Elias Rain Mo'unga

14 hours of labor and 2 pushes later, Elias joined our family on Tuesday, August 26th at 5:07 pm. He was 9 lbs and 21 inches. 14 hours might sound horrendous to some of you folks out there, but honestly it was easy. My water broke around 3 am, and I wasn’t having any contractions, so I went back to bed. This was of course after I woke up Damien to tell him the big news and he just looked at me like “What would you like me to do with that information?” and then rolled back over and started snoring. When his alarm went off around 6:15 am to get up for work I reminded him that my water broke and that we should probably get ready to go to the hospital. I finished packing my hospital bag, did some house chores, played with the dogs a little bit and had a scrumptious bowl of cereal before we left…still no contractions.

When we got to the hospital, I don’t think they believed me that my water broke because of how calm we were. But a few tests proved me to be correct. I had my epidural in and working by 11:00, I was dilated to a 4. By 1pm I was at a 5, and before the clock hit 2pm, I was already at a 10. Most doctors at this point have the patient start pushing. In contrast, my doctor does this thing he calls “rest and descend”…mother rests for another 2 hours and the baby gradually descends through the pelvis on its own. In my case, I rested for 3 hours cuz the dr. had patients in the office he had to finish up with before he could make it over to the hospital. Whatever. I didn’t care. My epidural was on a pump, so if I felt the contractions were too strong I simply pushed a pretty, little, black button that made everything okay again. When my doctor finally got to my room, I think he was there maybe a total of 5 minutes, since I only had to push twice and poof…Elias was here. Yep, I only pushed 2 times.

For those who already heard the saga story of my labor and delivery sorry to bore you. And my sincerest apologies to all those patiently waiting to see more photos of Elias, I have been getting used to being a new mom. And by that I mean used to running on virtually no sleep, the rest of the mothering stuff is a piece of cake. It was also hard to decide which photos to put on here. I actually don't ahve very many on my camara, the Grandmas were mainly in charge of camera duty, and I haven't gotten any copies yet from Tena. And I think she has like over 200 of him already. At any rate, I chose some of his funny faces to share with you all. Hope you enjoy looking at my little ray of sunshine. Oh, thanks to all those who either came by the hospital or the house to congratulate us and wish us well on our new journey of parenting! There will be more pics to follow soon...promise!

Our first family photo. We all look smashing!

The proud Grandmas

I have to give a special thanks to my mom. She drove all the way from California to be with us on his special arrival day. And then she stayed for almost 2 weeks, helping around the house, making meals, taking feedings during the night, and giving Elias extra lov'n and attention.