Surprise!

Ezekiel Solace Pike
born August 6, 2008 5:52pm

2lbs 2oz

13"

Ezekiel: God Strengthens

Solace: Comfort in times of distress

We had our baby! He is 3 months early, poor little guy. We're still unsure why he decided to come so early. He is doing very well. Here is the story...

I woke up wednesday morning around 3:30am with contractions about every 6 or 7 minutes. I didn't know what was going on as of course, it's not time yet! At 4am I got in the bathtub and stayed there an hour while Daniel went to pt (physical training). When he got home at 5 I was still in the tub and miserable. We looked in our pregnant books to see what was going on, thinking maybe braxton hicks, right? Once we realized that wasn't what it was, we decided to call our midwife, Joi. She said I could possibly be dehydrated (I had had the flu sunday and monday) and to drink as much water as I could in an hour... if I wasn't better by then she told me to go to the ER. Soooo I drank and drank and contractions got closer.... 6:45am we decided to go to the hospital. When we got there contractions were just a minute or two apart and we soon discovered I was already 6cm dialated (and not dehydrated at all). At this point they rushed me up to labor and delivery. They put me on drugs to slow down my contractions and to *hopefully* stop labor (at which point I would have been on bed rest in the hospital until the baby came... as long as 3 months.) The idea was to keep the baby inside me as long as possible so they could administer steroids to him which are needed to help him breathe once he is born. (As you can imagine I was very unhappy to have to take these drugs but my midwives assured me that the things they were giving me were absolutely necessary for Ezie to live.) They hoped to keep him in me up to 48 hours to give the drugs time to take effect. Well, after the drugs my contractions slowed down and I layed in bed all morning. At 2pm they checked and I was 8cm. At 4:45pm I was fully dialated, but my water still hadn't broken. Since they couldn't stop labor they took me to the birthing room to break my water and start pushing. After 20 minutes of pushing, Ezekiel was born. We were only able to touch his head briefly, as they needed to wisk him away to the NICU and make sure he would be ok. That was the hardest part, seeing him being carried out of the room right after birth. But it was necessary and I am glad they were able to help him. He is a strong little guy-- he cried when he was born! Most premies can't cry when they are this early- all the doctors and nurses were surprised. God is so good to us! Anyway, Daniel was able to go watch as they got him stabilized. I, of course, was still in the delivery room delivering placenta. (the placenta was amazing to look at. My midwife and the doctor both said I had a very large and healthy-looking placenta.) I felt soo soooo relieved once Ezie was born. All you women who have given birth know what I mean, I'm sure. I felt empty though... no more baby kicks. :( I really miss him being inside of me.

Today is Sunday so at 5:52 this afternoon he will be 4 days old. Yesterday they took him off the ventilator and hopefully today they will be able to start feeding him some breast milk. It's been a rough couple of days. We just got home from the hospital yesterday.

I'm sure many of you realize that we were planning to have a home birth, and this is not what we expected at all. But God has been so good to us in this whole experience. All of our doctors and nurses were very kind and very good at their job. No one tried to shove an epidural down my throat. No c-section, no episiotomy. Thank God! Overall our stay at the hospital was a great experience, and I really don't like going to the hospital. The only thing that really sucked was the IV in my arm. I am so thankful for hospitals and smart doctors in situations like this when they are really needed.

Now pictures!

This is the last picture of us before Ezie was born. Saturday, Aug. 2 @ camp sychar, under the tree where we met!

Ezie has to have this blue light on him to help with jaundice. To protect his eyes he has to wear a "batman mask".

Birthday and Anniversary

Today is July 22nd, which is two days after my 25th birthday and two days before our 4th wedding anniversary. We are still in KY but are getting ready to leave for Ohio/camp in the morning. We will get to spend our anniversary at Camp Sychar which is where we met and also where we got married. This will also be our first anniversary together! Yay! We are going to watch our wedding video which we have never seen.

I wish I could post pictures because I have been taking a lot on this trip. But alas you all will have to wait until we get back to Texas.

For my birthday my sister-in-law Jamie planned a surprise birthday party. I had no idea, which made it all the more fun. Party was attended by brothers-in-law, sisters-in-law, and a few close friends. And husband, of course... We had a nice time! I felt very loved and was blessed to be surrounded by people I care about on my birthday.

Today I am getting ready to leave with a lot of packing, laundry, cleaning-out-of-the-fridge, etc. Daniel is gone all day with his brother Josh to process chickens. They should be back soon, and we will all head up to whole foods to sample chicken for "tasty tuesday". I've got garlic-lime chicken in the crockpot right now.... hopefully it will turn out well.

The baby is doing well. I am getting huge-- I feel like a whale. My feet always hurt and now it's hard to bend over, shave legs, get out of squishy chairs, etc. And i know it will only get worse. I'm 25 weeks, about to start 26.... So I don't know if that technically counts as month 7 or not. Are you supposed to count months by groups of 4 weeks? Or by an actual full month? If it is by groups of 4 weeks then I am already in the 7th month. If it is by full months then I have 6 more days until the official start of month 7. It's all a little confusing, I think, since pregnancy is actually a bit more than 9 months. ANYWAY. I had better get back to my to-do list.