A Year Ago Today

A year ago today I met the most important person in my life. I don't know what I ever did before him.  By this time, he was almost 6 hours old. Let's take a trip down memory lane...shall we?

I had a pretty picture perfect pregnancy, up until about 35 weeks. That's when my blood pressure went all wonky.  I was having some stress at work and it had been like super hot weather wise so I was having trouble with swelling. I could tell that my blood pressure was up. I had a cuff at home so I took a reading and it cane back at 150/100. This caused concern with my doctor so she sent me to labor & delivery for observation. I was able to relax enough to get it back in line and get sent home, but my doctor pretty much warned that I wouldn't be making it past 37 weeks. The only thing that cures gestational hypertension is delivery. She ordered an ultrasound at 36 weeks and E came back measuring small, approximately 4 lb 13 oz is what they came up with. Dr. Morgan was concerned that he wasn't able to grow anymore in the womb because of my blood pressure not allowing him to reveive nutrients. So, her plan was to induce me when I got to 37 weeks. That week, I tried to do anything I could do to get E to come on his own. I really wanted to do natural birth and I didn't want to be induced. I did acupuncture, walking, red raspberry tea, spicy food...other stuff that's probably tmi so I won't share...but at 36w 6d I had my last dr appointment that ended up with being admitted to labor & delivery. I purposely hadn't brought my labor bag because I wanted to have time to digest the fact that my baby was going to be born the following day. Plus I wanted to enjoy a really good meal that would last me for a while. We went home, I had a pulled pork sandwich and off we went. Glenn had to work that night and we decided he should just  work since my mom was there and I was just going to be in bed with a cervix softener for 12 hours.

Off to the hospital we went. We got there around 7pm, Glenn stayed with me until I was admitted and had my i.v. started. He came back at 7am after his shift and I was given Pitocin to induce labor at 9am. By 12, not too much was happening so my doctor broke my water. That's when things started rocking and rolling. Labor is no joke, but I really didn't want to get an epidural, so I didn't. My little man was positioned to the left instead of face down so I was having horrible back labor.  Also, the air conditioning in my room was broken. By about 5pm I was dialated to a 7 and they wheeled the little baby bed in the room. That was my motivation, to get the baby out of me and into that bed. I only pushed for about 30 mins, not bad for a first time mom. And there he was...my little guy, Eliseo William.

I'll never forget the feeling of his slimy little body being laid down on my chest. I always knew there was a baby in the belly, but this was the first real connection that he was really a baby. He was a perfect little man 5 lb 8oz and 18.5". 5/1/12 at 6:02pm.

He turned 1 today and we had a great day at the zoo with his grandmothers.  I'll post more pictures of that later. For today, its all about remembering when...