So now that our baby is now 2 months old, I am just getting to the introductory blog-post…..

Introducing Eliel Jadon…he was born on his due date – April 16th, 2009 at 9:57pm. His name is pronounced as such: Eh-lee-el Jay-din. Eliel is a Hebrew name meaning “my God is God” and it can be found numerous times in the Old Testament. Some key Eliel “Bible Characters” — one of David’s Mighty Men, a Temple Musician and a Levite Priest. When googling the name, we discovered that there was a Puerto Rican musician who is known for his reggae music — how funny is that? (I’m Puerto Rican and Damion is Jamaican!). Last, and we didn’t “mean/expect” this to happen” but Eliel is a combination of the “El ” from Ellen and the “iel” from my husband’s middle name, Nathaniel.

So here is his birth story….

Overall, it was an awesome pregnancy —– and though an intense labour, still very quick! Total labour time was a little under 3 hours. It never dawned on me that he would actually arrive on his due date (only 5% of babies are actually born on their due date!), so the night before, I couldn’t sleep due to the nesting factor and his moving around (some pretty serious movements and kicks) and cramps. Going to bed around 4am that morning, I woke up at 7:30am with “cramps” or was it contractions?! Never having known them before, I didn’t know if this was the “real thing” or not. We called the midwives and told them that the contractions were happening 5 mins apart every minute — which is a sign for the midwives to arrive bc that means that labour has started…..But as I was telling them this, the contractions went away. So the midwives said to hold on and just come in at my regularly scheduled 4pm appt that afternoon. At the midwives appt, I had 3 contractions in a row and so the midwives sent me home saying to call when they were 5 mins apart. Well, when we got home (after making a stop at D’s mom’s house), my contractions were 30 seconds apart. Really feeling the need to lay down, I proceeded upstairs and Damion was helping me. However, on the way, I stopped and said, “I’m going to puke. Get a bowl, quick. Real quick”. And Damion, putting his long legs to work, ran to the other side of the house to find a bowl. He said he felt like a hero for he got the biggest bowl we have and ran back and caught me just as I was about to let it rip. That’s love, for he held the bowl and I puked. (Later on, we laughed about it, for he asked, “what did you eat”?, for the vomit was this strange purple-y orange color and I explained the cheese crackers and cranberry juice your mom fed me……anyhow, probably too much information. Moving on. D called the midwife and said what was going on. Her response: “Yeah, I can hear Ellen in the background; I’m on my way”. And so we started to prepare for our home birth!

Within 45 mins, both the midwives and the doula (similar to a midwife) arrived and checked me out. To the midwives surprise, I was almost 9 centimeters dilated….which meant this baby was on his way, NOW! (I had wanted to do a nearly standing/incline position or use the yoga ball as a comfort measure, but upon standing up, this intensified the contraction and I kind of fell backward, the contraction was so strong). So when the midwife arrived, she found me laying perpendicular to the bed and half on/off the ball — Damion and Christina, the doula, had to explain why I was like that! After about 30 mins, my water broke and boy am I glad that this happened at home — for it really was a GUSH of water (I was told about a liter’s worth!). Anyhow, being “new” at all this, when my water broke, I nearly screamed for, to me, it felt like a balloon pop both inside and outside of me and I thought the baby richocheted out. But, nope, it was just the water. At this point, I had been on my side, labouring. So when my “river” broke, it gushed all behind me and up my back. The midwives saw that the waters had meconium (baby’s first bowel movement) and this concerned the midwives because usually babies have this bowel movement after they are delivered, not during or before — which could mean the baby was in distress (a possibility since the labour was progressing so quickly) or that the baby could have already ingested some of it or when labouring, could —  all which would obviously, be bad. So, they encouraged me to push. My “energy” for the contractions hadn’t kicked in yet, so the next two attempts weren’t enough to get him out without some serious tears etc. So we made the decision to go to the hospital— however, I was at the peak of my labour and contractions and oh yeah, he was already bearing down and trying to come through. In all honesty, it felt like the biggest poop you EVER had to take! The midwives called the ambulance. The second midwife was giving my information to the operator on the phone. I hadn’t worked with her directly yet so she didn’t know all my information and asked the head midwife “how old I was” in order to answer the operator. The first midwife said “she’s 30”…..you then hear me pipe up and say “one”. The room got quiet and then everyone laughed: at the peak of my labour and contraction, I corrected them that I was 31, not 30…:)

The ambulance arrived in about 2 mins and you know how bomb squads are: how efficient yet how “militaristic” they can be….well, upon their arrival, I was encouraged to try and push once more because it was so close, that there was a chance that I could have the baby in the ambulance (even if the hospital was about 1km/.5 mile away!)….So the room got quiet, I tried to push, and….it wasn’t enough yet. Then, it was like the 3 ambulance ppl were like “GO GO GO”….our house is 2 floors and bc they couldn’t bring the stretcher upstairs…I had to get dressed, go downstairs and on to the stretcher — all in between my 30 second contractions….so I was helped up, and wrapped below with a towel — very toga-like, given flip flops and had to hobble down the stairs, while it felt like I was holding a watermelon between my thighs! Another ER person met me downstairs with my robe and I was escorted outside. Now, outside were 2 ambulances (one for me and potentially one for the baby if he was delivered in the house) with their lights on (drawing ALL the attention in our neighborhood to our house) and also preventing traffic flow on a HIGH TOURIST street/cutthrough — and here I come, with my bottom toga, a meconium/brown stained shirt, flip flops and my pink hearts robe….yeah I was a sight for ppl! So I’m put on the stretcher and put in the ambulance. On the 1 min drive, I had another contraction, but was told to just breathe through them, otherwise the baby could come out.

In the delivery room, the baby was coming pretty quickly. When his head was crowning, I was encouraged to look down, see our baby and touch him — that was interesting….felt both weird, gooey and wonderful all at the same time. With three contractions, his head was through….but I have to stop right there and make a commentary about this “rim of fire” that I experienced. What a feeling! WOWZERS! For those that don’t know what this is, it’s when the biggest part of him – his head – is coming through and it just burns. Here, I think is where my energy came in and with three pushes, his head came through, and then his body. And then there were baby cries in the room. Damion cut the cord and the midwives/doctors suctioned him immediately just in case the whole meconium thing and then brought over our little one. He was definitely a long one (21in)..and his skin color was first blue and then eventually turned a pinky-white……and his hair was black and straight…..While holding Eliel, I delivered the placenta which was weird for it’s like a delivery that you aren’t part of — for it just blops out.

Still, it seems like a surreal experience — we can’t believe this happened a week ago! We go to the hospital and come back with a baby in less than three hours (I spend more time in Walmart shopping the sales..but this was the best deal I ever got!) — the ride home from the hospital, with an infant in the back in the car seat, was just, well…different and surreal. It’s really hard to explain.

The first week, though challenging and very, very new, has been completely amazing. We have definitely fallen in love with this little guy and have had so many laughs already. It’s amazing to see him changing and growing already. We’ve had some challenges already — because of the whole meconium thing, he was very mucus-y and this was affecting his eating. He refused to nurse and I couldn’t ever go to sleep, for what sounded like “potentially life-threatning” chokes, coughs and sounds coming out of my child! At best for nursing, we had to finger feed him: we put our pinky finger (with a little plastic tube attached to a bottle) in his mouth and he’d suck his milk that way. The midwives were great — they came every day trying to help us with nursing, checking on my stitches and checking on Eliel. Because of the nursing issue, he lost about a pound — most babies lose 10% of their weight the first couple of days..but he went down to 7.9lbs from 8.8. (Update: he’s gaining it back…even if I have to feel like a human milk machine for him to do it!)

But it’s all so worth it —- as I said, it’s only been a week, and already, I feel there are so many “moments” that I need to jot down so I don’t ever, ever forget them. Here are some of them:
* How he is starting to grin, just a little on one side
* How he sneezed, having breastmilk come out of his mouth and nose and how it even surprised him
* How he curls up his nose in “infant” boredom
* How he makes his mouth into a little “O” when alert and really interested into something
* How his little feet curl over each other and he gets back into fetal positon
* How it feels when we are skin-to-skin and he is laying on my chest, completely asleep

My, my…there are so many more….we just can’t stop looking at him and loving up on him!