Malachi Joel

Malachi Joel was born Sunday April 28, 2013 at 12:31 PM. He weighed 8 pounds 2 ounces and was 20 inches long. I woke up Saturday morning with light contractions but they never really became regular or much stronger. The older boys were gone to cub scout camp with Aunt Jessica and we had a house full of kids, my other three, Jessica's girls and her boyfriends three granddaughters. Grandma Aldridge was here to help. In the afternoon, I took Liliana to her car wash to raise money for her softball team. I was hoping that the moving around washing cars would help my contractions become regular but it didn't change anything for me except get my tennis shoes soaked. Grandma kept the other kids at home.  When Liliana and I returned from her car wash, the boys and Aunt Jessica were back from camping. My blood pressure was registering high on our automatic blood pressure cuff at home. I called Eric and told him that. He went ahead and came home. But my blood pressure came back down too. So we waited. I laid down and Grandma and Aunt Jessica put all the kids to bed. When I got up to go to the bathroom around midnight, my blood pressure was again registering high. So we finally got ready and left for the hospital arriving there around 1:30AM.   I was only dilated to a 3. My contractions were still not real regular. They said I was dehydrated and gave me lots of IV fluids.  By 6AM, I still wasn't having regular contractions but I had dilated to 6cm. So they admitted me to the hospital and I moved to a labor and delivery room. I think my contractions virtually stopped at this point and I slept for nearly 3 hours. Around 10AM the on call doctor came in to see me and I was still at a 6. She broke my water. At 11AM, I still had basically no changes from the 6Am status. They started me on the lowest amount of Pitocin possible. Soon contractions were very intense and frequent. I got some IV pain meds to help take the edge off but it was still pretty bad. Soon I could tell it would be almost time but I didn't feel like I could do anymore. But whether mommy was ready or not, it was time. After a few min of pushing and refusing to move my legs, our beautiful baby boy arrived in the world.  We still had to decide on a name.  Later in the afternoon, we decided on Malachi Joel. I am still getting use to saying it.

Qorban and Jayden, Caleb in white tshirt