Our story part 2

As we went down the hall, the nurses heard a call that someone else had been scheduled for a section as well. My nurses started sprinting with my bed down the hall towards the OR, not wanting me to get bumped again. They sent Jesse to a room to get scrubbed in. Even just those few minutes without him beside me seemed like an eternity. They placed me on the OR table and started explaining what would happen step by step but all I could say was “Where is my husband?” They put up the blue curtain and happily told me that my epidural was still working great and I wouldn’t need a spinal block. They said they would wait until my professional hand holder was in the room to get started but when I finally heard his sweet voice beside me he said that he had accidentally looked over the curtain and they had already started. Another eternity later I heard this beautiful cry break through. The world stopped and Jesse and I looked at each other knowing that our entire lives were from this moment on different. The doctor immediately made a comment on how much hair my sweet boy had which made me feel vindicated for all of that heartburn he had caused for nine months. She also said that the cord was wrapped around his neck twice which had been causing his heart rate to drop. They brought him around the curtain for a few seconds and then I watched as he was carried away. There’s no way to describe how hard it was to watch him go and then Jesse leave as well. Everything that mattered to me was so far away in that moment. 

A few minutes later they brought him back in and held him close enough for me to kiss his sweet cheeks and tell him how much I loved him. Then he was gone again and I was alone with the 8 strangers in the room sewing me back up. I tried to keep my heart from breaking as once again my expectations mocked me. Everyone is meeting your son before you do. Everyone is bonding with him before you. He won’t even know you by the time you get finished. It sounds silly, but for anyone that has been on that table waiting for the surgery to be over, you understand. As soon as they finished they took me to another room with different curtained areas. Jesse was there waiting for me and I could not have been happier to kiss him and feel his hand on mine again. I asked him a million questions between ice chips as they monitored my progress (and pushed painfully on my abdomen every 15 minutes). I facetimed my mom and dad so that they could see that I was ok and they showed me my beautiful son through the glass window of the nursery. That image got me through the next hour and finally it was time to go to my room. As I was wheeled past the nursery, a nurse met us in the hall with my sweet bundle of joy. They put him on top of me and I took a deep sigh of relief. He was ok, I was ok. My April Fools Day baby born at 1:31 a.m. So close to being a March baby but it wasn’t meant to be.

That was my biggest lesson of the day and would continue to be over the next few days. The things that I thought I could control, that I had power over, God continued to gracefully show me that I really didn’t. His gentle voice kept reminding me of who was in control and that He was much better at it than me. My expectations were my way of trying to be in charge and in a matter of hours each expectation had been washed away and left with the reality that I had a son. I was a mom. Everything was going to change and it was time to let go of what I wanted and do what was best for Elijah.

Elijah Harmon Durst arrived unexpectedly for us and yet exactly at the time that God had planned. And now our adventure had begun.