Hip Hip Hurray And Woop De Doo! Look Who's Turning The Great Big 2!

January 16, 2007: It was cold outside, and the weather was getting colder by the minute. I'd taken Samuel and Avery to preschool that morning, and then met Hector at one of the elementary schools we'd planned on touring that morning. We toured the first school and drove to the second school. After that tour, we made our decision... we liked the first school much better, and decided that it was the best school to send Samuel to for Kindergarten the next school year. I'd been feeling a bit uncomfortable, but figured it was due to all that walking, and the fact that I was 37 weeks pregnant with my 3rd child.

Hector and I enjoyed a nice lunch together. We were waiting for the check when I told Hector that I felt like my food had not settled properly. I was having very bad indigestion, and I just felt sick to my stomach. And then, Hector's phone beeped. It was around noon, and he picked it up and looked at the text message he'd just received. His sister, Amy, had just given birth to a baby girl. Her name was Amarie Belle, and she was beautiful! She weighed 6 pounds, 13 ounces. Hector and I sat there, with tears in our eyes. We were so happy! We held hands and Hector said "That will be us in a week!" As we left the restaurant and said our goodbyes, Hector told me that he would see me after work around the normal time, 6:00.

By around 2:00 that afternoon, my lunch was really not settling well at all. My stomach hurt! The weather outside was getting really bad, and a major ice storm was blowing in. So, I left to pick up Samuel and Avery from preschool. When I got to the school, I was in so much pain that I had to lean over the desk to sign them out. I promised myself right then and there that I was never eating at Chili's ever again! When we got back home I told the kids that I really needed to lay down on the couch. Of course, Samuel said okay and ran to his room to watch cartoons. But Avery, my little caretaker, stayed with me. She was concerned about me, and had several questions she needed to ask. "Where does it hurt, Mommy?" "What does it feel like, Mommy?" "Why does the pain come and go, Mommy?"

Just like clockwork, every 4 minutes the pain would come, roll down my abdomen, and then subside for another 4 minutes. I jumped up and told Avery to go potty and get her shoes on, and to go tell Samuel to do the same thing. I grabbed the phone, and called Hector. It was 4:00 and I told him that I thought I was having contractions, but I wasn't 100% sure (I was still in denial!). He left work and I tried to straighten up the house. Honestly, the thought of dozens of people all converging on my horribly messy house within the next few days, well, it bothered me. And for some really strange reason, cleaning the toilet seemed like the best thing to do at that moment. As I bent down over the toilet to scrub it, I felt something. It was like a huge balloon was floating up inside of me. And then, it burst! It was a water balloon, and it broke, all over the bathroom floor...

Needless to say, panic set in. I would like to add here that my previous statement is quite possibly the biggest understatement of the year. I was in total freak-out, melt-down mode! I called Hector and before he even answered the phone I was crying and yelling, "Get home, NOW!!!!!" The only problem was that traffic was a mess. That ice storm had blown in, and it was rush hour traffic. I tried to calm myself down. It really didn't work. I tried to pack. That really wasn't happening either. Every 2 - 3 minutes, another contraction would hit, and more fluid would spill out onto the floor. Ah, it's such a lovely thought, isn't it? So, I did what any other woman in the same situation would do, I called my Mommy! I don't think she could understand a word I was saying, but she did her best to reassure me that Hector would be home soon and that we'd all be fine. She talked me through what I needed to pack for the kids. She talked me through what I needed to pack for myself. She asked me why I hadn't done any packing ahead of time....

You see, I had a c-section planned for the next week, so there was no need to have any of that done ahead of time. I wasn't supposed to be in labor. I had not gone into labor naturally with Samuel or Avery. But there I was, 37 weeks pregnant with my 3rd child, in labor!

We dropped Samuel and Avery off at the home of our wonderful friends, Mandy and Kasey. That was quite possibly the hardest good bye I've ever said to my kids. It was painful for me to let go of them. The drive to the hospital was exciting, to say the least! The contractions were coming every 2 minutes, and all I could think to pray was "Dear Lord, please don't let me be one of those women you hear about on the news who had her baby in the middle of an ice storm, on the side of the road." As we sat at a red light, Hector thought it was a good time to ask me for directions to the hospital. I won't tell you all what my response was! By the time we got to the hospital, it was 6:30 p.m. And by the way, no one in the hospital seemed to care that I was hunched over the desk, with amniotic fluid coming down my legs, red faced, tears streaming down my face. Nope, I guess they see that sort of thing all the time because not one of them got up to offer me some help. Must be old hat for them. Not so much for me! I wanted immediate attention. Get up, people! Now! I finally got into a room and they called the anesthesiologist. Under any other set of circumstances, I'm sure that I would have thoroughly liked this man. But given the situation at hand, the fact that all he seemed to want to do was chat with Hector about a Chinese food restaurant they both enjoyed dining at, instead of trying to find a vein and start my pain medication, really made me dislike the man at that moment. Throughout this time, the nurse kept trying to find the baby's heartbeat. She would tell me to keep still, but by then the contractions were coming every 30 seconds. Literally, every 30 seconds for over 30 minutes, I would have another contraction and move my body in response to the pain, and the nurse could not find the baby's heartbeat. Finally, I could not take it anymore. I asked the nurse why she couldn't find the heartbeat, to which she replied "I could find the heartbeat if you would stop moving!" I turned my head away from the nurse towards Hector, and with tears flooding my eyes I reached my hand out to him. He grabbed my hand and looked deep into my eyes, and without having to say a word, he knew. He told the nurse to go get the doctor. She snapped back at him that she could do it herself (honestly, she was not nice!). And Hector said "You need to go get the doctor now, or I'll do it." The nurse left the room and Hector and I didn't say a word to each other. We were both too scared to talk about what we were both thinking and fearing. But after a few minutes, my doctor came in, at around 8:50. He checked me for dilation, and said that I was at 1 centimeter - 1 centimeter, that's it... after 9 hours of contractions and 5 hours after my water had broke... Any and all hope of actually having a VBAC birth were immediately thrown out the window. Who was I trying to fool, anyway? This was me we were talking about. The woman who was told by her doctor when she went past her due date with her first child that if she could be dilated to a negative 1 centimeter, that's what I was! Anyway, the doctor gave the anesthesiologist the okay to give me the epidural. I relaxed, and my doctor found the baby's heartbeat. It was nice and strong!

As I was laying there waiting to meet my baby, all I could think of was how blessed I was. I had a great husband by my side, and I was about to meet my 3rd child!!! WOW! And then, I felt the doctor pull my baby from me, and he shouted "It's a boy!" On the video footage, at that very moment Isaac came into the world and into our lives, the doctor held him up over the curtain so that I could see him. And the sound of pure love and happiness that I let out at that moment, seeing my beautiful baby for the first time, well I still burst into tears every time I see it and hear it!

At 9:50 p.m., Isaac (meaning laughter) Elan (meaning friendly) came into our lives, weighing in at 6 pounds, 13 ounces. Which was exactly the same weight as his cousin, Amarie Belle, who had been born just 10 hours earlier on the same day!

It's amazing to think about how quickly the first year of his life went by, as well as everything Isaac accomplished.

The day we found out we were expecting a 3rd child, we both laughed so hard that we cried. We laughed and we laughed some more until the tears started flowing, because we were so happy at what God had given us. Despite being told just a few years prior to that time that we would never conceive a child of our own, there we were, laughing at that bright blue plus sign on the home pregnancy test! Isaac Elan, our most precious gift of laughter, truly has brought us laughter from the very moment we found out we were expecting him. He has made our family complete.

And now, he's turning 2! And he's still making us laugh... Time really does fly when you're having fun!!! Happy Birthday, Bubba! We love you so much.

Thanks be to God, for "He has given us laughter." Genesis 21:6