Elijah's arrival story

Thursday, May 22nd, will be a day I never forget! It was a gorgeous day (not what you would expect for the end of May in Arizona). I thought to myself, its around 75 degrees outside, cloudy (but not gloomy), smelled like rain.... all that was missing from my perfect day was meeting Elijah. Around 1:00pm my water started leaking so we headed up to the hospital. - as we headed up there, all I could think is that today really was a great day! Getting admitted to a room took forever! we got there around 2:00pm and didn't get into a room till around 6:00pm. so you know what that means... picture time. hehe. :) so this is the last real picture of Steven and I before Elijah arrived.




After finally getting to our room, they put pitocine in my IV to help speed up my contractions cause at this point in time I was 4cm dilated / 90% effaced, but hadn't progressed in a while and I was not feeling any pain or contractions. Man... between the pitocine and the IV I started retaining water and my face looked like I had chimp munk cheeks! Me, Steven, and my parents played some cards to pass the time. I slowly started to feel the contractions... and let me tell you, they were not pleasant... but not unbearable. Steven and I had previously decided that I was going to try and go with out getting an epidural cause it is safer for me and the baby. so far so good :)

By now it is around 11:00 at night and things are starting to progress rather quickly. The contractions are coming closer and stronger. The nurse suggested that we tried a few different positions to ease the pain. Standing and leaning on Steven helped for a little while. Steven was such a good coach through this all! I could not have gotten through this with out him! Elijah was head down, but he was facing my tummy rather then my bum, and unfortunately when babies are faced like that, most moms experience terrible back pains. By around midnight my back pains were worse then the contractions! Steven had to push his knee has hard as he could into my back to help relieve some of my pain. After dealing with that for a while. I was in extreme pain and could not take it anymore, so I ended up getting the epidural. Most people talk about how painful it is to get... I was in so much pain that I didn't even feel them putting the needle in. About 10 minutes later (it was probably around 1:00am) I was relaxed and they were able to check to see how far I was. 9.5 cm!!! wooo hoo! I was very proud of myself for making it that far!

Around 2:30am my dr showed up and got everything ready and then we started pushing. I think it was around the 5th set of pushing that the nurse looked at me and said "lets have the baby on the next push".... I stopped for a second and though "wow! this is it!! I have been waiting my whole life to be a mommy and now its finally time!!" - I was in shock to say the least! lol. so one more set of pushing...... and tada!

Elijah Francisco Carneado was born on May 23rd, 2008 at 3:47am He weighed 7 pounds 5 ounces and was 20 inches long.

"We prayed for this child, and The Lord has granted us what we asked of Him." 1 Samuel 1:27.

He is everything that Steven and I could have hoped for! He is a healthy, happy baby :) Thank you God :)


Here is Elijah's birth announcement ( He was 5 days old when I took this picture)...