Eden’s Birth Story

As my pregnancy was drawing nearer to its end, I was becoming increasingly impatient for Eden’s arrival and was hoping he would come early! There were some timing issues that I was a little bit anxious about, as my parents were planning to go on a vacation a couple days after his due date and we were going to need their help to take care of our two older kids for a couple days while we were in the hospital, but mostly I was just ready to not be pregnant anymore and to meet my baby boy!

Thursday evening, when I was putting the kids to bed, Justice suddenly said, out of the blue, “Eden is a present in Mommy’s tummy.” I told him he was exactly right – Eden was a gift to our family straight from God! Justice then said that we would need to put a bow on him. So, when I woke up in the early hours of the morning on Friday, February 10th, with regular contractions, I thought that this could be it! I couldn’t sleep, so I got up and walked around, sat in Eden’s nursery in the rocking chair, hoping that the contractions would progress and start coming closer together. But, alas, they did not and only slowed down until they came to a complete stop. After being up for four hours, I was pretty bummed and exhausted.

The next night, the same thing happened. I woke up early Saturday morning with regular contractions. I thought certainly this time it had to be the real thing. The difficult thing for me was that I had tested positive for a certain type of bacteria that could cause infection in baby if I didn’t get to the hospital in time to receive an antibiotic four hours before I delivered. This had also been the case with my daughter Rayah and even though I hadn’t been able to get the antibiotic in time with her, she had been fine, but they generally like to keep you in the hospital longer to make sure baby is okay. Since both of my previous deliveries had been very fast, we knew to expect this one to be fast as well, so I was anxious about making sure we got to the hospital quickly.

So, I woke up Joe and told him that I thought we should go to the hospital. We have a tenant living with us in our basement, so we told her we were heading out and she was able to stay home with the kids. However, as we drove to the hospital, the contractions again began to slow down and by the time we arrived, they were about 10 minutes apart and I knew that they would just send me back home anyway, so we turned around and went back to bed. I was so discouraged and disappointed!

All that day (Saturday), I thought for sure I would go into labor. I was still having contractions, but they were very random, with no consistent pattern and they weren’t really increasing in intensity. I went grocery shopping with my daughter that morning and then we went to the mall and the two of us walked through the hallways, even though none of the stores were open yet, with me hoping that the walking would help induce labor. When I called my mom on the phone to give her a heads up that I thought today might be the day, she was just slightly horrified that I was walking the mall without Joe there with me and she begged me to go home – lol.

Shortly after lunch, I called my friend Kristi who is a labor & delivery nurse and who had been at both of my previous births and who I was hoping would be able to be at this one as well, even though she has a newborn of her own! She offered to come over and check to see if there was any change in my cervix, which had been dilated to 3 cm at my most recent visit to the obstetrician. Sure enough, when she checked me, I was now at 5 cm, so there was some progress, but the contractions were still not regular.

Joe and I then headed to the YMCA with our kids so they could play on the big play structure there and I tried walking again to get things going, but still wasn’t having much success. We continued on with our day as usual and that evening, I showered and put on a little bit of makeup before finally going to bed – lol. Again, I was so discouraged that baby had still not come, but I figured that at least I would be clean and looking somewhat decent if anything happened in the middle of the night! That evening, as I was putting the kids to bed, I reminded Justice of what he had said about Eden being a present in my tummy and we prayed that God would unwrap and open the present so that we could see him.

Sure enough, shortly after midnight on Sunday, February 12th, I woke up and had 3 quite intense contractions that were very close together. I knew that it was definitely time to go to the hospital! Thankfully our tenant had just gotten home and was able to stay with the kids again and we headed to the hospital. By the time we got to triage, it was around 1:00 am and when they checked me, I was now at 7 cm dilated. Knowing that this was my third child and that I had a history of quick deliveries, they didn’t waste any time getting me admitted to a room.

The contractions were quite intense already and fairly close together. They were working at getting my IV in so that I could get the antibiotic, but the way things were going, it definitely wasn’t going to get in 4 hours before this baby was coming! After they had got the IV in and were finished doing some monitoring of baby’s heart beat, I stood leaning over the bed and gripping Joe’s hands with the grip of death as each contraction came. I swear I could actually feel Eden’s head being pushed further down and I soon began to feel the urge to push, so they got me to lay on the bed so they could see if I was fully dilated yet.

Sadly, my friend Kristi was not able to come along this time, as she had her own little guy to take care of during the night, but Joe did an amazing job of coaching and supporting me. He helped me to remain in control of my breathing and reminded me to relax and focus on him as each contraction ended – he was great!

When they checked me, it was an intern or something (I couldn’t keep track of who was who), and she thought I was only at 8 cm, but it was hard to know, since my membranes (the water sac) were bulging. They then got the resident to come and give them the okay to break my water. Again, this was very reminiscent of Rayah’s birth, where they had broken my water for me and she had been born in two pushes. This time, it was quite funny, because I don’t think they were really ready or expecting things to go so quickly, because as soon as they broke my water, Eden’s head just popped out and there was a little bit of frenzy as they started shouting, “We have a head! Call the OB for delivery!” Ha – as if the obstetrician had time to get there! I gave one good push and the rest of Eden’s body was out, just like that!

Shortly after 2:00 am, Joe had called out his bet that we would have a baby by 2:40, but even he overshot it, as Eden was born at 2:31 am, weighing 7 lb. and 14 oz, exactly the same weight as his older brother Justice.

Eden was of course beautiful and perfect in every way and I was overjoyed to finally meet him and hold him in my arms. Though the last couple days had been challenging, both physically and emotionally, the pain and waiting had all been worth it. Even without getting the antibiotic in, Eden was perfectly healthy and we had a very peaceful and relaxed stay in the hospital, with the staff virtually leaving us alone, figuring that we didn’t need much assistance with our third baby, and they released us the next morning!

We are so thankful for our precious gift from God, who we named Eden Joseph, after his daddy.