Well Elijah arrived the other day – Saturday, July 19, 2003, at 3:32pm to be exact. He weighed 5 lbs and 7 oz (he is 3.5 weeks early) and is 19 3/4 inches long.

Here’s the story:
So you know how I was supposed to go back into the doctor on Thursday? Well they did my blood pressure and it was something over 100 – not good. So they waited a bit (and went in the hall gossiping about me for a bit lol) and then took it again. Something over 90 – still not good.
So he said right then and there that I was going into the hospital for a 24 hour observation period. He said he did not want to send me home and have me go into convulsions or something because my blood pressure was too high and risk both me and the baby dying.
That was the scariest part of the day, lol. I started to get upset because I was totally not prepared for that.
So I had to go right up and they put me in a delivery room. That was kinda weird at first, but I think they did it because it had some equipment they needed, I guess the fetal monitor because I wore it for a while. Hour or two later I got my own room that is in the maternity section, but it’s not neccesarily the maternity rooms, not as nice. It was a double room, but I had no roomate so they let Steve stay. He took off work the next day, needless to say.
The most annoying thing about it all was that I had to call a nurse every time I peed because they had to keep track of all of it.
So the next day, I was like 20 minutes from my 24 hours being up (and hopefully going home) when two nurses came in and they started wheeling me down to delivery. The doctor decided to induce me before it got any worse. Apparently a small spike in my pressure just before then was a deciding factor.
So that night I ended up with a supository (yuck) inducement medicine around 9 and then they were supposed to start the pitossin (sp?) at like 6 or 7 am, I can’t remember. I also ended up with a full time blood pressure cuff, a fetal monitor, a contraction monitor, and the dreaded IV.
So that night, it was around 3:30am, I woke up and had to go to the bathroom – and so I called the nurse to help – I mean I was hooked up to every gosh-dang-thing in that room. But no one came and I was like I have to go really bad, so Steve was helping me get up. I thought I peed my pants lol. So then the nurse came in finally, after I went, of course, and I had a thought. So I asked her, she checked, we had to wait 10 minutes for it to process, and yup – my water had broken. So from then on, things started rolling pretty good.
We called my mom at like 4 am LOL and A around 6 (I think) and they both came up.
I didn’t take any medication for quite a while. Finally I took some staydol (sp?) – that stuff is not supposed to take pain away, but just dull it. Let me tell you, that stuff is AWESOME. I had like three doses of that (all costing me $1000, I’m sure) and the nurse puts the first one in and says that it will hit me in about a minute. Sure did. 60 seconds later, and I was floating on freaking air, it was totally awesome. However, after the first dose, it never did work as good as it had, each time.
So finally they come in and say that I am dilated to 8 cm. That is really good they say, moving along very good for being induced.
But then, I got stuck at 8. My doctor came in and was like, “What? Why didn’t you take the epidural? It’s the 21st century!” lol
So my choices became:
1. take the epidural to get things moving
2. have a c-section and have the epidural anyway
You can bet what I chose.
That was the worst part of it all, honestly. The epidural ladies came in and said, “Okay everyone out” and it was the first and only time I freaked out. So they let Steve stay. THANK GOD. I don’t know what I would have done without him – they had me sit in this weird position and junk and I had to lean on his shoulders to get it right. But then to make things worse, they are asking me to tell them if they’ve got it right in the middle of my back or not, because it has to be precise. Like I know!!!
So finally that was done and it kicked in. IT TOO WAS AWESOME. lol. Mom, Steve, A were all standing later at the contraction measuring machine and just laughing their heads off. “Look, look, it’s off the charts and she doesn’t even feel it!” It was much better after that because one thing I had also had was that stupid blood pressure machine going off every 10 minutes or so. And it HURT because my pressure was high. So if it came during a contraction, or vice versa, it made it harder to relax.
Wasn’t too much longer – hour, hour and a half, and I was ready to push. That itself didn’t take very long at all, I was pleasantly surprised.
So then here he was all red and screaming.

So our families all came up and saw us. L was there for a few minutes. The new music guy from church was in there (long story) and so we drug him in and I think scared the heebeejeebee’s outta him (he’s single). I can’t remember who else was there…..

The first night, Elijah’s temperature was too low so they had to keep him under the heat lamp for a while. And then while doing some checks on him he kinda turned white for a second, so they kept him in the nursery for observation. Then they kept him the second night, too.

Monday my grandpa and V (his wife) came to see us and they were with us when I left the hospital. Elijah was actually released before me, lol. His doctor said to me, “whenever you can go, he can go.” I was kinda surprised, being so little, I thought they might keep him for a while. But he made a speedy recovery of whatever it was the couple of nights earlier. He was only down 3 oz when we left the hospital too.
The best thing about getting out of the hospital was getting rid of that IV. They kept mine in for a day longer because of my blood pressure and stuff. I kept begging them to take it out lol.

So now we are home, getting into the swing of things. It’s tough. I can’t go upstairs so I am sleeping on the couch with his bassinet in the middle of the room in the living room. I feel like I sleep all the stinking time… lol

[here ends the pregnancy journal.]