Eden loves our neighbors. She tried to follow our neighbor Tanner over the back wall. She found the spot in the yard with the ungrounded chain-link fence panel and CRASH! After the shock of it all she was just fine until we noticed a “more than a scratch” wound on her head over her right ear. I got a call at work where Elisa told me that her head was gashed open but wasn’t bleeding. We decided to play it safe and went to urgent care. They glued her up and told us to keep it dry for 24 hours.

Don’t get me wrong, it was no walk in the park. Eden was scared. She kept asking for loves. And even when the doctor was out of the room, she stuck to me like a baby monkey. As soon as she knew they were finished, she was just fine again. She even said thank-you.

That evening before bed we were enjoying the cool evening weather on the porch. I was enjoying holding Alden, Chad was working on the playset and Eden was experimenting with dirt propulsion. Eden proved to be quite fascinated with throwing the dirt up in the air and letting it rain down on her. She was filthy! Then I realized it–I wasn’t supposed to get her head wet for another 18 hours or so! OOPS!

We did the best we could with a wet washcloth (her scalp was caked with dirt) and planned to throw jammies and her freshly cleaned sheets back in the wash after her night of sleep.

After sloshing to the hospital very early in the morning we were told that we had to hang out until the doctor came in to see if I could be discharged until I was ready for delivery. I had no contractions for the next few hours and was only 1.5cm when we met with the doctor around 8:30.

The doctor asked that we stay at the hospital. He didn’t even want us to leave the room, in fact. Apparently if the umbilical cord slipped out there would be only a 15 minute window to have our baby fully delivered before serious brain damage or death. Although it wasn’t likely that would happen the risk was not advisable. We unfortunately agreed.

Thus began being strapped up to monitors and IVs for the next several hours. The results for my tests from earlier in the week had not come back and likely would not over the holiday weekend So I was put on a Penicillin drip. It burns! We chose to take PIT to jump-start contractions since I was not progressing at all. SO I had an additional IV plus I had to be hooked up to monitors pretty much nonstop.

My hopes for another ambulatory labor and delivery were being quickly dashed. When I had only progressed to 3cm over the next 5 or so hours I decided to get an epidural. The labor had been pretty painless up until that point but I knew what was coming. Waiting for each painful contraction and not being able to do anything to work through them was not something I wanted to have to deal with. Sure enough after I got the epidural and before it kicked in I got a really strong contraction–one that made me just want to cry. I was so glad to have it as I watched my contractions rage every 90-120 seconds. I could tell they were big and I could tell they hurt even though I couldn’t totally feel them. I was pleasantly surprised at how I wasn’t totally paralyzed with the epidural.

The nurses planned to check my progress again after a shift change. About a half hour later I was a “good 7”. That was about 3:15 pm. They began to get things ready. I talked to our families and told them optimistically that I thought we would have a baby within two hours. (I overestimated by nearly two hours). I started to feel like I was ready to have our baby. The doctor was called. The nurses told me to wait. I had told them to tell me not to push to help ensure no tearing so I thought that was their reasoning for telling me to wait. But soon we figured out that they were afraid to deliver the baby without the doctor there, and that was their only reason for asking Elisa to wait. If I had realized that earlier, I would have just delivered the baby myself. Once the baby is crowning, it was so inconsiderate for Elisa to have to keep waiting. My body basically took over and Chad got to catch before the doctor arrived.

At 3:42 pm we had a very small 5 pound 5 ounce, 18.5 inch boy. Even though he is tiny, he is healthy. He looked strong. I thought I remembered Eden looking a lot more fragile when she was new. We haven’t had any concerns since the birth.

My first appointment with my new Midwife was great. We met on Wednesday June 30. She checked to see if I was progressing at all but I was still a long way off. Apparently the last time she had a women transfer over to her this late in pregnancy the woman had her baby that week. I also had a routine test done for bacteria. She was a little concerned that our baby was small for date so I was set up with an appointment the next day to get another ultrasound. I got a call from Lindsey, the midwife, on our drive up to Idaho Falls on Friday, letting us know the results. The ultrasound checked out just great.

I was surprised when my water broke the next morning at 3:45 am, the day of Chad’s big Puzzle Hunt and all the 4th of July festivities.