Our baby is here! This was a huge unexpected surprise on the last day of Hanuukkah!!!

I've started having weird pains around Saturday night, which really wasn't like anything I've experienced before. So we went to the hospital, and they monitored me for a while and said it wasn't contractions, gave me some medicine and sent me home. Well, Sunday morning the whole thing repeated,only this time pain was much stronger. So back to the hospital we were. Once again, they thought it wasn't labor, and did not even give me any painkillers until they "figure out the origin of the pain." After 2 hours of "figuring out", the pain got so unearable that I was ready to rip my hair out! At this point, a doctor stopped by, did a quick internal exam and said - guess what, you r 2 cm dilated and definitely in labor! Gee thanks! So at that point they gave me some nubain - made me feel really whoozy but the pain went away. So they're like we're going to see if we can stop the labor. So for the rest of the night I was juts laying there with them watching me and on Monday morning the doctor said I will definietly have this baby soon. No way to stop that. However, being that he's only 31 weeks and 5 days of gestation, they wanted to try and give him a steroid to help his lungs mature. So they shot me the steroid, and then gave me a dose of magnesium to keep my contractions from happening. So the goal was to supress contractions for a day in order for the steroid to kick in and help him. So the whole Monday I was in bed - once again, pumped on drugs. Finally on Tuesday morning the contractions started again, and this time it went really fast, within 2 hours I was about 4 cm dilated after which they allowed epidural - a HUGE relief I must say.

Gabriel Lior was born on December 14 at 4:31 p.m., weighing 5 pounds 2 ounces!!! The dr. said it was quite a big weight for a baby that small, and if I actually carried full term, he would have been huge! Which is amazing to me b/c I really only gained about 24 pounds through the whole thing. He is doing a great job breathing on his own from the start -so no tubes needed, and he's basically doing very well. However, being that he is a 7-month baby, they are keeping him in the hospital for about a month, to make sure he is okay. It was very heartbreaking to go home yesterday without him... but on the other side, he's still very very vulnerable. As of right now, he doesn't eat real "food" yet - the magnesium that they gave me a day prior to his birth is still very high in his body, so for now they are feeding him through IVs. I am doing my best to pump, my milk didn't exactly come in yet, but they said they'll take any drops they can get - anything from me at this poit is very very good for him. So I'm hoping I'll be able to actualy feed him soon.

The hospital is a 40-minute ride from our house which is a huge bummer, b/c it will be totally exhousting going back and fourth, and for now I can't drive (i barely can walk!!) - but we'll square it out. I did get to hold him yesterday, it was really awesome, he opened his eyes and looked at me. I think Gabriel looks like a good mix of both of us, from what I can see so far. He got my mouth, but Mike's eyes. I think he'll be quite cute when he grows.

So that's our BIG news. Certainly not something we expected to happen so early but we're thrileld!!!