Elah

I don't remember much after they took her.  I was in severe pain from the blood clots filling up my insides...the removal was the worst pain I have ever felt...i lost my voice from screaming as the doctor removed them with her hand in 10 second intervals.  I was very tired, not only from not sleeping all night but from losing 1/2 of my body's blood.  They were going to do a  blood transfusion but I refused. This left me very weak, suffering bad headaches.  I was able to stay in the mother baby unit for 5 days, wh/was a blessing b/c the nurses take care of you and it made it easier to pump every 2 hours.  And they would push me in a wheel chair to see Elah in the NICU wh/was on the floor above me.  


I wasn't aloud to touch Elah for 5 days b/c they had her on a full body hypothermic treatment.  She was very out of it, they said that she never opened her eyes and never made any sounds.  I felt very special b/c the ONLY time she EVER opened her eyes was when I visited her.  EVERY single time I went up to her she cracked open those eyes, the nurses were amazed.  

my first time holding her

My first time picking her up/touching her!!

Elahs Birth

The birth of my daughter: Elah

November 4th, I was 40 weeks and 5 days pregnant, I decided to have a day of shopping and running errands. All day I felt the contractions, 15-20 minutes apart. I also decided to sew up some curtains for the living room :). By dinner time the contractions were getting closer together. I was on the phone with my mother (around 5:30pm) when I thought I felt my water break. I ran to the bath room, but it was a gush of blood, odd. We called the mid wife and she said it was normal. I continued to bleed for the rest of the night...this should have been my sign that things would not be as they were with the birth of my son.

Around midnight my contractions were 5-8 minutes apart, growing stronger every hour. At 4am I was ready to go in to the hospital. I was nervous that Elah would come quickly since my first labor was so short. When we got to the hospital I found out that I was only dialated to a 4. After they checked me I then got strapped to the stupid monitor for 30 min, and then again after that. That really slowed down my labor b/c I had to be in the bed.

Once I could leave the bed my contractions started getting stronger again. Andrew was right beside me helping me cope with the pain, and Jaben was also in the room. At 8 am a friend came to get jaben and take him home for a nap(at his request). Also around that time my friend from church came to help me follow the bradley method of natural birth. Amazing! I went from horribly painful contractions to hardly feeling them when she guided me through the breathing technique and the relaxation.

Around 10am I was ready to push. I was on the toilet (my favorite spot for both of my labors) when I felt her head so close to appearing. So I walked out of the bathroom (that is the greatest feeling, the head right there, so crazy) and knelt down on my knees with my hands on the birthing ball, that wasn't working for me, so I sat on the birthing stool and with a few good pushes out she came(11:13am on 11/5/11, 7lbs 7oz, 22inches), I saw her slip right out of the mid wife's hands all purple and blue not moving or making any sound. I didn't realize what was happening. The midwife picked her up and put her in my arms and said "hold your baby" and she ran off. Elah was still purple and blue, no movement or sound, and so heavy. I heard the nurse counting the minutes, "1 minute........2 minutes........3 minutes", then in rushed 20 people, the midwife had called Code Blue and the NICU team came quickly. They took Elah and tried to get her to breathe, unsuccessful, they then put the tube down her throat and started her on the oxygen machine and took her away to the NICU. I still didn't know what was going on.