Told by his mommy, Tal
Etay's first picture taken in the labor room, right after the umbilical cord was cut

Etay was due December 17th 1997, but was born on November 8th, 6 weeks premature.
I had been having cramps since the 25th week of pregnancy, which was very scary at the beginning. I had gestational diabetes like in my first pregnancy with Lior, so I had a Dr. appointment every week. When the early contractions started my Dr. immediately ordered bed rest for the next 3 months, with only getting out of the house to go to his office once a week. You can imagine how hard it was with a 2 1/2 yrs. old girl in the house...

I had to go to the hospital twice, on the 27th week and on the 30th week when I had contractions every 5 minutes for a few hours, but they managed to stop them with medications both times, thankfully. On the 34th week my Dr. said it was safe for me to start getting out of bed for short whiles, so the first thing I wanted to do was to go for the weekend to my in-lows who live in a Kibbutz, a 3 hour drive away from us.
I know its crazy, but I was sure 'if I didn't go into labor until now, I'll probably go on due time'. What a mistake that was!

On Friday night Dor and I even went to a movie, and sat on the porch until 1:00 AM, enjoying our first evening out of the house in more than two months. I couldn't get any sleep that night, and at 5:30AM, while tossing in bed, my water broke. I was in shock! I woke Dor and my in-lows, put some towels between my legs, left my daughter sleeping there, and off we went for the drive of our lives: back to Tel-Aviv, where I insisted I wanted to deliver my preemie at the hospital with the best Premature Babies Ward in Israel. We did the way in two hours instead of 3 it usually takes, with me having contractions every 3 minutes and the water still pouring all this time on the car seat.

We got to the hospital at 7:45 AM, I was having contractions but was not dilated. At first they wanted to wait as long as they could, even a few days if possible, but after a couple of hours I couldn't feel the baby moving so they put me on monitor and decided to induce labor because the baby's heart bit slowed down with each contraction. They took me to the labor room, hooked me to the internal monitor and gave me pitocin drip, which made me climb the walls in the most horrible pain I have ever experienced. I had those terrible contractions, less than a minute apart, for 5 hours, and they wouldn't let me have the epidural because I wasn't dilated yet.

At 5:10 PM I was finally 3 cm dilated, so they gave me the epidural. I had the worst pains in those minutes, they made Dor wait outside the labor room and a nurse was holding me tight so I won't move while they stick the needle in my back. This was the first time in my life that I couldn't help myself, I just screamed like hell !!
At 5:20 PM the Dr. checked me and said "start pushing". I couldn't believe him! The epidural had no effect on me yet and I was already 10 cm dilated, I went from 3 cm to 10 cm in ten minutes! no wonder the pain was so unbearable....

I said I wasn't going to push until a Pediatric came into the room to wait for my baby, and the Dr. laughed saying "lets see how long you can hold" :-). Well, needless to say he was right, I felt I had to push, and in less than 15 minutes my baby boy was born.
It was November 8th 1997, at 5:32 PM, exactly 12 hours after my water broke. He was 6 weeks premature, but healthy and beautiful, and he got an Apgar of 8 and 9.

They let me hold him for just one minute after the cord was cut (see picture at the top of this page) and then took him to intensive care because he had some difficulty breathing.
He had to stay in an incubator just for 4 days, then a heated crib for another day, and he was out of the hospital when he was 5 days old.

Etay is the joy of my life, (along with his older sister Lior).
Now, more than a year later, you could never tell he was a preemie!

Etay's Groth Chart

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