He was born exactly 2 weeks early on
Sunday March 17th.
So to say we weren't quite ready would be true.
The adventure began the Thursday before his birth. We had tentatively planned to go the the North Dakota Homeschool Conference in Grand Forks as long as I was feeling up to the trip. When Thursday rolled around and we had the van packed, all was well on the home front. I was feeling well with no noteworthy contractions so we all loaded into the van after Nathan got off work and headed for Grand Forks. Surprise... 30 minuted into our trip I started having some pretty consistent contractions. We debated turning around and laughed about possibly having the baby in Grand Forks when we decided to keep going. Thankfully once we arrived at the convention, got our room and went to walk around the used book sale things settled down quite a bit.
Thursday night had me waking up to a few somewhat painful contractions randomly throughout the night.
Friday things calmed down again throughout the day and we enjoyed going to sessions at the conference and seeing friends.
Then Friday night came and I started bleeding. Throughout the night I was once again woken up by some painful contractions but only about 1 an hour. We then decided it would be best to head home Saturday afternoon after the conference was over instead of hanging out until Sunday with everything going on. Also, there had been a storm the day before that had dumped some snow and a blizzard was coming in on Sunday so for the sake of safe roads to drive on it was another good reason to leave that Saturday.
We made it home Saturday evening and unpacked a little. Saturday night was filled with more painful contractions that would come about once an hour. And on Sunday morning when I woke up I had passed my mucus plug. Up till this point I had also been bleeding a little so we knew things could potentially happen sooner than later.
Sunday we pulled out all our baby items like the car seat and swing and I decided to throw together a bag of clothes for the kids in case we needed to head to the hospital within the next week or so. And I transferred some of my bathroom items from one suitcase to another to have ready for my hospital stay. I had minimal to no contractions most of the day Sunday and as the afternoon came upon us so did the snow and the beginning of another winter storm.
Early that evening I started to have a couple random contractions and finally around 8 pm I started writing the times down. During the 8 o'clock hour here's what my contractions looked like: 8:16, 8:29, 8:38, 8:45, 8:48, 8:52, 8:57, 9:06. Nothing consistent but by this time they were getting painful.
By then there was a No Travel Advisory on all our roads along with blizzard conditions and a fair amount of snow that had already fallen. Of course baby would chose now to decide it was time to be born!
My dilemma was the fact that my contractions, although getting closer together and painful, were by no means consistent. I didn't want to take the chance of driving me and my family out into that storm only to be sent home from the hospital for not really being in labor.
In the end we decided we better head in to the hospital. We got the kids up from bed and threw everything into the van, dropped them off at the Paulsons house a couple miles down the road from us and began our slow 15 mile drive to the hospital in the storm. Thankfully a semi had recently traveled the road in front of us and made a path on the road just visible enough for us. And praise be to the Lord, we made it to the hospital safe and sound.
We checked in around 10 pm Sunday night and found that I was already dilated to a 5 or 6. The nurse called the doctor on call and she came in and decided to break my water knowing that things would progress quickly from there. And that is exactly what happened. Within an hour of her breaking my water I was ready to push. And within pushing through two contractions baby Elijah joined the world, a healthy beautiful baby boy!
At two weeks early he weighed in at 8 lbs. 7 oz, tying with McKenzie for our smallest baby. But boy oh boy, not really a small baby. I hate to think how big he would have been had he made it to his due date.
As soon as he was born I held him and fed him while Nathan cut the cord and eventually all three of us headed to the nursery while they finished measuring him and washed him up. Then we enjoyed snuggling and holding our precious little boy that night.
It was quite the adventure and entrance into this world for baby Elijah. And we can only continue to praise the Lord that he was born whole and healthy with no complications.
And I can hardly believe that he is already one week old!
