I must say, my sweet prince, it has been a crazy ride. Let me tell you your birth story. In order to set the stage I need to go back to the beginning. Well, not all the way back, just to the first ultra sound. When we got our first ultra sound done in April I thought I was 3 months along. When they told me I was due November 9th, I was skeptical, but I let it go. Eventually I got used to the idea of you possibly having a birthday of 11/11/11 and I was actually excited about it. Fast forward to the first ultra sound done by Dr. Casal here in Tennessee: the technician doing the ultra sound told me that she was showing a due date of October 31st, but that it wasn't far enough away from November 11th for them to actually change the official due date.
(I asked Delsin to take this picture on the morning of 10-9, when we decided to head to the hospital again to get the labor stopped again.)
Over the course of this pregnancy your daddy and I came to an agreement that he would name you if you were a girl and I would name you if you were a boy. I had several possibilities, but nothing that I could decide for certain. A few of the possibilities were : Rader (means "wheel maker"), Ryker (strong power, hardy power), Vontavious (didn't have a meaning),and Alexander (defender of mankind). We wanted something with a good meaning. Enoch is my favorite person in the bible (aside from Jesus, of course) because he had such a close relationship with God that he "walked with God" and instead of dieing God took him. I've always admired that relationship and so Enoch has always been a favorite name. It means dedicated, disciplined. It's just such an unusual sounding name that I kept searching and praying for God to let us know which name is yours. God has such a funny way of communicating with us. When praying to pick a name for Carolina that song "going to Carolina in my mind" by James Taylor kept creeping into my head and finally I took it as God trying to let me know what her name was supposed to be. Once we moved to Tennessee and I decided on giving birth at the birthing center in Cookeville, I couldn't help but notice that we passed a Alexander rd and an Enoch rd. It was too coincidental. Still I just kept praying, and never made a decision.
Now, fast forward to Sunday September 25th. We came home and changed clothes after church and then went to the local Mexican restaurant for lunch. I couldn't really eat any of the typical Mexican food because of the high carbohydrates found in tortillas, chips, and rice, so I found a Chile relleno and a poblano relleno and ordered both of those for my meal. Once we left the restaurant I started feeling nauseous. About half an hour later I got sick all over the side of the truck while your daddy was driving down hwy 231. It was classic. Kai was in the seat behind me, and while I got my head out the window in time, her window got covered (from the outside). I thought she was going to lose her lunch too. Hee hee. She was screaming, "Somebody clean off my window! Somebody clean off my window!" It was priceless. Thank goodness you daddy was sweet enough to do that for her. After he washed as much off as he could with cups of water we kept from the restaurant, he stopped at a car wash and took care of the rest. But it wasn't over at that. I ended up with the chills later that night, unable to get warm. The next day I was vomiting as well, and I started having contractions, serious contractions late in the night and they were coming 10 minutes apart. I tried drinking lots of water as the Dr and midwives had previously instructed me to do if I started having contractions earlier than the due date. That didn't seem to be working. I couldn't hold anything down. So, against my better judgment (previous experiences taught me that getting into the tub sped up labor) I got into a tub of warm water as they had advised me to do. When I started bleeding and my contractions were 5 minutes apart, we decided to go to the nearest hospital. They started me on a IV, and gave me 4 bags of fluids then a steroid injection to help your lungs finish developing, in case you came early. Then they started giving me Breathine injections to stop the contractions. They did slow down to one every couple of hours and I was able to go home later Monday.
For the first few days I thought we were in the clear. My blood sugar levels seemed higher than usual, but it was under control. After the first three days it seemed lower no matter what I ate, so I'm not sure, but I kinda think the gestational diabetes was gone at that point, but I was still being careful to not eat a lot of carbs.
Then the very next Sunday I woke in the middle of the night with contractions again. They were coming fast again, about 10 minutes apart, but I was bleeding again. So we went to the hospital. The nurse at UMC in Lebanon wasn't very happy to see us, so we left and went to Cookeville, where my Dr is anyway. Luckily, by the grace of God, the contractions slowed down drastically by the time we got there. They monitored us for a few hours, giving me Procardia to stop the contractions and me still taking Breathine on top of that, they sent us home. The same thing happened the next day, Monday morning. So we drove to Cookeville and by the time we got there the contractions were slowing and we were monitored and given drugs to stop the contractions. They never actually went away though. I was still having one an hour at least the entire day. I was told by my Dr. that I would be able to deliver at the birthing center ( a water birth) and the whole reason we were driving to Cookeville for care to begin with, but the midwife on call insisted that I wasn't ready to deliver in water yet, and insisted that I go to the hospital when I went into labor again Monday night. So, we drove to UMC in Lebanon Monday night.
So, Monday when I got home I tried to sleep as much as possible. I reasoned that if I was asleep then I couldn't possibly do anything to cause us to go into labor. But I woke up at about 2:30 PM with a strong contraction. Then about 30 minutes later another one. I stayed awake after that, because the contractions kept coming and kept feeling strong enough to make me afraid that we were going back into labor. I knew I couldn't call the Dr though until they were much closer together. That time came right after 6 PM. After the birthing center was closed, of course. So we were at the mercy of the midwife on call, who insisted that I go to the hospital because we weren't far enough along to give birth at the birthing center, despite what the Dr. said about it. It turns out we didn't have time to make it to Cookeville anyway. Once Daddy got us to UMC you were born really soon after. All the way there the contractions were coming closer and getting stronger. I was irritable and praying through the contractions for God to please help me and possibly take away the pain. Once I realized that probably wasn't going to happen (pain relief) I started asking Him to make it go by quicker. When we got to the hospital it was around 7:45 PM. Your daddy ran in to get the nurse to bring out a wheel chair. He came back and said they didn't have one available. The nurse asked me if I could walk, and I knew that I'd feel better walking anyway, I just didn't want to. I wanted them to get me in there quickly and give me something for the pain, 'cause I was wimping out on the idea of a natural birth and experiencing all the pain. Man it really does hurt. But it was too late for all of that. The staff didn't believe that I was as close to delivery as I tried to express to them. They just kept going through their routine, trying to tell me to stop screaming and things like that. It was 7:57 when I laid down in the hospital bed and they hooked me up to the monitor. They asked me about taking my breathine and I told them I was due another dose at 8 PM, but that I didn't want to take it and the head nurse got a little ugly with me about that. Then they decided to check to see how far I'd dialated and realized that I was beyond the point of no return and started putting a little pep in their step. When I told her that we'd been given a dose of Procardia at 12:30 in addition to taking Breathine orally she was shocked and admitted that it must be time for you to arrive. They continued to hook me up to an IV as I was having contractions. They tried to convince me to not push, but I knew they were trying to wait till the Dr got there for you to be born. I also knew that we didn't need a Dr. to keep you safe so there was no way I was going to make you wait for a Dr. to show up so you could come on out. You and my body were in control as far as I was concerned. Then, my water broke. A few minutes later I felt your head beginning to crown and I told the nurse that you were coming. Becky, the head nurse told me when to push the last two times and caught you as you came out. It was so neat, exhausting, cool, scary, exciting, and awesome all at the same time. Daddy said that when you came out he could see that your head was very wrinkly and the plates in your skull were collapsed on each other then they moved out and your head expanded after you came out. It was so amazing 'cause I was so scared to push, knowing your head was bigger than the opening it was going to come out of. I could feel everything. I thought I was home safe till Becky, the nurse, said, "now you have to push harder to get the shoulders out, 'cause they are bigger than the head." But once your shoulders got past then it was easy peasy. You were born at 8:18 PM, that's what they said officially because they looked back at the monitor to see when the last contraction was. But really, no one had a clue because all the nurses were so frazzled that no one remembered to look at the time when you were actually born. They didn't even think about it till probably 10 minutes after the fact. As soon as you came out, they laid you on my stomach and I wanted so badly to hold you and nurse you, but I was too weak to even hold myself up. I just collapsed backward, trying to look at you. Your left leg was covering your private parts so I couldn't see if you were a boy or a girl. Another nurse (Osa) took you and cleaned you up a little, then handed you back to me. While Osa was holding you Daddy suddenly remembered that he didn't look to see what sex you were either, so he started asking Osa. She tol us that you were a boy. When Osa handed you over Daddy said, look at Enoch Alexander, and it sounded so perfect. You looked just like an Enoch Alexander, even though I had no idea what that would look like, nor could I describe it if I had to. I tried to nurse you, but you weren't interested. Then they took you to the nursery so they could clean you up, and weigh you and all of that. You were 5 lbs and 15 oz and 19 inches long when you were born on 10/10/11. When they brought you back your daddy did the honors of carrying you to the recovery room where we spent the next couple of days cuddling and eating together.
I'm so happy you are here Enoch. We all love you so much. Your brother and sisters are always trying to kiss on you and hold you, including Carolina. It's so precious and you all make a great family.
Go Team Urick!
And today you got your very own belly button early this morning. Congratulations my sweet prince.
I love you!
You get so excited when the bus comes and you stand at the storm door and press your face against it making Delsin and Kai laugh when they walk up the sidewalk to come in the house. Kai has a lot less homework than Delsin, so she gets done much faster and then you and she play hide and seek as soon as she's done. That girl loves to hide and let you find her, so much that I don't even think she realizes she's doing it all of the time. And you are always so good at finding her. You've been doing this for several months now, even when you were crawling. I think that you must be able to find her by smelling her because sometimes she comes in and hides in the absolute best places and there's no way you could have seen her. Then by the time finally waddle in the room you just go right over to where she is and find her. It cracks me up.
