Elijah's beautiful birth

    So... Elijah is 3 days old and have a few minutes to write his arrival. I had been telling everyone that the supermoon was going to bring on Elijah's birth. It was my saving grace. I was so miserable! I had to think something was going send me into labor.
     Sunday morning, I had been up from my hips hurting and finally went back to bed at 5:30. I told Travis as I got into bed, "Stupid Super moon didn't do anything!" I had been having cramping and braxton hicks all night, but that's it. He replied, "well the moon is suppose to be the closest at 7am." I felt my first two real contractions, about 15 minutes apart. During the second one at 6:30, I felt a tiny gush of water. I literally jumped out of bed in fear of getting water all over the bed. I looked at Travis sleeping peacefully and was like, "I think my water broke!" He got out of bed, which is amazing since he doesn't get out of bed early for anything. We got dressed We finished packing up our bags. Travis took the dogs out and fed them. I helped as much as I could between the contractions.
     We were on our way. We got to Labor and Delivery and they put us in a triage room. They did a swab to make sure it was my water that broke, which I never got the results for. But it was pretty evident. My contractions were about 6 minutes apart and they hurt so bad. I decided there was NO WAY I could go through this without an epidural. At 8 am, they decided to admit me. I was 5.5 cm dilated and 80%. They started me on antibiotics for Group Strep B.  Then they said that I couldn't get my epidural until i had one liter of fluid through me, so they started them as well. At 9:47, my contractions were 2 minutes apart and the fluids were almost completely done for the epidural.
        They finally came in to give me the epidural. I was very lucky that it went in real well. It hurt a little bit, but wasn't bad. I felt so much better after that! I could still feel it slightly, so they had to give me a bigger dose. It was a God send. I had such a good epidural that I could not feel my legs at all! It was the weirdest feeling. About 10 am, they checked me and I was about 6-7 cm dilated. They told me to rest for the big event.
      At some point, my Pastor came and visited me. He prayed with us. We are sooo blessed by him. I rested some more. The morning into afternoon went quickly with the epidural. At some point, my epidural didn't work on my left side well. Then I learned I could push a button for more medicine. I pushed that button every 15 minutes. I got another dose of antibiotics. They kept saying my contractions were doing well. Travis spend the day on the couch reading Game of Thrones.
       About 2pm, I was fully dilated, but couldn't feel the urge to push. They said they would give it awhile to see if I would get the urge. They told me to rest until I felt the urge. They kept checking every half an hour. At about 3pm, they decided to decrease the epidural to help me feel the urge to push. Things got painful after that! At 3:45, I told them I was ready to try to push. About 4, I started pushing! It was probably the most painful thing I had to do! I cried through them, crying that it hurt. Travis says I wasn't screaming, just crying. The doctor was paged, but he wasn't there yet. My nurse was amazing and helped me through everything. I pushed so well that at 4:30, I pushed him out. The resident doctor was the one to catch him as my doctor walked into the room!
       The placed sweet Elijah on my chest as they delivered the placenta and got me cleaned up! I got an hour or so of just holding my sweet baby! Skin to skin was amazing and it was a blessing to just hold him! After an hour, they took him and he was 8 lbs, 8 ozs and 21 inches long. Big baby! Travis and I stared at him in amazement and aww. This was our miracle. We were sooo blessed beyond words.

   

       The Labor and Delivery got busy! A lady right after me gave birth, so we were left alone for a while. I felt bad because Travis' family were waiting to come see Elijah all day, but I wanted to get up and take a shower before they came. I couldn't get up until they had 2 nurses come and help me. Since they were sooo busy, I decided to let them come even before my shower. They came in and held and awwed over Elijah. I was tired and honestly couldn't wait to just sleep! When they left, I was able to take a shower and feel human again.
      Travis was exhausted as well(for what I'm not sure) and he had to take care of our puppies. He went home and I was alone! Travis texted me when he got home and said he missed me and Elijah! Apparently, it hadn't sunk in until he got home that Elijah was really here. He said it felt like he was holding someone's baby, but now it did. He is a father!
      The first night wasn't bad except Eli didn't want to sleep! He never took a nap after his birth and was up until 11:30. Finally I asked a nurse if she could take him for a few hours so I could sleep. I woke up periodically and she never brought him. At 5, I got worried and called. Apparently, he never woke up so they left him there! I was thankful for that, as I got about 5 hours of sleep. Unfortunately, it started our struggle with breastfeeding. I'll get to that in another post.