Elynn Coleman {birth story- part 2}

Yesterday I talked about our name choice for Elynn and today I will tell you a little about his actual arrival.

From this point on, if you are not interested in a birth story stop reading and just look at the cute baby pictures ...

You've been warned.

If you follow me on Instagram, you know that this was my longest pregnancy to date...as in I have never ever made it to my due date in my last four pregnancies. 

Until now.

My due date came and went on June 1st and I had scheduled a doctor appointment at 4:20 for that Monday.

My doc gave me the option to be induced the next day, but I had strong reservations about that. 

Primarily I hate Pitocin. 

Together we decided that he would strip my membranes to encourage labor (at this point I had 3 solid weeks of daily contractions). His guess was we would have a baby within 48 hours if it was going to work. 

I was at 3 cm when he did the stripping and almost immediately I began having contractions and felt incredibly sick. We left the office with no expectations and headed to Costco to do some grocery shopping and walk a bit. We also managed to fit in a haircut for little Ever and a walk around Gordman's. The whole time I was having contractions, but they were only every 10 mins or so. 

Finally we headed home.

We warned both our moms that the contractions were pretty regular, but neither of us thought baby would be here before the next afternoon. So both moms planned on heading our way in the morning. 

As the night went on, I tried to stay busy puttering around the house and finally decided if this kid was going to come I better get some rest. I watched the rest of a Mariners game and then we headed to bed.

I manged to sleep off and on despite getting some strong contractions now and then. I was still sure they were going to stop like they had been doing and even told my mom that I wasn't sure she need to come unless she wanted to. 

Then around 3:40 am I woke up to use the bathroom and realized I was having pretty strong contractions every 3-5 mins. I woke up my husband and had him start making calls. We had to wait for my Aunt to get to our house before we could go to the hospital which gave my husband plenty of time to take a shower and eat breakfast. 

It was kind of torturous!

Finally we headed to the hospital and were checked in by 5 am. 

I was measuring a 5 at this point and all I could think about was getting some relief from the pain. I knew I wasn't going to play super hero like I did with my last birth. 

At 6 am the epidural was in!

Sweet relief!

Well for all of 20 mins or so...

I was checked again and was at a 7 and then shortly after that I told them I could tell I was feeling lots of pressure. They checked me again and I was already at a 9. 

The doctor broke my water and after letting a couple contractions pass, I knew I was ready to push.

In less than one and half contractions we had our baby at 7:08 am!! 

After only being at the hospital two hours!

Smooth, uneventful and way quicker than we were expecting!! 

We are so in love with this little guy!!

If you missed Part 1 - go HERE

Elynn Coleman - all about the name... {birth story- part 1}

Let's clear something up, right off the bat...

Elynn is pronounced "ee-lynn". 

Not Ellen.

For those of you who are curious about why we picked such a potentially confusing name, I'll give you the back story.

First we wanted another "E" name to go with our daughter, Ellery and son, Everett.

I even asked you all for suggestions, and there were some great names thrown into the pool ...like Easton, Emmett, Elijah, Ezra... etc..., but either they didn't fit my criteria (unique, unpopular and not the same beginning sound as the other two kids), were already being used by friends or family, or we just didn't like them.

I was at my wits end and ready to nix the whole "E" name idea. I actually even started Googling names of TV characters from one of our favorite shows Justified. One name that popped up was Raylan. 

Some how my mind made the jump from Raylan to Lynn, which happens to be both my mother-in-law AND father-in-law's middle names. 

Then I thought, what if we put an E on the beginning of it.

(because that's the logical thing to do when your no longer searching for an E names...)

E + Lynn = Elynn

Low and behold its a real name too.

Albeit a Swedish girl's name.

On a shot I suggested it to my husband.

AND HE LIKED IT.

We debated the spelling,...

Do we double the  E to make it clear how its pronounced? 

-No, it just looked weird to me.

Do we leave off one N to make it look more boyish?

-No, we wanted to keep the family part of the name intact.

Basically it kept coming back to the fact WE liked the name as it was.

Plus, it paired really well with Coleman - my husband's little brother's name.

It was a perfect fit. 

Who cares that he already has been called Ellen by the nurse at our first well-baby checkup. 

Better get used to this kid...

You can find Elynn's birth announcement HERE

and

PART 2 of his Birth Story HERE