I had been on bed rest since late September trying to delay The Boy's arrival, and as my Mother loves to point out, at 32 weeks when the doctor gave me a little free reign to move from the bed to the couch and so on, I pushed a little too much.
I woke up early in the morning with some pain. I didn't think anything of it because Eli had been feet down the entire pregnancy so I just thought it was him kicking down on me as usual. I had an appointment that morning with my OBGYN, so I just decided to wait it out and mention it to the doctor.
At the appointment the doctor did a brief exam, checking Eli's heart rate, etc., we then went into his office and the doctor just kept looking at me. Finally he told Ben, "You need to take her to the hospital.....she just doesn't look right."
So off to the hospital we went. I had one pretty bad pain on the way there, but nothing that made me think I was in labor. After arriving at the hospital they put all the monitors on me and we waited for the doctor to arrive. After about maybe thirty minutes, the doctor walked in, checked me.....then he stood up, walked over to me head, gently padded my arm and said, "You're about 8 cm dilated and I can feel the bag and the baby's feet. We have to take the baby now." At that moment I am positive my heart stopped beating. I was in shock, but there was no time for any of that because the entire staff surrounded me like a nascar pit crew preparing everything for my c-section. I don't remember a lot about those moments, but my husband says it was the worst 15 minutes of his life. And that's all it took. They had Eli out in about 15 minutes.
The rest of the day is a blur since I was recovering from the drugs. I don't remember seeing Eli until the next day.
He was so tiny. He weighed in at 4 lbs 9 oz, and was actually pretty healthy considering he was a 7 weeks premature white boy. He didn't even need oxygen.
Eli was the sweetest baby. He slept...a lot. He rarely opened his eyes, and barely cried.
He lost a bit of weight while in the NICU. His biggest issue was that he wouldn't demand he was hungry. He never cried to let the nurses know he needed to be fed, so they continued feeding him on a regular schedule.
He was in the NICU for 15 days.
And when he came home he was eating every 3 hours.....let's just say it was exhausting.
For the first few months of his life, well, probably about the first 4 months. He slept and ate. That was it. There was very little opening of his eyes, and he never looked at your face.
It worried me. Badly.
But eventually, around 5 months, I started to see some "normal baby" behavior.
It seemed that once he got some meat on his bones, he was good to go. My heart felt so much lighter.
And let me tell you....that boy is a blessing. He's sweet and lovable, and no one loves me like my Boy.
Going through all of these old pictures has brought back so many happy memories. I may have to do a few more Memories posts.
Till then,
Mandy
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