Baby Elliot is Here!

Baby Elliot is here!

He totally arrived unexpectedly early—ironically, just three days after a baby shower in his honor. September was, therefore, an extremely busy month for me!

Thursday September 10^th: Today is the day I will travel five hours to go visit relatives in Nebraska. But first, I go in for a routine BPP and prenatal checkup. Doctors find protein in urine and my blood pressure is high. Concerns about preeclampsia skyrocket. More blood is drawn and the lab tech hands me a giant orange jug in which to do a 24-hour urine collection. Great; this will be interesting to explain to the family. 

Friday September 11^th: I feel like a walrus shuffling along on my fat flippers. The doctor calls me up and asks me to go to the nearest hospital for more blood work—now my potassium is low and they want a second screening done to be sure there’s no mistake. Getting real sick of the needles, people.

Saturday September 12^th: I freshen up to attend the baby shower. My cousin is a magical, organized, party-planning genius! Everyone regales me with stories of giving birth, and I start praying for something safe and somewhat normal. Afterward, I go back to the hospital to hand over the orange jug. I pick up a prescription for potassium pills. Nothing about this feels normal at the moment.

Sunday September 13^th: I return home, but sleep is difficult; I'm hot, I'm fat, I'm so freaking uncomfortable. "I just want this baby out," I cry to my husband. He will later use my words to point out the ultimate irony, but I have no regrets.

Monday September 14^th: At 4:00 PM, the doctor tells me I have mild preeclampsia, and that the safest route—confirmed by another reliable doctor—is to induce labor that very evening. Well, this is great, just great. So much for having a baby in October, the most awesome month of the year. Also, um, what exactly is induction, how does it work, and will it hurt? I didn’t really get around to reading that part in What to Expect When You’re Expecting. I spend the 45-minute trip home thinking about humorous punchlines for my comedic husband. In the end, I think I said something dumb, like, “Surprise!” I mean, I like to think I can easily roll with life’s punches, but this one pretty much knocked me for a loop. Hubby informs me that he has called up his parents and mine, officially freaking both families out. “Honey, we need to stop by Wal-Mart and get some slippers and Depends,” I remind my dear husband. “All the blogs were unanimous on those items.” I totally don’t have a hospital bag packed; I throw some extra clothes in a suitcase along with toothpaste and a toothbrush and some Brian Jacques novels—like I’m going to have time to read in between contractions, but YOU NEVER KNOW, OKAY?!

We eat Subway and listen to U2 on the road to the hospital. We are quickly admitted and the kindly nurses make sure I am quite comfortable before giving me medication to soften my cervix. By midnight I am feeling contractions. EVERYTHING HURTS, ALL NIGHT LONG. Good-bye, sleep. I know not when I shall see thee again.

Tuesday September 15^th: From sunup to sundown the nurses monitor my vital signs and coach me through different exercises and positions. At some point a catheter is inserted, a process that must have been used in the Dark Ages as torture. I am also hooked up to an IV, another medieval process that involves needles. Later, when the contractions grow stronger, I get an epidural—another needle. Briefly I consider wearing a chastity belt for the next ten years, but say nothing to my husband because he is being a sweetie and holding my hand and petting my head and saying nothing that would warrant a cast-iron frying pan to the face. On the other hand, when they break my water, and he’s laughing at the weird faces I’m making as foreign liquids pour from my body, I rethink the pan and the chastity belt.

In the evening I have not dilated beyond 7 centimeters and my blood pressure is rising dangerously. I try not to panic when the doctor informs me that a C-section is necessary. This couldn’t hurt, right? I’ll be numb from the chest down, and I won’t have to look at the surgery. I am regretting watching the C-section video on the web. It was strangely akin to that chest-bursting scene from "Alien." Now I'm praying again, except I can't focus on the words because I'm trying to listen to what the doctor is telling me. She is being so sweet and kind to explain everything to me in a comforting manner.  

As they wheel me into surgery, my husband gets the bright idea to play “Sirius” by The Alan Parsons Project. I tell him to shut up. 

In the operating room, I see a lot of what I’d never in my life hoped to see, ever—doctors in face masks, bright lights, and a ton of sterile equipment. I'm so freaking scared, but I know this has to be done. Someone gives me laughing gas, and its lights out, goodnight. Next thing I know, there is tremendous pressure down south and then my husband is squeezing my hand and I hear a baby crying. When I come to, they place him in my arms, and I try to sing "Edelweiss" to him, from The Sound of Music. Through my loopy haze, I somehow remember that I want my baby boy to hear my voice, singing to him, for the first time. Whether or not I am on pitch is irrelevant.

And that’s pretty much what happened. They kept me in the hospital until Friday morning. I’d had a blood transfusion and was still recuperating from surgery when we finally packed up our newborn son and went home at last. I went back to the hospital that weekend because of a fluid overdose, and received some medication that reduced a lot of the swelling. Between the operation and breastfeeding, I am now back down to—if not less than—my original weight, albeit a wee jiggly here and there.

Elliot received a lot of attention from friends and relatives the first two weeks, and my mother came to stay with us for a week, helping me to adjust to the new addition to the family. Today, three weeks later, my husband and I have gone back to a somewhat normal routine, keeping up with our interests, jobs, and hobbies with the new addition of baby care thrown in to make us extra adult-y. Elliot is the little love of our lives; we count ourselves blessed to have him with us so beautiful and healthy. We love the funny little faces and noises he makes, and the way he sticks out his tiny tongue and blows raspberries into the air. We love his gigantic blue-gray eyes and how they look around so curiously at everything. We love his “serious” expressions, as if he wants to know why the heck he’s out here in the cold, weird world and not still snug and toasty inside mommy. We love his soft little head and tiny fingers and toes. We love him because he is a gift from God and the product of our love together as man and wife. He is a strong, growing boy, already with his own unique individuality, which we love and admire so much!

Welcome, Elliot! May God continue to bless our little family on the path to heaven!