Elias Joins the Party

Written on October 22, 2009 by emily

Our little man is now eight days old, and as with most newborns, it is hard to imagine that just more than a week ago we had never seen his face, and that even one year ago, there is was not even the inkling of him in our minds. It amazes me how quickly things change and how immediately the heart embraces new life so fiercely that it seems as if this child has always been with us. This is obviously not a new experience for me, since he is the third child to make his way into our family, but it still astounds me.

For those who have been patiently waiting for an update, I’ll start with that. We are all well. I am recovering extremely well, and although I  have to be realistic that full recovery is still some weeks away, my body feels remarkably good. Just some soreness and tiredness to work through, as is to be expected. I am glad to say I’m feeling a lot more like a person than a mommy-blob or a whale. That’s definitely a relief! Little Elias is already over his birthweight, eating well, and seems as content as can be, so long as he’s not being poked at by an older sibling. Both kids seem to accept and love him very much, but there is some room to learn gentleness around infants. Judah is especially fond of his brother and wants to hold him all the time. We just have to work on him keeping his fingers out of the baby’s eyes!

The tale of Elias’ birth is not all too different than my other birth experiences in the respect that when my body decides its time to expel a child, the process is rather quick…but before I get ahead of myself let me start at the beginning.  This time around, I was holding on pretty tightly to my due date–not expecting that I would or could possibly go past it…I felt less psychologically prepared for this birth, and with the obvious responsibilities of our two other children, the fatigue was really getting to me toward the end. On top of everything, the week leading up to the due date, I started having a terrible toothache (wonderful timing, I know) and it became quickly clear that it was an issue that needed to be addressed immediately. On our due date of October 9th, I made my way down to the dental school at UCLA and had my first ever root canal at 40 weeks. Fortunately, I did not go into labor then (it was definitely a worry for me!) and my toothache was taken care of.

I was on serious baby-watch, hoping to slip into labor any ol’ time, but Elias just kept us waiting. Saturday…Sunday…Monday. I was starting to get a bit nervous considering my wonderful mother (who had been with us for a week already) was about to leave, and we didn’t even have a baby yet! We then decided that it was in our best interest to pursue an induction to get things going. This choice was extremely tough for me, as I tend to fall on the anti-intervention side of things whenever possible, and I had a host of concerns about what kind of birth experience an induction would lead us to. I discussed my many concerns with my midwife and consulted with my husband before deciding that it really was our best choice in the given circumstances…That said, I requested a conservative induction–one that left some room for my body to spring into action on its own.

So Tuesday morning, we found ourselves at the hospital, getting the first round of Misoprostol, a tiny pill placed next to the cervix to help it ripen for labor. Each dose of miso takes 4 hours to work its magic, and we ended up having two rounds (so, 8 hours) of resting, walking about, talking, eating lunch and dinner…In all, Tuesday ended up being a really relaxing day. It was nice to spend that time with my husband, discussing the many things we hadn’t had much time to talk about in the previous weeks. By late evening, I had started having contractions on my own, although their pattern was horribly confusing. There would be a strong one, two lighter ones, a 5 minute break, three strong ones in a row…essentially no pattern at all except that these were certainly labor contractions and some were so close together, there was no way they weren’t doing anything to progress labor. At the time, I wasn’t horribly uncomfortable, and although the contractions were strong, I could still walk through them if I focused. Around 2am, I was at 3cm and opted to spring for an epidural to get some rest since I’d been up for 19 hours and I still had some work ahead of me. At that time, the midwife started pitocin while I slept for the next four hours. I admit, I had been extremely wary of jumping to pitocin earlier in the induction process, but I appreciated that my midwife really did ease into it rather than bulldozing ahead. I did get a hearty stretch of sleep and at 6:30, it was time to see where things were at.

Surprisingly (or maybe not to some), there had been zero cervical change in those four hours..I was still at 3cm. I had a little twinge of panic and was totally not expecting that news. Not sure what that could mean in the coming hours, I just begin to pray for progress…The midwife opted to break my water a little after 7am to see where that would go. She kept referencing my history and said that she really thought once my body picked up on all the cues, that things would go quickly and smoothly. I was glad for her reassurance, because I really didn’t want this to turn into a terrible birth experience. I was confident that she would let me labor as long as it took so long as everything was still looking good with me and the baby. This hour of uncertainty was by far the worst part of the whole experience, which in hindsight wasn’t that bad either.

Around 8:30, Kolby slipped out to get some breakfast, and you know…just let your husband leave if you want labor to go faster. Haha. It wasn’t more than 15 minutes later that I sent him a text message saying, “You need to come back. Quickly please.” I’m kind of amazed I was so polite about it, because I could tell it was coming quickly, even through my epidural block. By 9am, I was actively suppressing the urge to push as the nurse got everyone bustling in the room. Kolby came in about then and I started crying saying, “I can’t hold it! I can’t hold it! Hurry up please! Get the people ready!” They had to remove the foley catheter before I could push effectively (which they did at about 9:10am) and the very second it was out, I pushed about 3 times and little Elias was born at 9:13am on Wednesday, October 14th, 2009. Essentially, I went from 3cm to 10cm in 2 hours…For those that remember, my other labors have been much the same. When it’s go-time, it’s GO-TIME.

I’m fairly certain things would have gone just fine without an induction, but with everything going on, it did prove to be the best choice. I feel like I got to have the best of everything for myself…a hospital date with my amazing husband (hey…you take what you can get when you have multiple children! ha), the relieved stress of not having to race to the hospital in record time to avoid having a baby in the car or elevator, a gentle induction, the pain relief of an epidural, rest, and then a super exciting ending. I especially prefer the first hour after the birth to have that epidural block–I felt much more able to calm myself and welcome my baby without having to feel all the poking around that happens at that time. With Judah’s birth in March 08, I didn’t have one, and although that birth experience was very positive and all natural, the whole first hour after his delivery was really tough for me. I was hysterical and shaking and not really able to welcome my son the way I had wanted to.

All that to say, I feel like despite my precipitous history, I’ve been blessed to experience a few varieties of labor from the spontaneous rupture of membranes & 3.5 hour labor (Alaina’s birth) to the super-hustle to the hospital with a completely natural delivery & 2 hour labor (Judah’s birth) to a conservative induction and medicated delivery (Elias’ birth)…all of which have been great experiences in their own way.

So, Elias Bradley Allen was born on Wednesday, October 14th at 9:13am weighing 8lbs 12oz and measuring 21in long. I feel quite blessed and thankful for all the support that has been pouring in from friends and family…I’ll soon write about the first week of life and the adjustments we’ve all had to make around the house with Elias’ addition. Until then, thanks for your prayers and encouragement! They’ve seen us through a really huge transition in a most important way.

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