Home Sweet Home

Here are some pictures of Elliott as he arrived home this evening.

Going Home

After 12 days at ABMC, we are finally heading home with Elliott! The staff here have been great, but we are thankful to all be going home together today. Elliott is supposed to stay under the bilirubin lights until 6pm, then we can go.

I will be heading back to work next week, so we are thankful that Susan has a friend that is able to come over and help out while I'm gone. I'm sure Susan would love to have other visitors, but give us a call first as we hope to settle into more of a routine once we get home.

Thanks again for your prayers! We love getting comments, so feel free to post.

Introducing Elliott Charles Locke!

After 24 hours to rest and recover from the events of yesterday, we are now ready to introduce our baby boy, Elliott Charles Locke, to the world.

Susan was scheduled to be induced at 7:30am, but we didn't get transferred down to labor and delivery until a little after 8am. Before starting the petocin, Susan got another round of penicilin. Sometime after 9am the started the pitocin at a slow rate. We spent the morning watching DVDs as the contractions slowly intensified. Elliott was posterior, which means he facing forward instead of backwards. Our doula, Deb, gave us some instructions over the phone on ways to work on turning him. Once Deb arrived she did some additional things that got Elliott turned very quickly. That was the point that Susan's labor really intensified. By mid-afternoon Susan was dilated to 5 cm and 75% effaced. It was at this point that Susan felt like she wouldn't be able to get through the rest of labor on her own and asked for an epidural. However, Deb and the midwife, Liz, continued to suggest a variety of positions to help alleviate the pain. Fortunately, Susan's labor decreased in intensity for about a half-hour. By the time the anesthesiologist arrived, Susan had dilated to 7cm and 100% effaced. We were able to convince her that she could do it without an epidural and that she was almost done. Liz significantly increased the pitocin, which resulted in some extremely painful contractions, but sped things along quickly, so that within a short time Susan was dilated to 9+cm. Liz said to go ahead and push. After only about 20 minutes of pushing Elliott entered the world at a healthy 7 lbs. 14oz. Within 2 hours we were transferred back down to our room in post-partum.
Thanks so much for all of you who have been praying, visiting and calling. Elliott is at risk for jaundice and his levels have been rising, due to his being born pre-term and being a different blood type than Susan. As a result he is being kept in the nursery under the biliruben lights most of the time. We are hoping that after they check his blood levels tomorrow that he will be able to be discharged.
Here are some more photos:

IT'S A BOY!!!

At 5:48pm, Susan delivered a healthy baby boy! He weighs 7 lbs. 14oz. and measures 20 1/2 inches. Labor wasn't easy, but she made it through without any interventions. We couldn't have done it without great support from our midwife, Liz, and doula, Deb. Thank you so much for your prayers! God certainly got us through the day!

It's late, so I'll wait until morning to work on posting pictures (and we might even have a name to announce). We want to wait until morning to decide when we will be up for visitors, so if you are thinking about stopping by, please give us a call beforehand. The phone number is still the same as previous posted. Thank you for your understanding!

The Countdown

It's only 12 hours now until we head off to labor & delivery. The director of the midwife practice visited us yesterday afternoon. We had a really good, informative conversation. Susan and I feel much better about the process that we are entering into tomorrow. They plan to use petocin to induce labor, but at a slow pace trying to simulate natural labor. If for some reason Susan's body does not respond to the petocin after several hours, they will shut it off and try again the next day. After two days of trying with no results, they may just send her home until she goes into labor on her own. While we are certainly hopeful that the petocin works, we are glad to know they won't rush into having a c-section unless medically necessary. Our plan for this evening is to have a nice dinner, watch a funny movie, and get to bed early. We are excited about tomorrow, but relaxed at the same time. Hopefully our next post will have some exciting news!

Waiting Game

Well, Susan has been off of bedrest for the past two days and there is no sign that baby is coming out on its own anytime soon. We are feeling a bit discouraged and are becoming resigned to the fact that Susan will have to be induced on Tuesday. She is definitely ready for the baby to be born though. Now we are just sitting and waiting.

"The Plan"

After waiting most of the day yesterday, we finally were informed of "the plan" shortly before 9pm last night. Unfortuntaley, "the plan" wasn't really a plan at all, but simply the statement that they would start Susan on Petocin last night. This was exactly the scenario that we had been trying to avoid all week. The midwife had asked the doctor if we could wait until today (Friday) to start so that Susan could try to get a good night sleep. The answer was no. This answer told us all we needed to know about the medical necessity of inducing last night. If it was really necessary they would certainly still want to induce the next day. After talking with the midwife we decided to decline being induced last night.

Susan is now off of bedrest, not that she was strictly confined, but she is now able to do a lot more walking and other steps to try to stimulate labor. As she posted last night, she has been feeling some contractions, but they still aren't regular or significant in magnitude.

Now that we have declined being induced, the next "available" time is Tuesday. So now we have a real plan. We will actively try to stimulate her body to go into labor, but if it does not by Tuesday, she will be induced then. We are both very happy to proceed with this course of action. Thanks so much for your continued prayers! We hope to have some news for you all soon.

CONTRACTIONS!

I am going to be hooked up to the monitor very soon to see how baby is doing and how my contractions are doing. This is nothing new since I've been at ABMC but there seems to be some action going on, so I'm getting excited! Stay tuned for more information!

Day 5

We are still here. Susan has not had any signs of going into labor any time soon. However, in our conversations with the midwives, each day has brought a shorter time frame for inducing Susan. The midwives have been consulting with doctors from an obstetrics practice. The doctor yesterday wanted to wait until 37 weeks (next Friday) before inducing. However, a different doctor suggested today doing it at 36 weeks (tomorrow)! We are encouraging the midwives to work on developing a plan with the doctors. The two doctors are supposed to talk and come to some agreement.

We are not yet prepared mentally for inducing tomorrow. However, we will accept it if the doctors truly believe it is for the best. Susan didn't sleep well last night because of frequently being woken up to check blood pressure, monitor the baby's heartbeat, and get hooked up to the IV. She has been taking it easy today trying to get some additional rest.

Susan was encouraged by a number of visitors and phone calls yesterday. We greatly appreciate our family and friends support during this unexpected extended hospital stay. Please continue to pray for patience, wisdom, and strength as we wait.

We will let you know what "the plan" is as soon as we find out ourselves.

Susan goes to the hospital

Most of you have probably heard at least some information about the events of this week. However, I'll try to quickly summarize the past two and a half days for those of you who haven't heard. On Sunday, February 10, I had gone to church early for a meeting. When Susan got up a little after 8am she quickly realized her water had broke. After making a dash for the bathroom, she gave me a call. I didn't answer because I was in the meeting and didn't expect the call to be so urgent. A few minutes later I got a text message from Susan saying "My water broke!" I called her immediately and headed home. By the time I had arrived, Susan had spoken with the midwife on call. She instructed Susan to come into the hospital, but not to rush. The midwife said Susan should have something to eat and take a shower. We were all in a bit of shock because the baby wasn't due until March 14th. We hadn't even packed "the bag" for going to the hospital. Fortunately, we had done a considerable amount of work on getting the nursery ready last week.

Susan's mom and stepdad arrived at our house by late morning. We got our bags packed and headed for the hospital around 12:30pm, stopping for lunch on the way. Susan wasn't feeling any contractions so we knew there wasn't a great urgency. We arrived at Alexian Brothers Medical Center (ABMC) in Elk Grove Village at little after 2pm. Susan got checked in to the labor & delivery department. The midwife discussed several things that we could do to help stimulate the labor process. However, after consulting with an obstetrician, the decision was made that labor should not be encouraged. We were quite relieved by this decision. Neither of us were mentally prepared for labor. We were also concerned about the baby's health since Susan was only in her 35th week of pregnancy. We spent the first night in labor & delivery (not the most comfortable for either of us), but Susan was moved to a post-partum room Monday morning, since she doesn't require the same level of care as someone in active labor.

Susan is currently on intravenous antibiotics every 4 hours to help prevent against infection, which is the primary concern at this point. She is also hooked up to the baby monitor reguarly to ensure that baby is healthy and happy. As long as there are no signs of infection or other medical problems, the plan is to let the baby stay inside Susan until this Friday (which will be 36 weeks). The longer-term plan for after Friday isn't as clear. The doctor and midwife would support us if we wanted to start the labor process, but they won't force it unless it becomes medically necessary. We want to make sure that Baby is healthy and fully developed, but we also don't like the idea of waiting in the hospital for a month.

Jillian is doing well and very excited about being a big sister. She has been going to school and staying at our house with Susan's mom.

We appreciate all of you who have been praying for us. We know that God is in control of this process. We are also confident that we are in good hands here at ABMC. Susan and I would welcome visits and phone calls. The hospital phone number is 847-437-5500. Currently her extension is 1161, but that could change if she changes rooms. We both have our cell phones with us in the hospital, but our reception is very poor. The hospital visiting hours are 11am-8pm, but they aren't that strict about enforcing them if we are okay with visitors outside of those hours. I took Monday off from work and today was a holiday for me. However, I will need to go back to work while we are in this holding pattern. Susan would especially love to have some visitors during those hours while I am at work. Thank you to all of you who have already stopped by or called! We look forward to sharing more news with you soon (just hopefully after Friday).

Welcome to Brooks and Susan's Blog

Congratulations on finding our little home on the web! We have been talking for awhile about creating a blog, but hadn't found the time. Due to recent events, we have plenty of time on our hands to get this started. We hope that this blog will help keep you updated on our lives through words and some pictures. However, we will certainly try to stay connected with you all through phone, email, and visits. We hope you enjoy!

Brooks (for Susan, Jillian, and Baby Locke)