Grandma Hollen

My mom and I had concocted a plan to get her here before I went into labor so she could stay with Mia while we were in the hospital. Wow were we wrong!! First she was going to fly out on October 20th since I was due on the 24th, but then I went into the doctors office for my 38 week appointment on October 10th and he was going to induce me on the 18th because he was going out of town that following weekend and I didn't want to risk going into labor and being delivered by someone other than Dr. Weister. At my appointment that morning he checked me and told me I was 1.5 cms dilated and 40% effaced. He proceeded to tell me that I would NOT delivered that day or the next, but I might deliver before the 18th. So I called my mom and we changed her flight to the 14th thinking I would be delivered on the 18th. I went back to work that day and went about my day!!

I had plans for a friend to pick up Mia on the 11th so that I could clean, do laundry and get all the baby stuff ready and our hospital bags packed. However Eli had plans of his own! I had been contracting off and on all day and had been since about 24 weeks so I didn't think much of it. Around 8:30pm I texted Lou and said I was headed home because I was feeling uncomfortable and starting to contract more. I still didn't think anything of it! In the car on the way home I started to feel extremely nauseated and I thought I was going to be sick, I got home and told Lou how yucky I felt, he said I should go to bed and relax and get off my feet. I tried to lay down but I started to contract every 2-3 minutes and then I started getting sick. I woke Lou up and said we needed to call the doctor because I was pretty sure I either all of a sudden had the flu or I was in labor ( I was leaning more towards being in labor)

I called Dr. Weister and he told me that I needed to head into the hospital, however he was the deck doctor at Rose Medical and he wouldn't be able to go to P/SL that night so I would need to deliver at Rose. At that point I didn't care where I needed to deliver as long as he delivered me. It was about midnight we call our wonderful babysitter Jackie and ask her if we could drop Mia off, she said yes so we woke her up; put her in the car and headed to Jackie's, all the while I am still getting sick!

We check in and come to find out I was dilated to 5! We were going to have a baby!! I told Lou that I didn't want to tell anyone because it was the middle of the night and I just wanted to wait until the baby was here so we wouldn't be texting the whole time. When the baby delivered I found out it was a boy, I really hadn't had one feeling over another on if it was a boy or girl. Since he was early we still hadn't picked out a name, I looked at Lou and told him we needed to name him before we called anyone. We had a list of names we were thinking about and finally I told Lou I thought he looked like an Eli!

After we picked his name we then proceeded to call family and give them the great surprising news! Grandma Hollen thought I was lying since just that day the doctor told me I wouldn't deliver anytime soon!

Grandma arrived on the 14th and stayed with us for 2.5 weeks and what a help she was! She did laundry, cleaned the house and entertained Mia. She took Mia to the park once or twice a day and would let her swing and go down the slide. She taught Mia several songs and generally just gave her all the attention she needed that I couldn't really give her.

We are all very lucky to have such a loving and helpful Grandma Hollen. It would have been a stressful two weeks without her! Plus Lou and I even got to sneak out for a dinner date by ourselves one night! It was fabulous! Who knows when we will get to do that again!

Thanks for everything you did to help all four of us Mom! We love you!