Elijah John

Eli was born at 11:00pm on Wednesday... but the excitement started much earlier. See... A couple months ago, he was diagnosed with a 1st degree heart block. I didn't say anything to many folks about it... because frankly it sounds a whole heap scarier than it actually is.

It's hard to link words like "heart" and "block" to closely without causin' concern.

What it boils down to, is the boy's heart was skippin' a beat ever so often. It was something to worry about, but not something to freak out over.

Anyway... everything was going fine until about 2pm wednesday afternoon. Mom and Dad had just left, and the OB resident was in to talk to us. We were chattin' about the progress and they decided to crank up the pitosen from 8 to 10... Still not a "large" dose by any means.

In seconds Julie went from moderate contractions to titanic. Eli feel into a decel (his heart rate dropped to the 50s) and stayed there.

Within 60 seconds of the drop the room was suddenly filled with 7 nurses and 2 OB's. The pit was off instantly. Drugs were administered to stop the contractions....

For 7 minutes... the heart rate stayed down. When if finally recovered... Anesthesia was already prepped and ready for an honest to God, no shit, STAT C-Section. 10 more seconds and it would've happened.

But he recovered... we recovered... and everything went fine from then on...

Well... until the birthin'

Julie rocked. She pushed him out in just 29 minutes... but one thing should be pointed out. With each contraction, Eli's heart-rate was bottoming out... and I don't mean into the 50's either. After a couple of serious drops, they just cut her, and out he came.

It should be noted...

Had we been the Hippy Home Birthin' Types... We'd have buried two infants. My friends... I ask you to judge the company you keep when you look at this home birthin' crap. After all... My hippie neighbors... the stoners who moved here from Berkley California...

Yeah... They're the only people we know who're shocked by the fact that Julie had Eli in a hospital.