, but those moments when I've felt like writing have been few and far between. It's not that I couldn't scrape up some time to blog, it's more that I have prioritized goofing off with Thomas at night, sleeping, or watching TV. But, I do want to have a record of his birth for him to read some day, and as a testimony of God's ongoing grace in my life.

Since it has been over six months, some of the minutiae have been lost. So this account will fall somewhere between the barrage of detail from Lillian's birth (3 LONG posts) and the statement, "I went to the hospital and had a baby in the middle of the night and it was empowering and painful and awesome and miraculous."

It was the week before Elliott's due date. He was due Thursday, August 22nd, the day after my 28th birthday. Since L was born a few days early and because I didn't particularly want to share my birthday (selfish, I know), I was really counting on him coming a little early. Throw in a wild almost two year old and August heat, and you can imagine how excited I was to give birth. At my doctor's appointment on Thursday, August 15th, I was finally starting to show some signs of real progress and that night I experienced a pretty intense round of contractions that petered out around midnight. I was disappointed, but I'd visualized the 18th as his birthday for my whole pregnancy for a couple of reasons (the symmetry of the numbers and the fact that I would be 39 w 3d, same as Lillian), so I wasn't overly surprised. For the next couple of days we hit the "let's get the baby out" regimen pretty hard. Ahem. I won't go into all the detail but we had some delightful walks on the beach, a fun meal at a taco place on Sullivan's Island, and enjoyed a Saturday morning at the aquarium. By Saturday afternoon, my contractions had picked up significantly and we had to call my parents about 45 minutes after they had dropped Lillian off at our house to come back and get her so we could head to the hospital. It was much calmer than when we went to the hospital with Lillian--we both showered, finished a few last minute things, kissed our baby girl (I wasn't even teary!) and rolled out. I was contracting every 5-10 minutes at this point.
We checked in at the hospital around 6:30 pm, right before a shift change and they confirmed that I was 5 centimeters dilated and we would indeed be staying to have a baby. It was go time; our son was on his way! We called Thomas' parents at this point and told them to hit the road. They arrived a couple of hours later and graciously swapped Lillian duty with my parents so that they could be at the hospital when little man arrived. Best laid plans and all...
Well, just like last time, I progressed a little more in the first couple hours and then progress. just. stopped. My doctor's pronouncements of "I'll break your water if necessary" and "let's wait on the Pitocin" quickly turned into realities. However, between 10:30 and 1:30 or so, I enjoyed some remarkably peaceful time with just the Lord, Elliott and me. I couldn't focus to read, but I listened to most of Luke as I drifted in and out of consciousness.IBy 1:30 I was at the maximum dose of Pitocin and I was in a world of pain. The contractions were so intense and so close together such that it was hard to recover between them. Coupled with the fact that we had not prepared at all for natural childbirth and thus a) I had no idea how to breathe and b) Thomas had no idea how to coach me had me begging for the epidural by 2 am. I was nearly fully dilated by this point but seriously had no idea where I would find the energy to push. I found myself thinking of the cultures and historical periods where/when women have no access to pain medication, and I said some very fervent prayers of thanks while marveling at the fact that the human race goes on and that people ever have sex again. Ha. My parents had gone home to sleep at some point and I think we called them to come back now.
My epidural went in around 2:45--naturally it was the same anesthesiologist that I had last time but he did a much better job this time--d I was SO DANG GRATEFUL for the cessation of pain that I'm sure I said some crazy things to him. Nurse Lani (loved her! She was so encouraging and supportive of all the time I spent laboring naturally) checked me at 3 and it was go time. Thomas and I were ready to meet him!
Elliott William slid out at 3:38 am with a full head of hair and healthy lungs. His first act in this world was to poop everywhere--all over me, the nurse and my doctor. Dr. Bullen said that she had never seen a baby poop so much so quickly. I felt proud, then felt weird for being proud of that. Perhaps this is a piece of the "boy mom" mentality I will be learning? They gave him to me to nurse immediately, which he did, and then weighed him. 7 pounds, 13 ounces post-poop, though the nurses were convinced he would have been 8+ had he been weighed before "the incident."
The miracle of Elliott's birth was just as intensely wonderful as Lillian's, and even with the pain, I marveled at the fact that the Lord includes us in this way. Our bodies are capable of so much, and the Lord is so faithful.