This past month has been a whirlwind of so much going on. I delivered our baby, family came to visit, we celebrated Christmas, more family came to visit, we bought a house, moved and unpacked. I have not had a chance to blog about our newest little one either. So let me finally introduce you to our sweet baby boy, our fourth son....
Elias Israel Carr
(Elias; a form of Elijah= My God is the Lord; Israel= God perseveres)
born December 16th @ 6:13am
at birth: 8lbs 2 oz; 20ish inches
Homebirth Story:
On a Friday morning, 13 days before my due date, right before 4am, I woke up out of the blue and didn't have to use the restroom :) This happened twice in about 15 minutes before I decided to crawl out of bed about 4am to decide if I was in labor. Yes this was my 5th labor and I still wasn't positive it was labor pains that was waking me up. So I went downstairs for about 20 minutes and made some homemade laundry soap. I then decided that I was probably in labor yet it wasn't really painful....however, I know my body's tendency in labor to go from barely painful to very painful in about an hour or less and then a baby in my arms.....I decided to wake up Frank about 4:30am and tell him I thought I was in labor. I then called my midwife and her husband informed me that she was at another birth. My heart sank at this point. You see, I discussed with my midwife prior to this day about what would happen if I went into labor and she was at another labor since I have short labors and she delivers on her own. She basically said that it rarely happens and hope that it doesn't happen with me. Anyhow, I proceeded to call her on her cell phone and informed her that I was in labor. She basically said "oh dear, I will be here for at least 5 hrs and you won't last that long. I will need you to probably prepare yourself to go to the hospital. In the meantime, lay down, don't move around, sip on some wine to try to slow your labor down and call me back in 30 min to see your progress. in the meantime, I will think about what we will do." I ended the call with her in tears because I did not want to go to the hospital. After experiencing 2 hospital births and 2 homebirths up until this time, I had my heart set on another homebirth as it is such a more relaxing, desirable birth. So at this point, I went ahead and laid down and sipped wine while I watched my husband quickly pack a bag to take to the hospital. I also called my neighbor to try to get childcare provided for the other kids in the case that I had to go to the hospital. Now I will say that laying down and sipping the wine did in fact slow down the progress in my opinion, however, shortly after 5am when I called my midwife back, I knew that I barely had an hour if that. I was so very thankful and relieved that my midwife told me that she did in fact have an assistant that she uses occasionally and if I was comfortable with her then she would send her. I was comfortable with the idea of an assistant as I've experienced it before with Aliyah's birth. For her birth, my labor progressed so fast that my midwife missed her birth but her assistant made it and delivered her. Anyhow I was so happy that I was going to be able to deliver at home after all! Shortly after getting off of the phone, friends of Frank's arrived as he called them as well to help with the kids in the event of a hospital trip. The midwife's assistant arrived sometime in there as well and she immediately came in the bedroom and started prepping everything. She asked if I wanted a pelvic exam done to see how much I was dilated and I told her I didn't need one and was between 8 and 10 cm....less than 10 min later I told her I was definitely 10cm and needed to push. By this time, all the kids were awake and Josiah and Aliyah joined us in the bedroom to watch while Malachi stayed downstairs with Judah to watch him. Anyhow, I decided this time I would kind of do a squatting thing to deliver and so I had Frank behind me, holding and supporting me so that I could prepare to push. On my first push, my water immediately broke so I stopped pushing to calm down. I began pushing on the next contraction and less than 3 minutes from my water breaking at 6:13am, Elias Israel was born. Thus in all, my labor was barely over 2 hours and less than 3 minutes of pushing. The pushing was longer than normal for me but that is because I paused to calm down and prepare for the big push :) It was an another amazing delivery at home! I am so blessed! So without further ado.....the following are tons of pictures of the little guy :)
One of the last pics of Elias in my belly.
Taken about 2 weeks before Elias was born.
A view of my belly from my angle.
Here I am laying down, trying to slow down my labor. Frank started preparing the floors for delivery and on the cedar chest is my glass of wine :)
My sweet boy :)
Here I am joyfully telling Frank that we have another son.
Our first family picture of a family of 7!
Here my midwife came by to check on Elias and myself later that morning.
This is how he was weighed....yep, that is a fishing tool to weigh fish :)
Love those pouty lips!
Aliyah and Elias
Josiah and Elias
Malachi and Elias
Judah and Elias
All of my kids...Elias is a day old here.
Elias, 3 days old
5 or 6 days old. He is reddish here because of his jaundice. He is also my first dark haired baby!
I love Judah's facial expression here!
Christmas day, 9 days old
12 days old
Family pic, 12 days old.
My sons!
Aliyah fell asleep while holding him.
About 3 weeks old
almost a month old, fell asleep in daddy's hand
