So my wife Jenn gave birth to our son Elijah Ryan on 9/11/2011 coming in at 7 lbs 9 oz and an even 20 inches long.
But I'm getting ahead of myself
Way ahead of myself.
Let's back up to say Wednesday.
It rained Wednesday.
It rained ALL DAY Wednesday
And Thursday
And Our living room ceiling started leaking.
Oh and did i mention the power went out Wednesday for the whole weekend.
So the rains caused massive flash flooding literally tearing some roads apart. By Thursday night the section of the main state route we live on was cut off. a good 6 to 8 feet of water flooding the intersection to my parents road as well as a mile in the other direction.
We stayed high and dry but without power we set out to see where we could get. A few scary times up some roads that were being washed away. we eventually made our way half way down the road to my parents though the ONLY bridge out that main road was completely demolished and washed away. We we're able to jog up to some higher back roads and eventually to my parent's place where my dad had a gas generator for the stove and the fridge and freezers we ate a hot meal by coleman lanterns and watched a movie together then Jenn and I crashed out in the spare room off of the rec room.
The next day the rain had all but stopped but the main river was still rising as all the streams and creeks emptied into the river. Jenn (Who's due date was that day) had an appointment at 1:10 across to the next city (About 15 - 20 minutes away by freeway) with her O.B. to access if we were going to be induced so we headed home to get some stuff we forgot. We left at 10:30 a.m.
So back up and down the back roads back to our place. We then had the brilliant good fortune to decide to grab our overnight bags and other baby stuff in case he decided to induce my wife's labor
Travel time at this point 35 minutes
We then drove back up the back roads back past my parents up over some other back roads down to the next town where we met up with EVERYONE else and their grandmother trying to get to one of the only open grocery stores or out to the next town
Distance (from my parent's place) About 12 miles.
Travel time 2 Hours.
From there we made it up the next section of our main route we live off that was not under water to a short fly over down to the main traffic circle then over to the other end of 17c that was not flooded and finally to our doctor's office at around 3 P.M.
Total Travel time: Around 3 hours Geographic distance: 20 miles.
Here is a picture of how we WOULD have come to the doctors
That Y part of the road going into the lake is our normal route. Our Grocery store is at the bottom of the other lake a little further up on the left hand side.
So needless to say despite my wife not being anywhere near labor even early labor the ascending flood waters and the long ass drive to get there we got sent over to the hospital (After a last meal as a free man and woman at the local Chinese buffet)
The hospital had power and internet and running water so we settled in at 7 pm Friday Jenn was induced.
44 sleep deprived hours of labor and 20 minutes of hard core pushing we got to see our son for the first time.
He's ADORABLE btw
We had to stay 2 days for observation (I'm writing this as my son and wife both sleep waiting for some doctors to come in and do some paper work check Eli etc etc.)
Now we'll see if we have an easier time getting home than we did getting here.
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