Who is this guy?

We would like to welcome our newest addition to the Elson family. He's been a long time coming, and we sure are excited to have him here! Here's the story:


We went to Matsuyama for dinner. The boys were staying the night at Mimi and Grandpa's, because Baker had her interview the next day for Vineyard Christian Middle School. It was a special evening we got to have just with Baker.

We were staying at my parent's house while we were adding onto our house. We finished dinner at 6 pm and ran back by our house to see the construction status and move a wire out of the way. The tile was a little more than halfway done, and expected to be finished tomorrow (Wednesday). Our contractor had updated us that we should have our final inspection next Friday, ready to move in on Saturday. Two days after the scheduled C-Section of Jan. 25.

When we pulled up back at my parent's house, Amy was getting out of the car to go inside when her water broke. And it broke bad.

I ran inside and grabbed our "to-go" bag and the coconut cream pie I made, and ran Baker and the pie over to Mimi and Grandpa's. We then left immediately for Kaiser South Sac. Once Amy’s water broke, the contractions started, and were consistently occurring every 4-8 minutes.

By the time we got to Kaiser, it was 8pm, but several other women had apparently beaten us there.


The doctor told us they like to wait 6-8 hours after eating before performing a C-Section, which meant we were looking at midnight. Later we found out that the other women were in worse shape than us, which put us further down in line.

The midwife came in around 8:30pm to check Amy’s cervix (which was dilated to 2cm). When she checked Amy, Amy's contractions suddenly ramped up in pain, and continued at this escalated pain with each contraction.

By 10pm, contractions were unbearable for Amy. Amy and I were extremely anxious at this point, knowing this was Amy's 4th C-Section, and the level of pain she was in experiencing didn't bode well for possible complications. The nurses seemed to be avoiding our room, as there was nothing they could do to speed things up. At one point, the nurse told us it would be another 2 hours before they were done delivering one of the other babies and the operating room would cleared out and cleaned up. That just wouldn't work for Amy. She needed some medicine to help with the pain, or slow things down, if at all possible. So they gave her 5mg of something that would “take the edge off”. It didn’t work. By 11pm, her contractions were coming every couple of minutes and were an 11 on a scale of 10. We started asking about an epidural or spinal. The spinal Doctor came in and explained our options. At this point, one of the other moms had just delivered twins, that's right, TWINS! in the operating room, and the Doctor said we would be up next... maybe 45 minutes. Could Amy wait for a spinal? NO! She was in great pain and was worried about uterine rupture. It didn't help that this morning she had a "pre-op" appointment with her OBGYN, who had mentioned a rupture as a possibility, which is why they had scheduled her C-Section so early. So much for planning!

So with her pain, and anxiety, Amy needed something now! According to the Doctor on duty, it was between an epidural or spinal. He laide out the pros and cons for each. Epidural might not be as effective or reliable, spinal wouldn’t last as long and would require two poles. This was a surprisingly hard decision, and the doctor wasn’t able to recommend one over the other. It also didn’t help that Amy was having crazy bad contractions every 3 minutes at this point. The good news, just 45 more minutes...

Then, just 30 minutes later, we heard it... "Code C" in room 210. The room next door. We didn't know what "Code C" meant, but we knew one thing, the mom next door just stole our spot in line for the operating room!!! So now the decision was made for us. The anesthesiologist would be unavailable for the next hour, so he needed to come in now and give an Epidural. A spinal would be given too close in time to Amy’s operation time, so that wasn’t feasible.

By 12:15am, the epidural was in, and Amy was finally able to at least accept that she was going to live through this experience.

Then the Doctor came in and wanted to check Amy’s cervix to see how dilated she was... the whole labor and delivery department were in emergency mode trying to constantly assess each of their moms. Amy had dilated to 7cm. It was go time! They had to scramble.

Since the operating rooms weren’t available in labor and delivery, they had to find a plan B. (one was in use, and the other wasn’t cleaned yet from the previous C-Section.) Plan B ended up being using the operating room downstairs (not labor and delivery, we heard later it was ER). So they quickly prepped Amy and took her down, (and gave me the smallest gown to wear.)

We’ll it turned out they created problems for me, as though worrying about Amy wasn't enough. The gown they gave me wasn’t big enough, and they didn’t give me any sort of instructions. So I just put it on over the clothes I was wearing. I had my long sleeve shirt and jeans were sticking out of the gown at every end. When the nurse returned, she told me my long sleeves couldn’t show under the shirt sleeve gown they gave me... so I quickly took off my long sleeve shirt and put the shirt sleeve gown back on. Then the nurse looked at me and decided the whole outfit was too small, so they went to find me a new one. I ended up with one that looked almost like a hazmat suit! I was freaking out a little, worried about Amy. I didn't like being away from her for any length of time. But now I was ready, hazmat suit, and all. They brought me down to the operating room where Amy was on the table ready to go. And was she ready... Fully dilated! I think this is the only child that she's made it to full dilation.

January 17, 12:45am - things were moving along and they were getting close to getting the baby out. But they hit a snag, this baby’s head was wedged in just like Baker was, and didn’t want to come out. They worked a little harder and finally got him out. They let me look over the curtain to see if it was a boy or girl. At 12:55am, we had a baby boy. And I cried for at least the fourth time in my life as I was able to tell Amy we had a baby boy! (So maybe I’ve cried a few more times in my life)


Here's the details:

(Name still to be determined, Amy likes Mathew Joshua Elson. I'm not too fond of it. We'll see)
8lbs 7.3 oz
19-1/2”


Postscript
next came the usual stuff, they put the baby on Amy’s chest for some skin on skin contact, they took some pictures of us with the baby, then they whisked the baby and me to the nursery for measurements, shots, eye goop and a heater (I even got to cut the umbilical cord... well, I got to cut it shorter than when they had originally cut it, which was still a first) while they sewed Amy back up. We all reconvened in the room at 2:15am.

Oh, and the doctor said Amy’s uterus had torn when they did the C-Section and that she had to spend some time sewing it back up. (A different doctor the next day explained it as a balloon that the whole thing splits open from one tiny cut. The location they generally pick for the incision is the thinnest part of the uterus) They said it was a good thing it was a C-Section so they could see it, otherwise if it was natural, it probably would have ruptured and they might not have known about it and it could have been been awhile before they figured it out and that would have been bad... so the Doctor spent a considerable amount of time lecturing/quizzing Amy about birth control and how to use it to make sure she doesn’t get pregnant again. This is in addition to the lectures I had already gotten from her OBGYN when I would go to her appointments with her.

Cutie Patootie!

She's got such a cute sense of style, I just had to post this picture of her!

Their own treehouse

I came home from work today to find that the kids had made their own treehouse.  As you'll see in the pictures, it wasn't OSHA approved… and with good reason.  It was basically a cardboard box tied to our peach tree with twine.  And I use the term "tied" loosely.  Baker had wrapped the twine around branches several times and made an attempt at tieing knots.

By the end of the evening, it had fallen apart, resulting in Caleb falling to the ground on his head!  Nothing like a little something extra to worry about for Caleb.  Thankfully, he has a hard head!  

The kids added an empty toilet paper roll as a telescope to lookout of their treehouse!

Caleb's "sweetums" face!

Eli wanted part of the action!

Still talking about Disneyland!

Baker was talking about our trip to Disneyland and the Casey Jr. Train ride with the miniature villages.  

Baker: They built the cottages on the side of the hills, and I don't mean the like the cheese, but like the cottage villages.  

(She was referencing "cottage cheese")  Funny girl!

Last night, we had a fire pit in our front yard, and invited neighbors over to partake in s'mores!  We had a great time talking with neighbors, and eating s'mores.  Our parents also came over to see the kids in their costumes.  

Today, Amy made some delicious cookie to memorialize the occasion!

Boo at the Zoo

Today is Boo at the Zoo.  It's a special function the Sacramento Zoo has where they set up "candy" booths all over the zoo.  The kids get dressed up in their costumes, and get to go trick or treating.  Our neighbors across the street have an in, so we get invited to all kinds of fun zoo activities.

I was hoping they let some of the animals out to roam around with the kids, or something crazy like that… Sadly, the animals weren't even really on display.  It started as the sun was going down, so we didn't even see any animals, except for the few they had at the one "animal show" they put on for the kids.   

As we were leaving our house to go up there, Caleb, who was dressed up as a leopard, asks me:

Caleb: Do you take animal passengers?

He's just the cutest!

In the hospital again...

I had to bring Caleb into the hospital because he had a fever.  While in, Amy and I were texting, and I sent her a text with an "angry" emoticon.  Caleb saw the emoticon, and out of the blue, says:

Caleb: sometimes I get angry with Baker.

Josh: why?

Caleb: That she wins.  Sometimes I get mad and I cry when she wins.

Baker had a soccer game today (I'm her coach for Upward Soccer).  I had to miss it because of the hospital visit.  But never fear, Baker had her cheering section.  After the game, Amy saw this awesome license plate!  I'm sure one of the kids will get some variation of this when they get their own car!

WHAT!!!!!

First a little humor:

Caleb made this statement today:  "I like homo depot"

Now a little more humor for everyone else… and a story that probably shaved a year off of my life from frustration:

Amy was gone for the afternoon, and left me in charge of the kids.  I apparently overestimated their ability to be left alone inside.  So spent an hour or so outside working on the playhouse, and when I came inside to check on them, I found the following

1. Baker and Caleb had tried to make water balloons.

2. The kids are fascinated with the timer on the microwave.  I don't think they even realize that there's a "timer" which just beeps when it's done, and then there's the actual microwave timer… So they tried to put the "timer" on the microwave, but accidentally turned on the microwave with nothing in it, and nearly blew it up, or whatever happens in that situation.  It smelled like an electrical fire.

3. They decided to help clean the house by mopping.  So they got out a mop and filled a bowl up with water and proceeded to mop the whole houses.  (except for carpets)  But they did include all of the hardwood.  In the dining room, living room, their bedroom, and of course the tile kitchen, where they just poured water on the floor.  I was furious, and in Baker's words "I  yelled louder than I've ever yelled before".  It took 3 beach towels to dry up all of the floors.  The kids got a stern talking to about the necessity to ask permission before helping to clean the house.  I also explained that even mommy doesn't know how to mop... And I apologized for yelling at them.

They were right, I yelled louder than I've every yelled before.  I don't know how I held it together enough to take a picture, but for your benefit, I did.  Notice how that hardwood shines!

Needless to say, we were all tired later in the day.