Eli's Delivery Story

This is for journal purposes...

I started having strong contractions early Monday morning about 4:00am. They were very strong and about 8-10 minutes apart. I was woken up by the intensity of the contractions. I laid in bed for about 2 hours and decided to take a bath to see if the pain would subside. I soaked for an hour and it didn't help. Matthew got up to get ready for work and asked if we were going to head to the hospital and I told him maybe but I wasn't going to call the doctor until the contractions got closer together. Around 8:00 I started to wash the baby clothes that I had gotten out of the attic just in case I needed them. I called a friend to see if she could dry them because when I went to dry them my dryer wasn't working. She came over and got them and then the next thing I know her husband is mowing my lawn along with another guy from our ward. My friend started to weed our much needed strawberry "garden". At about 1pm I decided to call the doctor's office because the contractions were still strong but still not 3-5 minutes apart. I wasn't sure if they would want to try and stop the labor since I was 4 week early. The doctor that I see wasn't in the office Monday so they had me come in and see another doctor. He checked me and said that I was closed but if I wanted to go to the hospital I could. I didn't really want to sit at the hospital hooked up to monitors so I told him I would just go home. He told me to go to the hospital if they got 5 minutes apart for an hour.

I continued to have contractions the rest of the night strong and very painful but still not 5 minutes apart. I took some Tylenol and tried to got to bed. Once again I was woken up at about 2:00am because the pain was so bad. I started timing my contractions again and now they were 6-8 minutes apart. They continued all morning. At 5:30am I decided to go walking to see if they would stop or this would get them 5 minutes apart so that I could have this baby because I couldn't take these contractions any more. They were awful and mostly in my back. During my walk they did get closer together and much more intense. I was unable to move during each of them. I came home and called the doctor at 9:00am. He wanted me to come in and see me. He said that I was 80% effaced and dilating. He told us to head over to the hospital.

Matthew and I came home and got my bag and camera and headed over to the hospital. They were doing 9 other planned C-sections that day and 3 added walk-ins, one being myself. When the lady at the check-in counter told me this I was thinking, I am going to end up having this baby before they get me back in the operating room, but little did I know because I was "in active labor" I was able to get in before the others.

At about 2:15pm little Eli was born. He came out very purple and I was very concerned when I saw him. I was not sure that I could handle another NICU experience. I started to get sick to my stomach. By the time the anesthesiologist got me feeling better the nurse had gotten Eli to breath better and his color had changed to a nice pink! I was so grateful. They told me they were going to take him to the NICU just to make sure he was okay. They said he was looking very good and that this was just precautionary.

After I got out of recovery 2-3 hours after delivery they bought me Eli. He was bathed and looked beautiful!