Strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow,

This line from Great is Thy Faithfulness is a perfect way to describe how God sustained us during my pregnancy with Eli.  It was day by day.  We were still hurting so much after losing Abigail.

I fell early in the pregnancy.  We're in New England, and icy steps come with winter months.  I slipped when I was around 6-8 weeks along.  I was hysterical.  Absolutely paralyzed with fear.  Steve and my mom got me into the house, and all I could do sob, "What if we lose the baby?  What if we lose the baby?"  Thankfully, everything was fine.

This pregnancy started very differently in that I didn't tell a lot of people that a new baby was on the way.  I really think that, as much as I was happy to be pregnant, I didn't immediately "bond" with the baby.  I really was so scared that something would happen.  I remember a friend asking me point-blank if I was pregnant (I must have been just under 3 months along), and I lied to her face.   I just wasn't ready to deal with other people knowing.

The pregnancy wasn't technically high-risk, and I was back with my original ob/gyn.  By this time, we had gotten the autopsy report for Abigail, and there were no genetic issues.  She died because of a fluke birth defect. (I don't know if that made us feel better or not.   On one hand, we felt so helpless knowing there was nothing that could have prevented her defect.  On the other hand, knowing that there wasn't anything specific that caused it was comforting?, I guess.)  We did have to go see a genetic counselor (Oh, I forgot to mention this before, but they offered us an abortion when we found out that Abby had the hernia--we said, NO thank you!), who explained the "doesn't make sense to me" aspect of birth defects: normally there's a very small chance of a diaphragmatic hernia, but since it had happened once, our chances were greater that it could happen again.  That makes no sense to me, because if it's not caused by something genetic, the fact that it happened once should mean that our chances go down, because it has already happened! Clear as mud?

Our Level 2 ultrasound, to make sure that the baby was healthy, was scheduled for May 22, 2006.  I had a very strong feeling that the baby was a boy, and I had a name picked out: Eli Joseph.  I was still working on Steve!

Finding out at 23 weeks about Abby's birth defect, we never had a baby shower for her.  We figured that once she was born, she'd be in the hospital for a while, and we'd have time to do one then.  So we really had nothing for the new baby.

I took a huge leap of faith during this time (this was prior to the ultrasound).  I mean a Peter-getting-out-of-the-boat-to-walk-to-Jesus leap of faith.  I bought birth announcements.  That's right--before we knew if the baby was healthy or not.  Those $1.50 birth announcements may not seem like a big deal to you, but trust me--just holding them in my hand was emotional.  Actually slapping down some cash was kin to saying, "Okay, God, I'm trusting you to bless us!"

Mother's Day came and went.  So, so difficult. Steve and I visited the cemetery.  A few people gave me cards, but I was stuck in this weird limbo of kind of a mother/not quite a mother?  To this day, I say that Abigail is the baby who made me a mother, but Eli is the baby who made me a mom.  My friend Tim brought me flowers--I will never forget that gesture of kindness.  It meant the world to me.

On the ride to the ultrasound, I remember holding Steve's hand and asking him, "What do we do if this baby dies, too?"  I just cannot ever remember being so scared.

There we were, dark room, hmmm'ing technician, very full bladder....and a very healthy looking baby boy!!!  I was sobbing with relief!  And Steve agreed to name the baby Eli Joseph! (I will mention here that I have actually named all 4 of our children, and then just said the names until Steve liked them! LOL)

Our due date was October 7.  Now, remember me mentioning that Abigail was born 8 weeks early?  And that she was 5 lbs. 1 oz.?  Let's do the math, shall we?  If a baby gains an average of 1/2 pound per week for the last 2 months of a pregnancy, how much would Abby have weighed on her due date?  That's right (you smart homeschoolers!)...9 lbs.  It would not be exaggerating to say that this concerned me a bit.  I tried to play the "how much do you think the baby will weigh" game with my doctor, but he just wouldn't indulge me.  I continued to be a bit concerned!

My mom threw a wonderful baby shower for me at the end of August of that year.  We were decorating Eli's room in a Disney Pooh motif--everything we got had Pooh on it!  We were so blessed by our friends & family!

I have to mention here that my mom's cousin's wife (following me?) was at the shower, and was pregnant also.  We ended up having our sons on the exact same day!  I mention this because I have a picture of the two of us, and she has this tiny little belly and I look like a beached whale next to her! LOL  I was HUGE!

All this time, I was working 4 hours/day at my temp job.  Ah, to work 4 hours/day, and then get to take a nap! LOL

One thing we didn't do was take birthing classes.  We had taken those while pregnant with Abigail, and I think I figured that, hey, it was less than a year ago, I couldn't have forgotten that much, right?  Also, I forgot to mention in the previous post how traumatic those classes were.  Not in and of themselves, but on the night when you watch videos of different births, the sight of those mothers getting to hold their newborns and knowing that I wouldn't have that experience with Abby was awful.  I ended up in the ladies' room sobbing my heart out.  Just that general feeling of "different-ness" with all of the other couples who were having healthy babies was very difficult.

Being the naive young thing that I was (back in the day), I believed that a due date meant something. (Go ahead, have your laugh!)  Eagerly, I checked off the days until October 7th.  And. Then. Nothing.  I am convinced that there is nothing so depressing as going to sleep on your due date, still pregnant.

I was still concerned about this (I was convinced) very big baby.  More precisely, how this very big baby was going to come out of me.  Add that to the anxiety I was feeling about giving birth for the 2nd time in less than a year (with hopefully a much happier outcome), and my doctor had one very whiny patient.  He agreed, mostly to shut me up, I'm sure, to induce on October 11th if I hadn't already had the baby.

October 11th.  Date sound familiar?  It's the date when I originally went into labor with Abigail.  *Twilight Zone Music*

I'll skip the mundane details of this labor story.  In short, my water was broken, Pitocin was hooked up, Demerol was administered, and then the largest episiotomy this side of the Mississippi was cut, a suction cup was put on Eli's head to help him out, and he was born!!!

Ten pounds, one oz.  Five pounds bigger than Abigail.  Double the size.  Ouch.

My doctor's face was white.  He had NOT expected such a large baby.  I had, but it was hard to be smug while in so much pain. LOL

It's hard to put into words what we felt.  Joy for sure, relief definitely.  Terror--we were finally experiencing the "you're going to let us take him home-we have no idea how to care for this child" feeling.  Feeling like I would never let Eli go (I got over this fast once the adrenaline had worn off! LOL). I remember wanting to just hug him so tight, but being afraid to squish him (thank goodness he was so big!).  My mom swears that when she came into the delivery room, he lifted his head up to look at her.  She was like, "That 3 month old?  That's the baby you just had?"    His "going home" outfit consisted of a newborn pajama-y thing with a cap.  I shoe-horned him into it for a picture--the hat kept popping off that big noggin of his!

And so we had our son.  Our healthy baby boy. Our "bubby" (he hates that nickname now! LOL)  And he is ten years old now.  We've had the blessing of having him in our lives for ten years.  God is so good and faithful.

Did having a healthy baby make everything okay?  No, and I'm planning on exploring that in my next post.  But it went a long way to healing our hearts and brought much joy into our home.