Every Day Adventures: Ode to Zeke

Okay, I apologizing ahead of time, this is not my best post. The pictures are scanned, as I no longer know where the digital versions of them are, and for some reason, even though I rotated it on my computer, the first one still came up with Zeke on his head. I am deeply sorry, but if you don't think you can deal with those issues, you may want to skip this post. :)

Today my young son is three years old! Half of my thinks, "really, three years? That's it?!" While the other half thinks, "he's still a baby, how can he possibly be three? That's like, a kid!" But either way, it's been three years.

Three years ago today I went to the doctor to get some cough medicine for a cold, and came home three days later with a baby :). We were in Pensacola, and at the Naval Hospital they did the whole triage thing, even though it was just a cold. Which ended up being a God thing, as they discovered that I was have major contractions brought on by dehydration, and as they were monitoring those while pumping me with fluids, they realized that Zeke was in fetal distress, meaning every time I had a contraction, his heart rate plummeted. They told me that I needed to stay and be induced immediately.

However, my husband was deployed to Iraq, and I had a 16 month old daughter at home, and didn't quite grasp the severity of the situation. I kept pleading with the docs, "Couldn't I just go home, and wait until my mom and dad can get here, and I'll come back in a couple days, and you can induce me then?" They kept looking at my like, poor, slow, teenage mother, and they would kindly respond, "No, you really need to stay and have this baby now."

So I called my husband in a teary panic, and he started calling our friends and family, from Iraq, and organizing a plan. He arranged for some good friends to take the next day off work to stay with Cooper, and for a couple of my girlfriends to come stay at the hospital with me. I had been in contact with my Mom and Dad, whom I kept telling, "no, I'm sure they'll let me go home, don't come tonight". So then I had to call them at dinner time and say, "Just kidding, they're inducing me now, get here (from WA to FL) as soon as possible!"

Which they did, they jumped on a red eye, and got in at 10 am, and Zeke was born at noon. Another little God touch :)

Zeke was struggling a bit at first, so they whisked him right down to the NICU and hooked him up to some fluids and some monitors, but the little guy rallied quickly, and was fine. My dad took this picture down in the nursery before I ever even saw him (sorry again he's on his head).