Exit freedom, enter prayer...

Welcome Elodie Claire Currat!

Elodie was born on March 26th at 12:17am. She weighed a measly 9.1lbs. and was 21 inches long! The last trimester of pregnancy and this first month of life has really rocked our world!

Here's the story:

I (Colleen) had a great pregnancy. It was such a great pregnancy that sweet Elodie, was two weeks overdue. I was super annoyed and frustrated the last month of pregnancy. I had wonderful midwives looking after me, being so careful and gentle to not force things along. That's great in theory, but in reality I would have taken any synthetic drug to speed things along. I didn't but will next time. :)

I finally went into the hospital to be induced and found that my body had already started contracting. I was hooked up to pitocin anyway and labor began in as little as 30 minutes. It was so weird to be hooked up and left to labor on my own. No one told me how it was going to go, but I soon found out. I labored drug-free for about 4 hours. When my contractions started coming 1 minute apart with no advances in dialation, I caved for the epidural. It's just as amazing as everyone says!

By 10:30 in the evening, I was not dialated more than 4cm. My body was contracting as much as it could, I was exhausted, and my midwife had a white flag waving. Something was wrong, Elodie couldn't move into birthing position. I was in denial that I would ever have to have a c-section. When my midwife told me, Olivier and I took an hour to pray before agreeing to it. As I look back, that hour was such a sweet time. It was one of the first moments of putting Elodie into God's hands. We couldn't control her and only He knew what was best. With no progression at the end of that hour, we accepted the c-section with peace.

In no more than 45-minutes, I was prepped and wheeled into surgery. I kept telling myself that everything was fine, to focus on the textures of anything I saw to avoid flipping out...but I eventually fell into deep fear. I started shaking and Olivier entered as I almost completely lost it. I have never gone through surgery before, and admit that the process is far from warm and lovely. Everything was happening so fast and before I knew it, the doctors called for Olivier to look as Elodie arrived. She was quiet, I had a moment to think "I don't hear her" and then she let out a blood-curdling one-note scream. She scared everyone. I remember thinking, "oh no, she's loud". The next thing I heard was, "Oh my goodness, she's 9 pounds, 1 oz. Mom!"

That's how everything began. The hospital stay was really nice and even better when my mom arrived. I've been healing wonderfully and everyday entering into more of a bond with Elodie. I'll write more about that later. For now, here's her late debut...