Ezekiel Elliott Rodriguez
Born August 31, 2015
6lb. 15oz. 20in.
Well, I am so excited to share that our precious baby Ezekiel was born, and we have been enjoying every last minute with him. It all started on Sunday morning, when I felt that I was having some false labor contractions. We went on with our day as usual, and went to church. At church I really started feeling the contractions regularly, about 8-10 mins apart. I got up and walked around for a while, but I started getting pretty uncomfortable, so Ezra suggested we go home and get me in the bath to help with the pain. I had terrible back pain- my contractions would start in my lower back and radiate around my hips. I took a long bath and that really helped with the pain, but the contractions were still regular. I called my doctor and was told that when the contractions are 5 minutes apart for two hours I should head to the hospital. So, I tried to sleep through the contractions and gain energy for delivery. A couple of hours later that contractions were right on the money- 5 minutes apart and getting pretty painful. Since I have never labored before, I couldn't imagine a worse pain, so we decided to head to the hospital!
On the way there Ezra asked me if I was afraid. I told him my biggest fear was being sent home because I was not dilated enough- I did not think I could make it through the night with these contractions. We got to the hospital and went directly to the triage, where the nurse hooked me up to the fetal monitor so we could watch Ezekiel's heart rate and measure my contractions. She checked me and I was only 2cm dilated. I was so discouraged. The doctor decided to have me walk around the hospital for an hour to see if I would make any progress. Ezra and I walked up and down the stairs, down the halls on each floor of the hospital, and I did some lunges and squats to try and get things moving! After an hour of that I was pretty exhausted, and I was just praying we would get admitted. So we went back to the room and the nurse checked me again- no change. I was still only 2cm dilated. The doctor sent us home and suggested I try to sleep through labor and see how I'm feeling in the morning. He told me that it could still be days before he came- and I was just praying that would not be the case!
We got home and I settled into bed. Thankfully I was able to sleep through many of the contractions. We woke up the next morning and I took another bath to relax, and soon the contractions began feeling stronger and stronger. The nurse at the hospital had told me that they would get so painful I would not be able to walk or talk through them. It was around 9:30am and I thought it was time, so we headed back to the hospital. The car ride was excruciating, but Ezra talked me through the contractions and helped the time to pass.
We got there and they checked me, I was 4.5 cm dilated and we could stay! I was so glad we would not have to walk around again or go home. I decided I wanted to labor in the tub for a while, so I sat in the warm water and breathed through each contraction. This really helped with my back labor. But, as soon as I heard I could get the epidural, I was out of that tub and into the bed! They gave me some narcotics before hand since I had to wait for the anesthesiologist, and that felt amazing. I could finally relax- and I even got to sleep and save my energy for pushing! However the narcotics only lasted about 45 minutes, and they wore off just before I got my epidural. But once I did I could not feel any pain at all. All I could think was, Epidural's are a gift from God!
After I got the epidural- sweet, sweet relief!
My amazing husband was so supportive :)
Things were still not progressing very much, so my doctor decided to break my water in order to get things moving. Once they did that, it was pretty much go time! I only labored for a little while longer before I was really feeling that I would have to push soon. The nurses were trying to get me to wait a little while for the doctor who would be delivering Ezekiel to get to the hospital, and he just barely made it. One nurse told me that most moms usually need about 1-2 hours of pushing. She taught me the technique, and we did some "practice" pushes- but she started to see his head! I only pushed for 20 minutes, and he was here! The nurses and doctors told me they were amazed by how fast I pushed him out. I like to think that I was determined to meet him after 30 long hours of labor.
Ezekiel was born at 39 weeks and 1 day. He was just barely 7 pounds!
One thing I loved about the hospital we delivered at was that they really encouraged immediate skin to skin contact for mom and baby, nursing as soon as possible, and 24/7 rooming in. Ezekiel never once left our room the entire time we were there, and I was so thankful for that. I had a wonderful experience at this hospital, up until one incident happened- the bed collapsed on me!
It was such a crazy moment I could hardly believe it happened. I was holding the baby, about to get in bed to nurse him. Thankfully right before I did, I handed the baby to Ezra. As soon as my knee hit the bed it folded in on itself and I fell to the ground. My mom ran into the hallway and grabbed help. Three nurses rushed into the room and had a look of shock. Each of them told me this had never happened before, in all their years of working at the hospital. I was in a lot of pain and pretty shaken up by the whole thing. We were supposed to be going home that night, and I was so afraid they would make us stay another night because of the fall. To my surprise, they let us go fairly quickly (I suspect because they did not want to deal with the situation and were afraid we would sue them or something.)
I didn't even want to talk about what had happened really, I just wanted to go home. We loaded up the car and I was so happy to bring our baby home and get into a routine.
Now we are all doing well, and we are so in love with Ezekiel. I am just soaking up this time with our little family :)
-Sammie
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