Eli's Birth Story

Eli David Weatherwax was born on Sunday, July 13 @ 9:02am (10 days early). I started having contractions (early labor...nothing consistent or painful) on Saturday morning. Robb (Dave's sister's husband) was in town, and we were able to go out for breakfast with him, and run a few errands. When we got back home I was starting to feel the contractions a little more, so I just laid around for most of the afternoon, relaxing and waiting for them to either become regular or go away. We started timing them around 5:30pm, and they were 6-10 minutes apart and still not painful. By about 10pm they had become a steady 5-6 minutes apart, and were starting to hurt a bit. Dave took a nap to get ready for a long night. At 11:30 I knew they were not going away, so I took a shower and finished packing for the hospital. I called the doctor at 12:30am when my contractions were about 4 minutes apart, he told me to come to the hospital.

I woke up Dave, and he took a shower and put all our stuff in the car. We got to the hospital at 1:30am, and when the nurse checked me I was only 2cm (somewhat disappointing since I had been at 1cm for a couple weeks), but she said my cervix was VERY thin, and expected me to have the baby that day. The doctor came in about 30 minutes later, and I had progressed to about 4cm. He broke my water to try to speed up my contractions (they were still 4-5 minutes apart at that time), and did it ever. Once he broke my water, the contractions started coming 1-2 minutes apart, and they got SO much stronger. I continued with the breathing, but it was hard since I felt like I was going to throw up! When the nurse checked me about 30 minutes after that, she said I was 5-6cm, and so I asked for the epidural. It was AMAZING, and not painful at all! Once it was put in, I was pain free within minutes! We were able to relax for the next few hours while I dilated to 10cm.

At 6:30am I started pushing. Because of the epidural, pushing didn't hurt, but it was a lot of work, and I was so pain-free that I had trouble feeling the contractions. I pushed for 2.5 hours before Eli finally made his appearance into the world. I saw him crowning in the mirror, and we couldn't believe the full head of hair on him. My doctor came into the room about 5 minutes before Eli was born...he had just finished a c-section.

Eli came out crying, and was 7lbs, 11oz, and 20 inches long at birth. Since we didn't know what we were having, the doctor had Dave announce what it was. I think both Dave and I were crying at this point. Eli had some fluid in his lungs, so he had to go over to the baby workstation to be suctioned out. Dave went with him while the doctor and nurse sucked out his lungs, and put a a quick catheter down each side of his nose to clear him out. He scored a 5 on his first Apgar, but up to an 8 by the 5 minute test.

During this time, I was getting stitched up from my second degree tear (which again didn't hurt at all...thank you epidural). I FINALLY got to hold my baby about 20-30 minutes after he was born. It felt great! He took right to feeding, and has been going like a champ ever since!

I'm recovering well, and Eli is doing great. We still can't believe we made him. We are both SO in love!