Efraim Lloyd

This is me the afternoon before I delivered.  Yes, I am a whale.

This is really how I felt.  I was SOOOO done with being pregnant.  And I was contracting all the time.  I've never done that before.  Literally, every time I walked up the stairs that last week, I'd have a contraction.

Lando and Jubal wanted in on a picture. 

That night I started having more regular contractions around 8:30 PM, they got harder as the night went on but they also got further apart. So around 11:30 PM Leo and I were debating going to bed or not.  We finally went to bed around 1AM, because I was only contracting every half an hour or so.  But as soon as I laid down they got infinitely stronger and closer together.  So at 2 AM we got up and dressed and went to the hospital.  I was on the floor by 2:40 AM.  The nurse wanted a strip with the baby's heart rate and the contractions to show the Dr, so he could see if I was really going to be admitted--ummm, yeah, that was a joke, I was not going anywhere. I was already dilated to a 3 (I've never gone in to the hospital dilated above a 1.5 before.) And another weird thing with this delivery--usually it doesn't matter what I'm doing, the contractions feel the same.  This time anytime I laid down, I thought I was dying; standing up, the contractions were at least bearable.  Anyway, I was admitted and then I got the IV in and they bolused me so I could have an epidural sooner (yes, I was rating my pain a 10 when laying down--I am a wuss).  The CRNA stuck me three times trying to get the epidural in.  It was miserable hunched over for that long.  Awful.  And then he gave me a little bit of a spinal and said that he could see me relax after that and immediately was successful getting the epidural in.  Yay!!  I was by this point dilated to a 7.  And within a very short time delivered on the third contraction I pushed on at  5:55 AM.  Poor Leo, he was exhausted from staying up all night.  I had adrenalin going, so the night wasn't bad (as far as being tired) but the next day I felt wasted.  

We were tired so there's only two pictures.  Ruff.

Leo was going to bring the kids in the afternoon, the day I delivered, but I called him and had him not bring them, because I was so tired.  They only do 24 hour stays for vaginal deliveries, so he just brought Jubal and Lando with him the next day to pick me up from the hospital. The rest of the kids were in school.

And now for a ton of pictures!!!  (I was also testing out our new camera, bought just to record Efraim's babyhood.)

Leo's department sent flowers, and then his company sent flowers too!  Yay!  I love flowers.  And they were both beautiful.


Welcome to the world Efraim!