Bumpdate No More! Say Hello to Elliott Brooks!

Today is our baby’s due date! However, Elliott decided to bless us with his presence 19 days early, so we’ve been enjoying him ever since!  Some days it’s still hard to believe I’m no longer pregnant, having to fit into yucky maternity clothes and not being able to eat certain foods.  I literally had the best pregnancy I ever could have imagined, and I honestly can’t believe it’s already over and we have our little one in our arms!

There’s so many things I want to write about that’s pregnancy related, so hopefully I’ll get to it soon enough, but I figured a post to introduce Elliott is much needed since I’ve been blogging about my pregnancy throughout the last several months.

Elliott Brooks was born at 37 weeks 2 days on April 12th at 1:22pm.  He weighed 5 pounds 11 ounces and was 18 inches long.

His entrance into our world is definitely one for the books!  Throughout my pregnancy, I really didn’t take many photos of my growing belly.  I always thought I would, but every week would just tick by without another photo taken, so I knew more than anything I really needed to take some maternity photos to capture the final days before he made his grand arrival.

I love photography as you know, but paying someone to take photos for me always makes me squirm a little bit.  Of course, I can’t take my own, but I can bug my mom to capture some moments for me, so that’s what I planned this time, but I kept putting the photos off.  We were supposed to take some on Easter Sunday, but I got tired and full (hello too much food), so I said we could do it another day.

We were running out of time, so I decided on April 11th since the weather was supposed to be very nice and my mom was game.  I told Jacob I wanted him to take them with me, and I wanted to dress up.  We don’t dress up much, but I wanted to have some nice photos to remember this time in our lives when things were about to change forever.  I bought a dress from Amazon and Jacob wore his suit and off we went to take some maternity photos!

We took them in my mom’s neighborhood which was perfect!  There’s lots of wooded areas, but the sun’s rays beam through the trees, so I thought we had an ideal location.  We also planned to take some photos near a pond in the neighborhood as well, but we started out in the woods first.

 

I think we took photos for around 45 minutes or so before chaos ensued.  We were getting ready to pack up to venture off to our new location near the pond and well… my water broke!!  It was the craziest thing I’ve ever experienced.  At first, I was like, “oh my gosh, did I just pee myself?”  And then all of the sudden I realized my water broke because I couldn’t make it stop gushing out.  It was incredibly warm, ran down my legs non-stop, and of course, my mom captured the moment perfectly.  😉

At first, I started laughing…

and then fear came over me like I’ve never experienced before.  This was my genuine reaction when I realized what was happening.

All I could think was, “Oh no, I’m not ready.”  I know I did not say those words out loud, but it just kept running through my head over and over… “I’m not ready.”

For weeks, I kept telling people I thought he was coming early, and I even got a bit mad at Jacob that day because he went out of town for a work meeting.  I was so worried he would be out at work and unable to answer his phone when it was time, so going out of town made me a bit upset.  I had actually been quite grumpy all day that day and even googled, “Is being grumpy a sign labor is near?”  True story.  I really did google it, and Jacob saw it on my phone later, so he did a screenshot of it to mark the memory.  HA!

Once my water broke, we hurried home to grab our bags and change out of our clothes.  Side note: when we took our childbirth class, the instructor told us about how some ladies show up at the hospital with their hair all curled and fresh makeup on and how it’s so not practical… yada yada yada.  Well, because we were taking photos when my water broke, that’s exactly how I showed up to the hospital.  My hair was curled, and I was wearing way more makeup than I wear on a normal day, so of course, I felt the need to tell everyone I encountered that we were taking photos when my water broke.  HA!  My doctor even commented on my makeup.  LOL!

Anyways, if you’ve never experienced your water breaking, let me just tell you that it does not stop flowing.  It was seriously so frustrating because there was nothing I could do to make it stop gushing out.  We just had our wood floors laid in our house, so I was trying so hard not to ruin them, but it was quite the challenge because it just kept gushing out.

We made it to the hospital around 7:30pm and headed straight for the early labor department.  The nurse took a sample of the fluid and confirmed that my water broke.  They hooked me up to some machines, and about an hour later, I was taken to my room.  I was only dilated about 3cm, so I had a ways to go before it was time to push.  My doctor came in late that night and said I could have the epidural at any time since the baby was definitely coming out.

Throughout my entire pregnancy, I never really felt that pregnant.  Luckily, I never felt very miserable or like I was so tired of being pregnant.  I had one Braxton Hicks contraction that I knew about because it woke me up at 3am, but I never really felt any others.  Once I was in the hospital, I still had a hard time feeling the contractions.  I would ask Jacob all the time if it was showing one on the monitor, but to be honest, they really didn’t bother me that much.  Either they weren’t that strong or I’m just one tough cookie.  I’ve never really experience much pain in my life, so I really wasn’t sure how I would handle the contractions, but luckily, they really weren’t that painful for me.

My night nurse was really great.  She checked on me every hour or so, and I still wasn’t dilated any more.  I wanted to wait to have the epidural until I needed it or felt like things were finally progressing, but around 6am, I decided to just go ahead and ask for it before things got too painful or just in case things progressed really fast and I wouldn’t be able to have it at all.

Getting the epidural was probably the scariest and most painful part for me to be honest.  The initial burn from it was nothing like I thought it would feel like, and I definitely moved a bit when he was doing it even though they said not to, but I managed to deal with the pain, and then it was over.

After I had the epidural, things felt weird.  I couldn’t feel my 600 pound legs, which was normal, but my chest felt a little funny, so we called him back in and they adjusted the levels a bit (I’m so technical here, I know).  Anyways, my doctor came to check on me around 10:30am, and still nothing had changed.  I started feeling very emotional and even cried a little because I was frustrated that it was taking so long to get to 10 cm.  I was only about 4-5 cm dilated, and I was starting to get worried that I would have to have a c section because it wasn’t progressing fast enough… but of course, my body decided to do things how it wanted and when my doctor checked on me at 12:30pm, he said I was 10 cm and we would start pushing soon because his head was right there!  So I went from 5 cm to 10 cm in just 2 hours.  My doctor assured me I would not be having a huge baby, which was always a worry for me since Jacob weighed over 11 pounds when he was born!

After the doctor left, my nurse came in and started getting things set up.  I started pushing just before 1pm, and at 1:22pm, our little boy entered this world.  I did not feel any pain or any pressure while pushing, and I seriously could not feel myself pushing at all.  I remember at one point my doctor said my pushes were only about 25% effective, but I couldn’t tell I wasn’t doing much.  Once I changed my hand positions, it definitely helped and Elliott made his arrival.  My doctor told me to look, and I said, “no.”  But he insisted, and there he was!  Our little boy was here, and I didn’t even know because I couldn’t feel a single thing!

They briefly put him on my chest, and I could tell instantly that something was wrong.  He was very purple.  They took him away and started working on him and about 10 people came flooding into my room.  Apparently, they called for the NICU, but I didn’t hear it.  No one was saying anything, and I had no idea what was going on, but I knew something was wrong.  I just stared at everyone rushing around, and I remember my doctor telling me that everything was okay, but I didn’t believe him because why would there be so many people rushing into our room, and why was our baby purple?

After a few minutes, all was well and I got to hold Elliott for the first time.  He was breathing and his color looked normal.  It was by far the scariest 5 minutes or so of my life, but thankfully, he’s perfectly happy and healthy it seems!  He just had a bit of trouble transitioning to the outside world at first.

I’m very glad I got the epidural because I’m not sure I would have been able to handle the pain from a natural birth; however, I felt very out of it and not very emotional.  It was a really weird feeling.  I have photos of holding Elliott from the first time, and I just have no emotion whatsoever.  I also can’t really remember much about the delivery, but I guess all that matters is that he’s here and he’s healthy and we can’t imagine life without him now.

During our hospital stay, Elliott was checked for jaundice, and he was right near the bubble, so our pediatrician asked us to come in that Monday (2 days after being discharged) to double check his bilirubin.  Unfortunately, the doctor said he had jaundice, so we were admitted to the hospital, and he was treated for 24 hours.

This photo of him is so adorable, but that 24 hour stay shook me up quite a bit.  I’m so glad we were able to get out of there after just 1 night because that was so not fun for these newbie parents.

Things have been going pretty well since our jaundice hospital stay.  We are definitely adjusting to being parents and the late night feedings are so hard (and exhausting), but for the most part, he’s a really good baby!

Elliott was quite small when he was born but has since been growing like crazy!  He’s probably gained almost a pound already, and he’s not even 3 weeks new yet.  Of course, we think he’s the cutest baby ever and love him to pieces!  I used to always say, “I hope he’s cute” and everyone would always say that I’m going to think he’s cute because he’s ours, but honestly, he really is SO cute and totally did not look like a baby alien when he first arrived!  😉

He’s already changed so much in just the short amount of time that he’s been here, but he’s just getting cuter by the minute if I say so myself.  😉  I can’t wait to celebrate all of the milestones, big and small, with our little guy!  We are so blessed to be his parents!

I’ll be sharing some posts about pregnancy things I really enjoyed, what I included in my hospital bag, as well as things that helped in my recovery, so be on the lookout for those soon.  Until then, I’ll be getting in lots of snuggles and hopefully many naps.  😉