Peter Aaron

It seems odd to not be posting about Lily, but as this blog is entitled "The Ellis Family Story" I suppose I had better stay true to that name and tell you a story.

Brynt and I have the honor of being Godparents to Brynt's cousin's (Holly) son, Peter Aaron. She has always been an important family member so we could not have been more excited for her to experience parenthood. I also had the immense honor of being in the birthing room when she delivered, which turned out to be one of the biggest emotional roller coasters of my life. It is a day (or should I say three days) I will not soon forget.

To make a very long story short (in the loosest meaning of the word), by the time Holly went into the hospital she was 13 days overdue and had an induction scheduled. Things were not going very quickly, either, because she spent a total of 54 hours in labor. She had TWO epidurals put in because the first one wasn't in far enough so the first 48+ hours she was feeling the contractions more than she should have. Just when we thought things were turning around she got a fever because there was an infection in her cervix. It was all quite scary and very tiring but Holly was absolutely amazing through all of it. She never complained she couldn't do it, said it hurt too bad or wanted to quit. She was mostly just craving a Pepsi and a pretzel :) I brought a few things to help distract her and when she was feeling up to it, she liked coloring. We created these lovely masterpieces:



When things weren't going so well (like before her second epidural) this is more like how things were going:

Yes, this is me standing on the bed pushing on Holly's back.

Around 11 p.m. they finally gave her the go to start pushing and we all got a new burst of energy. We could all feel the excitement finally start building after three days of waiting in the hospital. We had a really good rhythm of breathing going and she was a super duper pusher. FOUR hours of pushing later a doctor finally came in and laid it out. Because of Holly's exhaustion she had two options. They could use suction to get him out, but they couldn't guarantee he would fit and if he didn't fit there might be damage. Or they could do a c-section which was risky for her as it is a major surgery. All of the fatigue came crashing down on all of us then and we were devastated. We all knew how worried Holly was about having to have a c-section as any Mom would be and she had been so brave through everything, we couldn't believe it had all culminated to this moment. But she endured once more, pulled herself together like a good Mom would and went into surgery around 4 a.m. 

I felt like I never had before. I was devastated and exhausted and physically hurting and so worried about Holly. This is the part where things kind of turned into a movie for me. The nurse said it would be a few hours before we would get to see baby or Holly because baby would be going into observation because of the infection and Holly would go into recovery. I decided to go home for a few hours to rest as I had my Schroeder family Thanksgiving that day. I had just entered the hallway when I got a call from Holly's sister. "He's here and he's pink and he's screaming!" she yelled. "I'm coming right now!" I yelled back as I ran back past the man at the desk, up the elevator and into the room. Not even 30 minutes later they said we could go back and everyone was doing great. Holly's amazing family let me go back with her Mom first as only two people were allowed back at a time and they knew I had to do Thanksgiving in a few hours. We assumed we were going to see Holly since Peter Aaron was being monitored but as we walked through the doors and turned the corner, there he was. The sweetest, calmest bundle of baby just waiting to see his Aunt Lamb. It was then that everything hit me again but in the most amazing way possible. I had honestly not given much thought to this little bundle of joy since the labor began. My main concern was Holly because if Holly was okay the baby was okay. So when I saw this sweet baby lying there he represented glory and relief and everything that was right with the world and it took my breath away in the most literal sense. You expect your wedding day to take your breath away, you expect your own child being born to take your breath away, but it's those unexpected moments that take your breath away you can't possibly ever forget. Needless to say Aunt Lisa and I were a mess, sobbing all over each other and, as much as we could, over this tiny being that had somehow just changed our lives in that very short moment. Through my swollen tear-filled eyes I could see him turn his head and try to look at me through his swollen and goopy eyes and it was then that I fell in love with this tiny baby boy.

It isn't often we get to witness things as amazing as birth, and I just hope and pray I never take for granted the fact I was invited on this journey to witness a miracle from an outsiders perspective. It's things like this that remind me how important it is to keep your head up because good things come to those who wait.

Dedicated to Peter Aaron born on November 18th at 4:36 a.m. weighing 8 lbs 8 oz