Ellie's Birth Story

My anticipation for Ellie's birth started long, long ago, when I assumed she would come early.  Having gone into labor early with the twins, and having my water break early with Joey and Michael all pointed to her coming before her due date.  She didn't come, and didn't come, and I started getting frantic that she was going to be ginormous, or that my placenta wouldn't make it to my due date, and she'd be hurting.  So I had two non-stress tests.  The earlier one showed no signs of stress, even though her heart tones were low during my clinic visit.  The second one had me worried.  For the first 45 minutes, she didn't move, and her heartbeat showed no accelerations.  Luckily in the last 15 minutes before they would have induced labor, she got moving and looked like a healthy baby girl again.  I wasn't a great candidate for induction because she stayed too high (of course, I thought I had dropped at least 4 weeks earlier).  But good candidate or not, they didn't want me to go a week past my due date.  So, we scheduled the induction for Friday, until the doctor called and said, "Nevermind, that doesn't work for us.  How about next Tuesday?"  And so it was.  I know it's a silly thing, but waiting until Tuesday meant I had to go to church one more week, and I could hardly bear the thought of walking one step anywhere public.  Thank goodness her time came earlier!

Alissa at only 36 weeks.  Believe me, I was a lot bigger by 40!

Saturday morning (April 19th) my water broke while I was sleeping.  I nudged Mike and told him what had happened.  He second guessed me a couple times, but there was no denying the little pop and gush.  It was about 1:30 am, so I thought maybe we could go back to sleep and get some rest before the big event.  Mike denied me, and it was a good thing because labor had really picked up and was quite bad by the time we were headed out an hour later.  By then, we had called my parents who came over to the house to stay with the sleeping kids, and packed the last minute stuff.  Plus, I got a blessing from Mike.

The short of the long, is that we made it to the hospital by 3am, and Ellie was born at 5:30am.  Because the nurses were dealing with RSV at the hospital, they called in a special OB nurse,who ended up being a friend from high school (Amy Barton), and had to drive almost as far as us to get the the hospital.  She had to check me before the doctor could be called, and he had to check my progress before the anesthetist could be brought in.  And by the time he brought the magic, Ellie was already on her way.  Thank goodness the epidural had time to take a bit of the edge off, but for the first time (and last time) ever, I felt labor.  And I am not a fan!

She was beautiful, alert and loud!!

She was 7 lbs 10 oz, no... make that 7 lbs 11 oz (the first aid rounded it wrong).  Her APGAR was 8, then 9.  Just a healthy, full-term, no... make that past-term baby girl!  She had an adoring stare.  I couldn't put her down when her eyes were open because I didn't want to miss a thing.  We tried to rest a little here and there, but also wanted to get everything taken care of so we could go home. Mike got to stay with me most of the day, but hung out with the kids in the evening.  The big "to do" was picking a name!  Both Mike and I were so tired, we missed each others scheduled "pick-a-name" calls and when he came the next morning to pick me up, she was still nameless.  Mike suggested counting to 3, and saying our top name out loud.  If they matched, the discussion was over, if they didn't we would go over each others' lists.  Luckily for us, the count of 3 brought simultaneous Ellie's from our mouths and it was done, after a brief consensus on the middle name.  Ellie Ann Crockett was named just a day after her birth.

Because it was Easter, and because we love Beaver, we dropped off a couple Easter baskets to the nurses station and hit the road.  Mike made it to Sacrament meeting in the 2nd Ward with the kids, and I stayed home to nap in a real bed!  The Easter Bunny had already been to our house when we got home, so there was nothing to do but enjoy the day with our new baby girl!  We were all so glad to have her here!  There is no question that each birth is a miracle.  What a great experience for our family!