Our Birth Story: Ellis James
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SHE'S HERE! Our baby girl made her way into the world (and our hearts) on June 19th, 2018. There truly are no words to describe how it feels to be a parent for the first time. It's like a 1,000 different emotions all at once (excitement, love, fear, joy...), and then add hormones. It's incredibly surreal and it's nice to finally understand what everyone was talking about.
Our story began on Father's Day (June 16th). Richard and I were scoping out our neighborhood parks, taking advantage of the hot weather. I was done being pregnant at this point. I was huge, tired, and ready to step away from work for awhile, but we were over a week away from my due date so I was joking all morning that it would be hilarious if we had her on Father's Day. For background, my husband's birthday is always overshadowed by Mother's Day, so having our daughter's potential birthday fall near Father's Day was an entertaining coincidence to me. Well joke was on me. Contractions began just a few hours later.
In normal situations you're supposed to wait until contractions are so far apart within a particular time frame. I, of course, did not go the normal route. Since our hospital was all the way in Brooklyn (we live in New Jersey) we left a tad earlier than necessary. There was no way I was going to risk being in labor and stuck in traffic (NJ/NY residents will understand this). Little did I know I would be laboring for another day before I could even be admitted (thank you Hotel Tonight for existing!).
Once I was admitted (after 2 days of walking through Prospect Park and the streets of Brooklyn... in 90+ degrees and no sleep), I was already exhausted. So, I opted for the epidural so I could get some sleep. My biggest fear was being too tired to push and being forced to get a c-section. I commend all mothers who go the natural route, but it simply was not in the cards for me. Especially since I had to get a c-section after all, but the epidural did give me the energy needed to try to push for over 3 hours and that's all I can ask for. For those wondering, my pelvis is apparently too small and my daughter's head wasn't molding correctly to fit. My husband blames my milkshake cravings... I agree to disagree.
My girl took her first breath at 3:37pm, weighing in at 6 pounds, 13 ounces and measuring 19 inches long. She is absolutely perfect. We named her Ellis James, a name we picked out exactly 2 years before while lying on a beach. We were throwing out baby names that morning because, at the time, we planned to start trying that fall. Of course, we couldn't agree on much. It was super windy out so it was hard to hear the noise around us, but I heard a mom call for her daughter and I thought I heard "Ellis." Come to find out, her name was really Alice, but Ellis was stuck in my head. So, I asked Richard what he thought. He wasn't on board initially, but once I said, "think about it... if we have a girl, we can call her Ellie." He was playing a video game at the time called "The Last of Us" and one of the main characters (a kid who cussed a lot) was named Ellie. He was sold.
James has always been a name we both liked for various reasons. It's Harry Potter's middle name (win for me!), we both love James Bond movies, "The Office" is one of our favorite shows so Jim was a possible nickname if we had a boy, and it was my late grandfather's name (although at the time, I didn't know I was about to suddenly lose him in 3 months). One of the first people we shared our new name with was my father, who passed away a week later. So, changing it was never an option after that.
Luckily, the name fits her well and I hope she loves its uniqueness when she's older. We also call her Ellie, Ellie girl, baby girl, and honey bear... and I'm sure many more will come as we learn more about her.
Parenting is still very new to us (and exhausting), but we're loving every minute of it. We each have a special bond with our daughter and it brings me so much joy knowing that bond will continue to grow as the years go by.
Ellis, thank you for making me a mother. You amaze me every single day. Remember, you are the only person who truly knows what my heart sounds like, and for that, I will cherish you forever. Love, mom.
- J
