Elijah Turns Two

Posted on December 4, 2018 by justeeni

Last month, shortly before Thanksgiving, we got to celebrate two years of having our sweet Elijah with us.

Elijah is my Sweet Boy, as I’ve called him since he was a newborn. He really is sweet, gets along with everyone, and is completely adorable. It wasn’t hard to find cute pictures of Elijah for this post! He’s always smiling for the camera.

Elijah loves to help. He loves to throw things in the trash or sink, help me move laundry into the dryer, and “sweep”. We’ve probably lost a lot of forks due to his helping! It’s certainly not uncommon to find random items (socks, cups, spatulas…) in the trash. He also loves to make messes, and flashes the cutest I’m-so-proud-of-myself smile when he gets caught.

But, Elijah does have some weaknesses. First of all, he doesn’t need much sleep. This could be related to his ongoing thyroid treatment. (We’ll find out more about that in a few months.) But, no matter the reason, Elijah gets up early. He used to stay up late. He used to get up during the night. We finally broke those habits, but, alas, now he won’t sleep past 6. He wakes up ready to go and screams until we get him (or the whole house wakes up). As soon as he is up, he’s chipper as anything and toddles around the living room chattering to himself and admiring the Christmas lights. It’s not uncommon for him to crash before he makes it to nap time, and I find him sleeping on the couch, in his high chair, or sometimes even in my own arms.

Elijah also has a strong will. When he doesn’t like dinner, when he’s told, “No”, or when he can’t communicate what he wants, he gets angry. He’s so cute, sometimes we can’t help but laugh, but we try hard to end the tantrums as we’re able. He usually recovers pretty suddenly, often when there’s food involved.

Elijah tends to get himself into trouble. There was the terrible time he chocked on a toy when he was not-yet-one, but he’s always finding himself in similar situations. He’ll climb up somewhere and get stuck. He’ll find all sorts of household items that he shouldn’t play with (anywhere we go!). Sometimes the situations he gets himself into are so funny, I don’t know whether to help him out first or stop and take a picture.

Elijah loves to eat. I mentioned that he’s chipper in the morning, but that’s only after we give him his early morning snack. Sometimes that’s followed by a late-early-morning snack, then breakfast, a mid-morning snack (if it’s a good day), lunch, afternoon snack, dinner, and a dessert (which is frequently some sort of fruit). Any tears, for any reason, can usually be ended with a snack. This boy loves to eat.

Elijah loves his siblings and loves to be a part of whatever is going on. Whenever Dan asks the kids if they want to do something fun or eat something yummy, he joins in the rest of the family, raising his hand and yelling, “ME!!!”. He’ll play happily with anyone, or just by himself, but is only starting to learn how to respond when he’s told to share. One of his favorite things to do is wrestle with Dan in the evenings. He also gets excited anytime anyone is going out of the house and will eagerly bring his shoes over and insist on coming along. (It’s hard to say no to that!)

Elijah is quiet. He’s always been quiet, or at least, I’ve always seen him as a quiet person. By quiet, I don’t mean he can’t be loud, but that he’s not much of a talker. He doesn’t like to say words when put on the spot and he doesn’t like to say things unless he knows he can say them correctly. Still, he’s picking up new words frequently. When I tell him, “I love you!” and he repeats back, “Wuv ooh!” it just melts my heart.

So, is Elijah ready to be a big brother? Well, I’d say he was pretty much born ready. Paul has always demanded my attention, even when Elijah was a newborn, so Elijah learned to spend less time with Mommy. Or he learned to share. Or he learned to be happy with Dan. When he does get to be with Mommy, he often still has to share with Paul. It’s not uncommon to find both boys perched on my lap together, one on each leg. He still loves his snuggles though, and I love the moments when I get to snuggle him, even if it is only at 6 AM.

Fur Rendezvous 2018 – The Taylor Offerings

Posted on February 20, 2018 by justeeni

Last Friday our family got to enjoy one of our big events of the year: Fur Rendezvous. In addition to the first showing of Eljiah’s video, this year featured Dan’s first ever act in the show. (You can watch the other kids’ videos here and here.)

Below our the two Taylor acts from this year’s show. Enjoy!

Elijah’s First Birthday

Posted on December 8, 2017 by justeeni

A few weeks ago, we celebrated Elijah’s first birthday. Although I’ve shared plenty of pictures on here of our Sweet Boy, I wanted to spend this post sharing a little about who our Elijah is.

We call him Lij, Big, Elijah, and sometimes Sweet Boy. He has always been a mellow baby, and very content. When I was pregnant, he didn’t kick or move around very much compared to any of his siblings. He’s always happy to do his own thing: crawl around, eat anything he can find (more on that later), or play with anyone. I think he’s going to grow up to be a relatively quiet boy and eventually become the kind of person who, once he does open his mouth, has very wise words come out.

He’s also very strong. I’ll probably always remember turning around one morning, as I was preparing breakfast, to see one of our children (who shall remain nameless) standing on Elijah’s back. Just standing there like he was a step stool. I yelped, scolded, and got that kid off of Elijah as fast as I could, but Elijah just lay there mid army-crawl, looking up at me with an expression that said, “What’s the big deal?” He was fine, though the child on his back weighed more than twice as much as he did.

Elijah is happy to play with anyone who shows him interest. Abby will frequently entertain him while I’m in the kitchen. She’ll hug him, “tickle” him, and wrestle him, and he’s happy just to have the attention. Just about anyone we let pick him up will find a sweet, smily baby, who is, again, happy to interact no matter who you are. But when Elijah gets tired, he wants Mom. He’ll start crying if he sees me enter the room and he’ll army crawl quickly over to my feet. Just like his siblings, he’ll pop some fingers in his mouth (he prefers the pointer and middle finger of his left hand) grab on to my hair or his own, and become quiet and content once more.

But, Elijah LOVES his daddy. There’s a Frank Sinatra song called “I Only Have Eyes for You”, and, though I don’t actually know the whole song, that one line from the title pops into my head just about every time Lij spots Dan across a room. He’ll stare at him for so long until Dan finally comes over, gives him some attention and hold him. (Abby was the same way.) “Mom’s great when I’m tired, but there’s nobody like Dad!”

As far as food goes, Elijah has recently started to eat a lot. For months we couldn’t get him to eat solid food. Baby food of any flavor makes him gag. He won’t touch bananas. Avocado won’t stay down, and even if it could, we can’t get him to put it in his mouth anymore. The only toothless-friendly food Elijah likes are sweet potatoes, and he loves sweet potatoes. Of course, my one baby to skip the purees is also the slowest to get teeth. The day his molars come in will be a happy day, because Elijah will pretty much only eat what we’re eating. And he’ll only eat it if he gets to feed it to himself.

As we approached the one-year mark, Dan and I were DONE getting up at night, but Elijah wasn’t. We tried roughly a million approaches to get him to sleep better: night weaning, feeding right before bed, waking up to feed right before I went to bed, moving him out of our room, letting him cry, waking him up at preplanned times during the night to eat, and always, always, we just prayed that he’d stop getting us up. Finally, when the weather really got cold, we had to move him into Paul’s room because the room he was sleeping in didn’t have heat. Paul handled the transition surprisingly well (but he did keep asking for us to put Elijah in his crib with him, and could not understand why they had to sleep in separate beds. He also likes to give Elijah things to sleep with: blankets, stuffed animals, wooden tools, toy cars, books…). I gave up on “making” Elijah sleep through the night, and we all survived. Now we are seeing a light at the end of the tunnel as he sleeps through the night more and more frequently (four out of the last six nights, not that I’m counting).

We feel truly blessed to have Elijah in our family. Every child is different. Every personality is unique. Elijah is our strong, quiet, content, friendly baby with only one major flaw. He. Eats. Everything. I know all babies do this. I know I have three others and I can’t watch him as closely as I did the others. But it’s not just that. This boy has a gift. He can find things even if we just picked everything up. He’ll sneak (yes, sneak!) things into his mouth and then hold very still whenever you look at him so you can’t tell he’s chewing (gumming?) it. Rocks, dirt, leaves, small toys, day-old food, pieces of carpet he tore out himself. This summer, the day before we went on a short beach-trip, Elijah got his hands on a small giraffe eraser. Lydia was the first to notice him coughing and ran to tell Mommy (Way to go Lids!). I quickly realized the problem was beyond me and sent her to get Dan, who was, thankfully, working from home that day. He came down and did everything you’re <em<supposed to do. But when Elijah started gasping for air and coughing up mucus and blood, we called 9-1-1.

After a long wait, the paramedics came, repeated everything Dan had already done, and reported to us that Elijah would need to take an ambulance to the hospital where he would probably need surgery. I pulled the mom card (what if he needs to eat?) to get to be the one to go with him, even though Dan wanted to go. Dan graciously stayed home with the rest of the kids and I made a scary trip to Mott’s Children’s Hospital. Lij had missed his nap and fell asleep in the ambulance, which was actually a very good thing, but made for a scary ride. As I was trying to pray, I remembered some words from earlier that week, that an Elder had prayed for Elijah during his baby dedication, “We do pray for his protection. We pray that the Evil One would not be permitted to harm him.” Those words encouraged me. If our elder has been led to pray that only a few days before, and if we had faithfully shared how God had answered our prayers in Elijah’s life, to tell that God really does hear and answer our prayers, surely God wouldn’t intend on taking him from us now.

I prayed that Elijah would cough up the toy he was choking on, and back at home, Lydia was frantically praying the same thing (and that we could still go on our beach trip) with Dan and the rest of the kids. Elijah did cough up the toy just two minutes before the ER team was planning to call in their back-up surgery team (because the first team was busy). After coughing it up, Lij started grabbing all of the medical equipment, trying to pop it into his mouth too, which gave the team a good laugh and caused no one to give me a hard time. Clearly this was a baby who never stops putting things in his mouth. (And yes, we did get to go on our beach trip.)

God has been kind to us in giving us Elijah, and in protecting that Little Stinker beyond what we can do ourselves. When Elijah was born, I had always thought of him as a special gift. Elijah means: the Lord is Yahweh. John, named after Dan’s Grampa, means: Yahweh is gracious. Grace. Gift. Elijah John, you are indeed a special gift to our family. We wouldn’t trade you for anything. There’s no on like you. You remind us, sometimes daily, that God does answer prayer in big and small ways. He has protected you already when we thought we might lose you twice. Happy first birthday, my Sweet Boy. And, please, please, give us a less eventful second year!

Elijah’s Name

Posted on November 20, 2017 by justeeni

Today our family has the privilege of celebrating Elijah’s first birthday! First birthdays are always exciting, but this one holds special significance to us because twice in his short life, we thought we might lose Eljiah. If you haven’t heard it yet, here is the story behind Elijah’s name, shared at his baby dedication a couple of months ago.

The Fountain Picture

Posted on October 6, 2017 by justeeni

This morning I got up extra early to go through all of our summer pictures, which I hope to share on here someday. But for this rainy Friday, here’s the latest of our Fountain Picture Tradition:

2013

2014

2015

2017

Babymoon (Pictures)

Posted on December 15, 2016 by justeeni

Elijah’s Birth Story

Posted on December 8, 2016 by justeeni

Ever since Lydia was born, I have enjoyed hearing others’ birth stories. Some are encouraging, inspiring, or at times, intimidating, but all have been useful in preparing me for another birth. So this is Elijah’s birth story. Here’s my disclaimer: this is going to be long (for the most part) unedited. If you don’t enjoy hearing lots of medical sorts of details, this post may not be for you.

To read about the events leading up to Elijah’s birthday, click here.

At something like 4:30 or 5:00 in the morning on November 20, Dan and I were settled into our triage room waiting for my doctor to come remove my stitches so Baby could be born. My labors have all been pretty fast, and have gotten faster each time, so I was already doing the math in my head and expecting Baby to be born by about 9:00. But, I was also trying to just take things moment-by-moment, because I know nothing is guaranteed to go the way I expect during labor. I had read up, prayed a lot, and was prepared for a completely natural delivery, if possible.

The resident and hospital doctor came into our room to remove the stitches and I braced myself for an uncomfortable experience. (I had a cervical cerclage, or stitches to keep the cervix shut and hold Baby in longer, put in at around 13 weeks.) My doctor was not on call that night and his partner, whom I’d never met, wasn’t at the hospital yet. So my entire time in triage was with the hospital’s on-call doctor and the resident. They had had some trouble getting the stitches out with Paul, and it was a fairly painful experience. This time was much worse.

The resident started trying to get them out, but after several minutes, she gave up and asked the doctor to try. She couldn’t seem to find the stitches. The doctor sat down and started to try to get the stitches out, but she couldn’t find them either. So the two started tag-teaming, trying different tools, angles, and techniques. Thankfully, I wasn’t in too much pain from contractions yet, because the attempts to find the stitches were painful enough. I lay flat on my back, squeezing Dan’s hand tightly with my teeth clenched and eyes tightly shut.

Occasionally the doctor and resident would ask, “Do you want a break?” but I just wanted the stitches out, so I kept telling them to keep trying. I have no idea how long we were in that room, but it felt like a long time. At some point I started praying. Then I started praying more urgently, “Jesus, help them find the stitches…guide their hands…” It started to look like they were never going to find them, and I started to wonder what would happen if they didn’t. Would I have to have a c-section? Would I labor anyway and just tear right through the stitches? I was praying more frantically and feeling pretty desperate.

When I was feeling rather hopeless, urgently praying, suddenly the darkness of the inside of my eyelids seemed to be replaced by a glowing light and I was filled with peace and calm as some verses came to my mind. They weren’t actually verses that I have memorized so the words weren’t clear in my mind, but the idea was there…”When you pass through the waters, they will not overwhelm you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned…” I was filled with trust. Jesus was taking care of me. Then I heard the doctor and resident and felt the pain again and everything was dark and painful and desperate all over again. And I prayed and again the darkness melted away and I remembered those words, “The waters will not overwhelm you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned.” Calm washed over me again.

Just a couple of minutes later, the doctor declared that she had successfully removed the stitches! There were still buttons in there somewhere, stuck in the scar tissue, but the stitches were removed. (The stitches were tied through a button so that they would be easier to find and cut out. Instead, the buttons got lost and the stitches were very hard to find!) As soon as everyone left the room, I asked Dan to find the passage that had come to my mind. He found it and read it to me:

Isaiah 43:2
“When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned,and the flame shall not consume you.”

Soon we were allowed out of triage (I have no idea what time it was by now) and headed to labor and delivery. We were shown to our room and once there we let everyone know what kind of labor I was intending on having (since we had already been offered pain medicine once or twice). My birth plan was pretty short:

I would like to have as natural of a labor and delivery as possible.
If possible I do not want an IV.
I know that pain medication is available and will ask for it if I want it.
If possible, I would like to hold the baby immediately after delivery.

Our nurse was sweet. She got me all hooked up to monitors and assured me I could have a natural delivery. Then someone told me I had to get the betamethasone steroid shot for the baby’s lungs. I assured them I had already gotten both doses, but they insisted. New research has shown that it can help if Baby gets it right before delivery, any baby born before 37 weeks. Now, that shot takes 24 hours to be fully effective, and 48 hours for two doses to be fully effective. We thought it was silly, knowing how fast my labors are. But we also felt like we were in a position where we would be terrible parents to say, “No”. So, I got that painful shot during labor again. (My doctor later told me that I could have declined, knowing the shot was pretty much useless in that amount of time anyway).

After the shot I was allowed to labor as I wanted. I lay down on my side, shut my eyes, and tried to relax through the contractions. Dan was at a loss as to how he could help and kept asking if I was ok. “I’m relaxing!”, I insisted, “it’s part of my method”. Eventually I couldn’t just relax anymore, so I got up on my knees and leaned against the top of the bed. The nurse offered me a big bean bag to lean up against, and that really helped. By now my contractions were really intense, sometimes coming on top of each other. Dan tried rubbing my back or pushing on my hips to help and I actually swatted him away, thinking, “you’re doing it wrong!”. I’ve always wanted Dan near me and helping me during labor, so I KNEW I was in transition and Baby would be coming soon. I also started to feel like I had to go to the bathroom all the time, but after a couple difficult trips back and forth, I knew it was just the pressure from Baby moving down lower.

When I started moaning more and more loudly through the contractions, Dan and I knew it was time for them to check me. I was a little nervous, not wanted to hear I was only dilated to four. But I was also confident that I was in transition and Baby was coming fast. They told me I was dilated to “six or seven” and I clearly remember thinking, “Whatever. That baby is coming soon.”

I hit the peak of transition and thought, “If this goes on much longer, I can’t do it”. I was moaning so loudly that I heard the nurse saying, “Stay with us Justine!” If I remember correctly, Dan was expressing some concern that, “They’d better get in here!” Then I felt Baby moving down fast and pressure to push. I started yelling (how else could I tell them Baby was coming?). The nurse knew instantly that I was starting to push and she got right up near my face and asked, “Did the contraction stop?” I frantically shook my head no and she told me I had to turn over onto my back during the contraction. This seemed cruel and almost impossible to me at the time, but I was also in a state where I would do whatever I was told. I managed to roll over onto my back and the contraction just kept going.

I was concerned about tearing, and I knew it could be good to stop pushing and wait even if it hurt. I was preparing for that moment, but everything was happening so fast. The next thing I remember was feeling the most intense pushing contraction and the nurse demanding my attention. It took every ounce of will-power to not push and instead listen and obey what the nurse was trying to say, so I opened my eyes wide and looked right into hers. Later Dan told me he would never forget the face I made. He said my eyeballs were almost outside of my head and I looked completely crazy.

The nurse told me to let go of Dan’s hand (I wasn’t even aware I was holding it) and bend my right leg and wait to push. I did. It seems like there were about five people all crowded around me at that point and that a couple of them started telling me to go ahead and push. I have no idea if I was having a contraction or not, but I pushed and then I heard Dan say, “Justine! Look!” I looked down and there was my baby! Well, there was the top half of my baby. I heard one of the ladies there (A nurse? Or doctor? Or pediatrician?) say something like, “What do we have?” and in the next moment someone declared, “It’s a boy!” and scooped him up and put him right up on my chest.

Dan and I both thought it was a girl (again). And I had really wanted a boy. So I was relieved and thrilled and so happy I could cry. They were about to clamp the cord when Dan jumped in and asked if they could wait. They said that was fine, and waited until the cord stopped pulsing to clamp it. (From what I understand, the baby gets more blood if you wait to clamp the cord. Since all of our children have been anemic at some point during their first years, this was important to us.) They left Little Elijah snuggled up on me for the next 45 minutes.

Then my Doctor’s partner came in (he missed the delivery, but I guess I really only did push once or twice). He sat down with the resident and they spent the next half hour or more digging around looking for those long-lost buttons. They finally found them, after a miserable search, lots of hand squeezing with Dan, and lots of sympathy from the nurses. They had to cut them out of scar tissue in the cervix and then stitch up the cervix and a second degree tear.

However, I snuggled my Baby that whole time before they took him away to weigh him and clean him off. He weighed 5 pounds, 11 ounces and was 19 1/2 inches long. He was born at 8:38 in the morning, just 5 hours and 23 minutes after my water broke.

It took a while to settle on his name, even though we had pretty much picked it out when he was only about 14 weeks along (that’s another story). But soon enough we announced it: Elijah John, and we were transferred to the Mother-Baby room to enjoy the first couple of days with our new baby.

Later in the morning, the kids came to visit and meet their new Baby Brother. Lydia very sweetly brought a stuffed lamb for Elijah to sleep with, in fact, the stuffed lamb my mom gave her before she was even born (we told her that wasn’t allowed, but kept the lamb where Elijah could see it.)

It was sweet to see the kids together, but I especially enjoyed watching Paul react to his new brother. He loves him already, and even though he doesn’t have a lot of words, we’ve heard him say, “Baby” and “Lijah” and sometimes he gives Elijah kisses.

Like Paul, Elijah got to be held almost non-stop in the hospital. It’s a privilege we just didn’t get to have with the girls.

And after two (sleepless) nights in the hospital, we got to take Elijah home!

The Days Before Elijah

Posted on December 1, 2016 by justeeni

Since my last update was way back in October, I’ll have to back up a little before I actually tell Elijah’s birth story.

I had been having contractions off and on starting at about 30 weeks. So, for several weeks I was constantly on my toes thinking, “Is Baby going to come today?” However, I had had contractions off and on for a couple weeks with Paul and we didn’t want to put everything on hold just because I was having a few contractions that might be nothing. So I took it easy when I could, but we kept enjoying fall and preparing for Baby. We went apple picking, took the kids to a cider mill, bought pumpkins, and watched some world series games at Dan’s parents’ home.

We got our car seat, packed the hospital bag, and set up the bassinet. One by one we were checking items off our “to-do before Baby” lists. I even had a verse picked out that I thought I would be using a lot to get through labor:

Psalms 28:7
The LORD is my strength and my shield; in him my heart trusts, and I am helped; my heart exalts, and with my song I give thanks to him.

The one last project we wanted to finish before Baby came was repairing our shed. The shed in our back yard was a mess: dirty and rotting. Early in November, Dan started repairing it, knowing that once Baby and/or Thanksgiving hit, we’d be busy and it would get too cold to work on it anymore. We really wanted it done so we could clear out some space in the garage to park the car this winter.

Just before I hit 35 weeks, I woke up one night with pain in my belly. It was, I think, pain from stretching, and I had experience the same sensation about a week before Paul was born. I knew our time was running out, even though I hadn’t hit 35 weeks yet. I got up and headed downstairs where I could try to relax on our exercise ball until the pain would go away. As I leaned on the ball, I started to worry about Baby.

When was the last time I felt him kick?

I couldn’t remember feeling any movement all day.

What if he didn’t have enough amniotic fluid?

What if the umbilical cord was knotted or compressed?

Before long I was a basket case of worry and could hardly think clearly enough to pray. But I did pray and as I did, I felt led to read my labor verse, and the rest of the chapter. (If you want you can go read Psalms 28. It’s not too long). What stood out to me as I read it that night was that God had heard the cry of the Psalmist:

“He has heard the voice of my pleas for mercy….The LORD…is the saving refuge of his anointed…Be their shepherd and carry them forever.”

I felt assured in my heart that God had heard my prayers and that Baby was going to be safe. I gratefully turned off the lights and went back to bed. As I lay down to go back to sleep, I felt Baby kick and I fell asleep with a song in my heart.

The next week Dan attacked that shed with all his energy. But, on Monday morning (the day I reached 35 weeks, and the day Paul was born) I could feel pressure from the stitches in the cervix pulling.

Tuesday I had an appointment and my doctor told me the cervix had shortened right up to the stitches and that I should come in if I had any more strong contractions. In that case, he would remove the stitches to prevent their tearing as the cervix tried to dilate.

The rest of the week was a race to finish the shed. Meanwhile, I didn’t have any strong contractions, but I had very steady weak contractions. I was in a dilemma about whether to go in, knowing that they would probably remove the stitches and Baby would probably be born. I was trying to wait for Dan to finish the shed, and trying to give Baby just a few more days. We started to pray that it would be clear when we needed to go in, that something would be an obvious sign that it was time to get the stitches out, or that my water would break like it had with all my other babies. The stitches were pulling more and more and the contractions kept coming.

Friday night, we took the kids out to eat (a reward for Lydia when she learned another Bible verse) and Dan and I chatted about what to do. He had finished the roof on the shed, but still had a lot more work to do. I was worried about the stitches. Dan kept assuring me that he wanted me to go in when I felt like I needed to, but I just didn’t know if I needed to or if I was being anxious for nothing. We prayerfully decided to try to wait until Monday morning (36 weeks), then call my doctor and ask if we should just get the stitches out. Dan even planned on taking the day off work so he could be there for whatever happened.

Saturday was a hard day for me. I was trying to stay off my feet, but I was also watching the kids while Dan and his Dad attacked that shed some more. The day was long. The hours dragged by, but Dan made really good progress and we both felt satisfied that night. Dan had finally knocked the bulk of the work off the shed and I only had to make it 36 more hours before calling the doctor.

Dan was exhausted from working out in the cold all day, and I was eager to get to bed just so it would be the next day, so we prayed again for Baby and for a clear sign if we needed to go in earlier than Monday, and then we went to sleep.

At 3:15 I woke up on my feet, running to the bathroom. I was still only half awake when I got there and it took me a minute to evaluate whether I had just wet the bed or if my water broke. This is the third time my water broke while I was sleeping, so it didn’t take me long to realize that was what had happened. I felt overjoyed that God had answered our prayers again by giving us an obvious sign to go to the hospital before Monday morning, and also that Dan had just barely made all that progress on the shed.

Because it was the middle of the night and I knew Dan would be exhausted, I waddled downstairs to make him some coffee for the long night ahead. At 3:30 I woke him up, “Dan…my water broke.” He got up pretty quick, despite how tired he was, and started making calls to find a babysitter. The first two people on our list didn’t work out, but the third had just called me that afternoon to remind us that she could watch our kids whenever I went into labor. It was so neat how God worked that out so we felt it was ok to call her even in the middle of the night. After we called, she told us that she had woken up at 3:30 and was just wide awake thinking, “I wonder why I’m so awake!” Just a few minutes later she got our call.

By 4:00 we were in the car, on the way to the hospital. Soon we were in triage, where the hospital doctor on call and the resident sat down to remove the stitches that had been bothering me all week, but that had done a good job keeping Baby in for a new record: 35 weeks and 6 days.

To be continued…

MI Taylor Family

We live in Michigan.

Category Archives: Elijah John