Welcome Josiah Richard Gorley

Josiah Richard Gorley was born March 29th at 1:20AM. He weighed 7 lbs 10 oz and is 19 1/2 inches long. We had an all-nighter Friday night, as Tracy was having contractions Friday morning, causing us to go in to get checked out.

Our normal doctor was out on vacation, so we had another one check on Tracy. Tracy was dialated 4-5 cm and 75-80% effaced, so they kept her and had her do some walking. They also kept checking her blood pressure. When her blood pressure hit over 150/100, they decided it might be best for her to have this baby now rather than wait 3 days. So, they began giving her some magnesium sulfate to bring the blood pressure down and started her on pitocin at around 6:30PM. Josiah’s head wasn’t far enough down to break the water, so we waited.

Finally, at about 1AM Josiah’s head came down far enough for them to break Tracy’s water, and that’s when things started to happen. Her contractions got very hard, though she couldn’t feel them due to having an epideral (her first time having one.) We woke the kids, as they all fell asleep in the room waiting for the baby to be born. Tracy felt like she had to push, the doctor told her to go ahead as she was having a contraction, so she pushed. Pretty soon we saw Josiah’s head and I was able to touch him as he came out. His cord was wrapped around his neck, so I quickly got my hand out of the way as the doctor unwrapped the cord.

Angelique watched the whole thing. She got squeamish after the placenta came out and started getting a bit freaked out. Kate kept her head under the covers after baby came out, until things got cleaned up a bit. Tanisha sat there, watched everything including the doctor stiching Tracy up. By the time it was all over everyone was exhausted and went home, leaving Tracy and I with our newborn son.

The next few days we were greeted with visitors, mostly family. Tracy was getting her tubes tied, which was supposed to happen Saturday but got postponed till Sunday. Though no one told the surgeon performing the operation. He was less than pleased when he arrived and found out the surgery wasn’t going to happen. The rest of the day was nurses checking on Tracy, trying to get Josiah to wake up to breast feed, and having family drop by to visit.

Sunday was a busy morning, as Josiah went to get circumcised and Tracy was taken to get her tubes tied. I was left by myself for a while to worry and pray about Tracy. Wasn’t too worried about Josiah- they’ve been doing circumcisions for thousands of years. Tubal Ligations are much more recent.

After another day of forcing Josiah to wake up long enough to eat and having our sleep interrupted constantly, we were ready to head home. So, we packed up our belongings, I took everything down to the car, we got our instructions for Tracy (no lifting for 6 weeks- ugh!) and got in the car to head home.

Now, thanks to my generous workplace, I have two weeks off to help Tracy around the house. Once that is done, we’ll see how to manage. God has been amazingly graceful to us by blessing us with a beautiful, healthy baby boy. He is a true joy! The girls love him, Greggory is curious about him, and he is happy and healthy. Praise the Lord for his provision!