Brenton and I are proud to announce that our precious baby boy was born on January 7, 2012 at 2:56 pm. He was 6 lbs 15 oz and 21 in. long. He came exactly 2 weeks before his due date (38 weeks) I don't know if any of you are like me, but I love to hear peoples' birth stories! So here it goes..
I woke up that Friday (January 6) not feeling well at all. I was having a lot of inconsistent contractions and feeling very nauseous. I honestly thought I was getting a stomach virus of some kind. Around two that afternoon I became very tired and took a nap. I awoke feeling like I had a ton of energy! I started some loads of laundry, finished up my last paper for one of my classes, and went to the commissary to get stuff to make dinner. I made a yummy dinner of lasagna and found that no matter how hard I tried I just could not get myself to eat all of my dinner. This was very odd for me.. but I really didn't think anything of it. Right after dinner we went over to our friends' house for game night. We had a lot of fun and finished up game night around 12:15-ish. We get home, its late and we are both exhausted. I will never forget Brenton's words to me as we pull in the drive-way "please do not have Eli tonight Darcie, I am exhausted." Brenton goes upstairs to get ready for bed and I go to the bathroom.. well it was then that I knew something was happening. I walk upstairs very calmly and tell Brenton that I think this baby is coming soon. Brenton is in the middle of brushing his teeth and just kind of stood there looking at me.. we immediately start trying to get everything together and called labor and delivery to see when we should come in. We had planned on laboring at home for as long as possible. Well due to some unfortunate circumstances, they told us to come in asap as things were happening that were indicative of a problem with the placenta. So in the car we go, 12:30 am Brenton is dodging the deer on the way to the hospital as my contractions get stronger and come closer and closer together.. We arrive at the hospital and immediately get hooked up to the monitors to make sure Eli was okay.. and they checked me to see what was going on. Nurse said I was indeed in labor with contractions coming every 2 mins and a problem with the placenta meant I would more than likely have to have a c-section. Thankfully, there was no problem with the placenta! We ended up walking the halls to progress labor as we were pretty set on not having any meds to augment labor or meds of any kind for that matter. We labored all night long, doctor comes in and before checking me he says if I wanted to I could go back home and labor at home like I wanted to.. he checks me and then took back his statement saying that I was about 5 cm and wouldn't be going anywhere. (We delivered at a hospital about 35-40 min away) I was still having the same consistent contractions. Not too long after that, water broke and things really started happening. The contractions became unbearable, so painful it was literally making me sick. I now understand why some women throw up during labor. I told Brenton I wanted the epidural that I couldn't do this any longer. He tried to coax me into going a bit longer, if I could make it 10 1/2 hours without one I could surely make it the rest of the way.. that didn't work. In my mind, I felt like I was going to be in labor feeling those contractions for days. I became very angry and demanded he go find the dr and have him give me the epidural. 10 minutes later epidural was in! 3 hours later.. Eli Glenn Jones was born! Not a bad labor overall: 14 1/2 hours and only about 25 minutes of pushing!
