Elias’s Birth Story

As of right now, Elias is just 6 hours and 10 minutes old, and he’s spent most of that time asleep. (Fingers crossed that his early sleepiness bodes well for good sleep habits later on!)

Sona had been having irregular contractions for several days, but they became more regular on Sunday night, and she contracted every 7-8 minutes all day on Sunday.

Still, when things didn’t seem to be progressing quickly, she decided to go to work yesterday morning. After talking with her OB, though, she scheduled a mid-day appointment to check on the size of the baby, as there was some concern about him getting too large for delivery. (Finn got stuck for quite a bit.)

Sona was so convinced that she was in labor that we approached the OB appointment like the real deal, getting the house ready, loading the car with our hospital bags, and dropping off Sona’s car to our long-time babysitter, who would be responsible for bringing Finn home from school. We also told my mom, Mimi, to get on an airplane.

The OB agreed and, after seeing that Sona was steadily contracting and that her water was so close to bursting that our OB was fearful she’d break the bag by checking dilation, she told us to go across the street and check into labor and delivery–we were having a baby!

We checked in at around 2:30 and immediately got placed into a room. They hooked Sona up to monitors and, not long after, the on-call OB came in to game-plan. Sona was steadily contracting, but the contractions weren’t as regular as they would have liked. Still, the fact that the water was about to break any second (which the on-call doc confirmed, too) and the fact that there were already concerns about baby getting too big was enough to convince the doctor to move forward with labor. She mentioned starting Pitocin, but we decided to hold off.

At around 7:00, Sona went ahead and got her epidural and, because it became clear that contractions weren’t progressing quickly enough, and we decided to go ahead and start Pitocin not long after. Luckily, Sona never really experienced any extreme discomfort. We expected that the water would break quickly, per the doctors’ warnings, and we didn’t want to be in the position of not having time to do an epidural before pushing, so we took the doc’s advice and did it early enough to curtail any discomfort.

The waiting was tough, but the labor wasn’t particularly bad. Once again, Sona never made a peep. Honestly, if you watched the whole thing, you wouldn’t even know that she felt one second of discomfort. She was a total champ.

Luckily, we got to sleep from around 10:00-3:00. At that point, the baby’s heart rate became slightly irregular, and there were a few tense moments when you could tell that the doctor was debating whether or not to take action. Luckily, Elias rallied, and, at 3:30, Sona started pushing.

The whole process was so quiet, calm, and peaceful. I held her leg, took pictures when I could, and did my best to make sure she was okay. I kept thinking, “Are we really having a baby right now?”

Once again, like Finn, Elias’s shoulders had a hard time coming through Sona’s pelvis, but they found their way at 4:03, and he was born pink and screaming–unlike Finn, who was blue and had to be resuscitated.

The docs wanted to get him straight into the hands of the pediatricians, as they were still a little concerned about how much his heart-rate dipped. They cut the cord quickly and whisked him into the little neonatal room adjacent to the birthing suite, where we watched as they checked every finger and toe. Meanwhile, Sona didn’t have a single bead of sweat on her.

After a bit of assessment, they declared Elias healthy and CHUNKY–8.12 pounds and 22”. He’s a big, big boy! He had some limited movement in his left arm, which they think is likely due to his shoulder getting slightly stuck; it already seems to be improving.

Mommy and baby are happy and healthy, and we all feel–for now–surprisingly well-rested. Our little chunky nugget is starting to squirm, and I want to go scoop him up.

I’m so proud of my wife, who is a beast, and I’m so in love with our little piglet. I can’t wait until he meets his big brother. I’ve already told him how much they will love each other–and how much we love them both.