Elijah Stephen Rhyne is Here!!!

Well, April 27, 2013 will always have great meaning to our family... that is when Elijah decided to come! What an amazing story he has!! We thank God for His grace through the delivery and giving Elijah a safe arrival here in France! Here is a little bit of his story:

That Saturday, started out like most others... dad went to work and Noah, Sadie and I... played, cleaned, rested, did projects... etc. Pretty normal Saturday. We had plans to go to dinner with some dear friends and were making it somewhere easy for the kids... a KFC with a play place!!! 

It was about 7 pm and we were hanging out after dinner letting the kids play and headed to the cars to go to another store to do some walking around when I had a pretty strong contraction and my water broke, in the parking lot at KFC! We decided we should head home and see what would happen, knowing he would be here in the next 24 hours! 

I'm so thankful we decided to go ahead and do the 15 min drive home as contractions started coming 3-4 min. apart. As soon as we got home Stephen ran in, grabbed our hospital bag, got the kids settled in 2 seconds for our friends who were with us... and we headed off to the hospital. We walked. Yes... we did... it was only 3 blocks from our house and so to me, I'd rather Stephen be with me than dropping me off, driving back to the house, parking, and walking back! It's about a 5 min. walk and we definitely saw several people move out of the way as they could tell where we were headed... and why! 

My last pic of Elijah's pregnancy... 

and a contraction (thanks Stephen! haha)

We got to the hospital about 7:45 pm and they quickly moved me into the delivery room and got ready. They asked if I wanted an epidural and after a few more contractions I said yes, but they didn't have my paperwork for the anesthesiologist. It was Saturday night, so the labs were closed, but they worked on it. By the time they got all the paper work in order, and he came in to give me the epidural,  I was at 10 cm and I was ready for little guy to come!! The anesthesiologist gave me a "sorry" kinda smile, however I did not smile back! 

Elijah arrived at 9:03pm, two hours after the process began in the KFC parking lot!!! Quick for sure! 

God was so gracious and Stephen was an amazing support and encouragement! The whole thing was in French, so wow... that was a great language learning experience! 

My midwife is on the left and her "team" is on the right! 

All 7 pounds of him and 20 inches long!

Happy as a clam being close to mama!

Meeting big brother 

and big sister

Happy boy at home!