Judah James
Judah means "I will praise the Lord".
James was my grandfather's name who passed away when I was 14 and also happens to be Jason's great-grandfather's name.
Of course, Jason, being a Beatles fan loves that we can also call him Jude, but mostly we just really liked the name - the sound of it, the meaning, the fact that it's not common and the fact that several weeks ago Elijah, quite unexpectedly, announced that his baby brother was Judah (even though we hadn't mentioned that name to him in months and when we had it was on a long list of other names we liked - we had since put it on our top 3 list but Elijah didn't know that). That about sealed the deal for us!
Isn't he precious?!?! I feel like I'm living in the past and the present. Sometimes I feel like I'm taking care of Elijah as a newborn all over again because they look so similar a lot of the time. Other times, I see Elijah walk in the door and feel like I'm seeing this baby in the future. Then the reality that I have TWO wonderful, beautiful, special boys sends me over the edge and I am completely overwhelmed and completely in love with both of them! What everyone says is true...you CAN love two children the same, your heart just grows a little bit!
I'm back! I know all of you have been waiting on the edge of your seats to hear about our crazy day last Friday! :-) It has been such a whirlwind since then, but I'll start from the beginning which was last Friday morning. Sorry if it's lengthy, I want to remember it someday...Judah means "I will praise the Lord".
James was my grandfather's name who passed away when I was 14 and also happens to be Jason's great-grandfather's name.
Of course, Jason, being a Beatles fan loves that we can also call him Jude, but mostly we just really liked the name - the sound of it, the meaning, the fact that it's not common and the fact that several weeks ago Elijah, quite unexpectedly, announced that his baby brother was Judah (even though we hadn't mentioned that name to him in months and when we had it was on a long list of other names we liked - we had since put it on our top 3 list but Elijah didn't know that). That about sealed the deal for us!
Isn't he precious?!?! I feel like I'm living in the past and the present. Sometimes I feel like I'm taking care of Elijah as a newborn all over again because they look so similar a lot of the time. Other times, I see Elijah walk in the door and feel like I'm seeing this baby in the future. Then the reality that I have TWO wonderful, beautiful, special boys sends me over the edge and I am completely overwhelmed and completely in love with both of them! What everyone says is true...you CAN love two children the same, your heart just grows a little bit!
Elijah woke me up a little early that morning around 6:45 am and announced while I was talking to Jason on the phone at work "YAY! Baby brother's coming today!" Jason heard him in the background and we both started laughing, me thinking "Yeah, right...I'm 4 days past my due date and he is obviously not in a hurry to come out, especially not today." I had pretty much conceded to the idea that we were going to have to force him out this week. Well, Elijah's intuition was right. Elijah and I usually lay in the bed for a while after he comes to wake me up, but this morning I had a lot of energy and got right out of bed to take a shower around 7:00.
About 7:45 - 8:00, I started having some mild contractions but didn't think anything of it because I had done this earlier in the week. I had had consistent contractions for a couple of hours on Wednesday and then it had quit, so I didn't want to get my hopes up again. Lori was coming to pick me up about 8:45 to go get pedicures and Elijah was going to my mom's house. Lori had told me a couple of days before that I needed to make an appointment of some kind, because if I did that then the baby would come and mess it up...hence the pedicures. Well, sometime between 8:00 and when Lori came to pick me up, something told me that these contractions were different - they felt different and I started to think that maybe, just maybe this was real. I called Jason to give him a heads up (just in case) and my mom, who came down to get Elijah dressed for me and see what she thought. Lori called to tell me she was on her way, and I told her that I thought I might be in early labor but I wasn't sure. She almost laughed out loud on the phone because we had made these appointments and look what was happening!
When she got here, her and my mom convinced me to go ahead and get the pedicures because even if it was real, it would keep my mind off of it and help me get through early labor quicker if I wasn't thinking about timing every contraction. By this time, they were inconsistently between 5 - 10 minutes apart. I was still not completely convinced this was the real deal - I don't think I actually knew for sure in my head until around lunchtime, but to be on the safe side I called Jason at work and told him that I thought it would be good if he came on home pretty soon. Lori and I headed to the pedicure place...my contractions started getting more consistently around 5 minutes apart and by the time we got there at 9:30, I wasn't sure about getting the pedicure. Lori went in to tell the lady that we were here and that I might be in early labor. Bad idea! Apparently, that lady told the whole pedicure place and when I finally decided to go in, everyone was staring at me! The lady in charge came over and very nervously told me that I would be getting the pedicure at my own risk, that they technically weren't supposed to rub pregnant women's feet because of the risk of induction - I was like, lady I'm already in labor so no risk there; she asked me how far apart the contractions were, was it my first baby, then told me how quickly she had all four of her children, etc etc. Needless to say, we freaked the place out and decided to leave - Lori and I laughed about it on the way home.
We weren't five minutes down the road when Jason called me and asked me where I was. I told him and asked why and he said he had had a blowout on the way home and he was sitting on the side of the freeway, luckily not far from where we had just been. Could this day get any crazier??? We turned around and went back to get him...he got in the car and starts asking me, "Are you okay? Are you hurting? How far apart are your contractions?" I could tell he was excited and nervous, not to mention that he'd just had a blowout. I told him that I was fine and I still wasn't completely sure what was going on.
When we got back home about 10:30, Lori and my mom helped me straighten my house, do dishes, change sheets, etc. Then they left and I promised to call them if we decided to head to the hospital later. In the meantime, the three of us ate lunch, took a walk, played a game and then about 12:30 or so, things really started to pick up. I still didn't think things were progressing very quickly, but I knew that it was real now. I had already decided I wanted to stay at home as long as I could because I wanted as little medical intervention as possible. Jason was fabulous through the whole thing and coached me through all of my really hard contractions from this point on. Finally, I decided that Elijah needed to go back with my mom because things were getting pretty intense...it was very emotional for me to tell him goodbye knowing that when I saw him again, I'd have a baby in my arms.
I was really wishy-washy about going to the hospital. I kept telling Jason that I was afraid I'd get there and only be like 4-5 cm dilated or something, and then be strapped down to a hospital bed the rest of the time. I was handling the contractions really well at home because I was able to eat, drink and move around how I needed to. Finally at about 2:00, I reluctantly told him that I thought we'd better go on just to be safe. Good thing we did! On the way there, the contractions REALLY picked up - Jason said he could tell, and I think at this point I must have been in transition (going from a 7 to a 10) because they were about 2-3 minutes apart and the back labor was getting pretty bad. When we finally got there to maternal obs, at about 2:30, they checked me in and were just taking their sweet little time. Until about 3:00, all they did was ask me a bunch of questions and have me sign a bunch of forms (with me taking a break about every 2-3 minutes to focus). I finally told Jason that they really needed to get in here and check me because I thought that it was getting really close and they needed to hurry. Finally someone came in a little after 3 and I asked her to please check me. She got this wide-eyed look on her face and said, "No wonder you're in so much pain - you're 9 cm dilated with a bulging bag of water!". I looked at Jason and laughed - I couldn't believe it! Things moved pretty quickly from there - that's obviously the way to get those nurses in a slight panic! Before I knew it, Jason had grabbed our bags and two nurses were practically running me down the hall in the bed to labor and delivery yelling, "Out of the way, we've got a 9er with a bulging bag!". We got in there about 3:15 - they were hooking me up to an IV, monitor, BP cuff and anything else they needed to as quickly as they could. Our families were rushing up there as fast as they could - my mom, sister and Lori came in to check on me at this point. I was still feeling good and "in control", even though the contractions were the hardest they had been at this point. Then close to 4:00, I started getting REALLY uncomfortable and could not find a position that was working for me. Right after that my water broke, everyone was told to leave the room, and that control I thought I had? It was completely gone! Thankfully, Judah was very nice to me in that it did not take long for me to push him out, but the pushing? Wow, if you want a detailed description of the horror then ask me later. :-) Let me just say that the contractions were manageable and bearable...but for these 10-15 minutes, I wanted to quit and go home and I know that I let everyone in the room know very loudly that it hurt and I couldn't do this anymore. About 3-4 contractions later at 4:17 pm, we welcomed Judah James and I could not believe that I had done it. I really felt a sense of accomplishment, like I had come up against a huge mountain of an obstacle and conquered it.
We are home now, obviously, and things are going really well for the most part. I am overwhelmed every day that I have two children and in thinking about taking care of them by myself in the future kind of freaks me out, but I know that it will become routine after a while. Any tips from moms of 2 or more would be appreciated! Please come and visit if you can, we'd love to have you! I have tons of pictures to post but will do that later - Judah is hungry. And if you made it this far in my post, congratulations! I think this was my longest yet!
