Our Birth Story...Half a year later The End

It's nearly impossible to sleep in a hospital after giving birth.  You're beyond exhausted and just want to sleep, but there's someone coming in to check on you all the time.  Add the fact that I was overly anxious about what was happening to me and I was going on 48 hours without sleep.

As soon as Dustin woke up, I knew I wanted to go see my baby.  So, we got the wheelchair and Dustin wheeled me down to the nursery.  It felt strange having to ring a doorbell to see my baby.  The upside was that he was the best off baby in that nursery.  There were parents there, who would be returning to that nursery for weeks; I knew Elijah wouldn't be there that long.  This is one of my favorite pictures from that morning.

Wide awake!

 Upon returning to my room, my nurse came by to tell me that the doctor on call would be coming by to examine me; she thought something more had to be done about my situation and soon.  My stomach sunk; I thought I would wake up and everything would be better.  Finally, the doctor came into my room and presented me with my only option: surgery.  They would need to go in and get the placenta out in order to prevent further bleeding.  I felt like I was going to throw up.  I'm sure any woman wouldn't want to have surgery after just giving birth.  The doctor told me to pray about it, but really, I had no choice.  

Anyway, without going into much detail, I ended up passing the placenta naturally, shortly after speaking to the doctor.  You should have seen the look on the nurses' faces when I told them what happened.  One of the nurses told me that in the 30 years of working in labor/delivery/postpartum care, she had NEVER seen something like that happen. (I'm so happy I could give her that experience..haha).  It was a complete turning point; my bleeding slowed down and I felt 100 times better!

We ended up getting kicked out of the hospital late Saturday night.  Leaving the hospital without your baby is one of the most depressing things ever.  You go in thinking that you're going to have your baby and walk out a day or two later with your baby in hand.  

I never imagined that Elijah's birth story would be so dramatic.  But, I've come to accept that it was what it was and both he and I were in excellent hands the entire time.  It's my hope that if we are blessed with another child, I will get that opportunity to have a "normal", uneventful pregnancy and birth.  But, he was and is completely worth every minute of it.....

Elijah's baptism, July 14, 2012