Warning: If you don't like birth stories, or hearing about groddy things, skip this posting. This is pretty much everything I can remember about the day our precious little Jackson was born. Enjoy!
Here is my birth story.
I think I had my first pre-contractions on Thursday, but didn't realize what they were. At about 1:30 Friday morning (nov 4th) I woke up to some pretty bad pain. It felt like really intense menstrual cramps, then it went away. I laid in bed for a bit. Then it came back.
For about four or five weeks before I went into labor, I had really bad "discomfort" in my women flower area. It felt like I had gotten into a fight with my special swimsuit area. I would wake up several times a night & be in such bad pain that I couldn't sleep. I would get up & take a really hot bath to try & relax. This also helped with the bad leg cramps I had.
So that morning I got up & started the bath. The contractions kept coming back, even when I was in the tub. Justin says that he woke up & realized that I was in the bath & since I had been doing this with some frequency, he didn't think anything of it. I tried walking around. But nothing worked. See they had told us to try these things to make sure we were having actual contractions. If it was a false labor doing these activities would make them go away. When they didn't go away & even got worse, I called the midwife on-call at the hospital. I described what was going on & she said that it certainly sounded like I was in labor & to wait until they were 5 minutes apart for 30 minutes, then to make our way into the hospital.
So I went back & laid down in bed next to my snoring husband. I was going to start timing the contractions, but my heavy breathing must have woken my husband. He asked his usual nightly startled questions "what happened? Is the baby okay?" I couldn't answer him since I was in the middle of the pain & out of bed he jumps all panicked. Once I could talk, I told him what was going on. We started timing the contractions & they were all over the place. They would go from 10 minutes to 7 to 11 to 8 minutes. They never got close together for 30 minutes. I slept off & on from 3:30 until about 6 or so. At 9 am we finally called the midwives to make an appointment to come in.
Finally at 1:30 we went into town to our appointment & I was in so much pain I could hardly stand. When we got into the exam room (very quickly) one of the midwives did the exam & I was in some of the worst pain of my life (other than the time I had a kidney infection). When she told me that I hadn't started dilating & that my cervix had not move up yet.
She suggested that I go to the hospital for a stress test on the baby & that I get a dose of morphine. I said that I would get some fluids & do the tests on the baby. So we got to the emergency room a little before 3. As soon as I told them that I was having contractions & we had been told to have a stress test, they got me admitted right away (they had been notified that we were on the way). We got into our room & hooked up to the machines.
After about 2 hours I was checked out by my midwife & she finally had good news, my cervix had moved & I had dilated 2 centimeters! I was officially in labor! By the way I was having bad contractions this whole time. I informed the nurses (for the third time) that I wanted the epidural!
When the epidural man finally came in, he reaked of cigarettes! Then he prepped me & had to wait for my next contraction to pass. Then he gave me the most intense pain yet! Holy crap do those hurt! But once the drugs take effect, life is good again. The next several hours, I had no pain & didn't even know when I was having a contraction!
At 4 Justin went out & got some food. I was finally able to get some good sleep. Things are a bit of a haze from when I got the "praise the Lord" drugs until I started active labor. When they finally told me to push I had no feeling in the lower half of my body. It was basically like telling me "hey, you can't feel it, but try to do this thing where you don't know what you're doing when we tell you to". I felt a lot of pressure, but had no idea if it was working. They also broke my water at some point, but I'm not sure when that was.
After a hour of my husband telling me we were almost there & to push harder, I politely informed him that he kept telling me we were almost there & the baby hadn't come out yet. He wasn't being very helpful.
At some point I was asked if wanted a mirror so could see what was going on down there & I immediately said NO!
During the active labor, Jackson's heart rate would dip down (which is normal), but wouldn't recover. They had me move around in hopes of getting him in a better position. If that didn't work,the midwife informed me that she was going to have the surgeon prepare the O.R. for a c section. I really didn't want that to happen, & that is when I started pushing even harder.
I had started screaming with each push until I had no more air. I was thinking this baby might never come out! Then one of the nurses went to stand behind Justin & even I noticed that he didn't look good. She got him. To sit down before he Would have passed out. Then a few minutes later I finally had the magic push & out came Jackson at 10:41 pm (only 20 hours after I felt my first contraction)! About that time is when Justin asked me about having another baby & I suggested we adopt the next one.
Before I gave birth, I thought brand-new babies were gross. they come out all covered in blood & goo! But once they lay your prize package on your chest, your preconceived notions run out the window. Now it isn't necessarily love at first sight. If you see your baby for the first time & think that he or she looks like an alien, it doesn't mean that you have already failed as a mother & that your baby will grow up to resent you. It just means that you are normal! In fact there will be many times in the next few weeks that you will (not might, but for sure will) have some unpleasant thoughts about your child. You will have momentary wishes that he had never been born, if there are more permanent ways to shut him up, & why in God's name won't this supposed bundle of joy let you get just a few hours of G.D. Sleep?! Don't worry it really isn't you, it is your hormones.
Justin had called his parents & they Came out to the hospital. I think Justin also informed my family at some point, but I don't really remember it.
Justin & his parents went home & I was moved to my post-partum room around midnight. When I first tried to stand up for the first time, I promptly sat back down. Once I was in the room, they made me try to go pee. After I wiped, it felt like there was something still stuck down there.I had assumed it was a witch hazel pad. When I felt around I realized that it was just from the swelling!
That night I didn't get much sleep. If they weren't coming in to check on me, they were bringing baby Jackson in for a feeding. When Justin came in the next morning, I was very happy to see him. He looks so handsome when he is holding or playing with our son! But then when Jackson first started crying, Justin got a panicked look & handed him back to me.
The staff was very good to me. In fact the head nurse that second day had a daughter who was also pregnant, in the same midwife centering class with me, & also had the same due date as me (Nov 10th - I delivered a week early).
That is pretty much what I remember. Now that we have our bundle of joy, & he is letting me get more sleep, & my hormones are in check, I would totally do it again! He really is the best thing we have ever done!
Here is my birth story.
I think I had my first pre-contractions on Thursday, but didn't realize what they were. At about 1:30 Friday morning (nov 4th) I woke up to some pretty bad pain. It felt like really intense menstrual cramps, then it went away. I laid in bed for a bit. Then it came back.
For about four or five weeks before I went into labor, I had really bad "discomfort" in my women flower area. It felt like I had gotten into a fight with my special swimsuit area. I would wake up several times a night & be in such bad pain that I couldn't sleep. I would get up & take a really hot bath to try & relax. This also helped with the bad leg cramps I had.
So that morning I got up & started the bath. The contractions kept coming back, even when I was in the tub. Justin says that he woke up & realized that I was in the bath & since I had been doing this with some frequency, he didn't think anything of it. I tried walking around. But nothing worked. See they had told us to try these things to make sure we were having actual contractions. If it was a false labor doing these activities would make them go away. When they didn't go away & even got worse, I called the midwife on-call at the hospital. I described what was going on & she said that it certainly sounded like I was in labor & to wait until they were 5 minutes apart for 30 minutes, then to make our way into the hospital.
So I went back & laid down in bed next to my snoring husband. I was going to start timing the contractions, but my heavy breathing must have woken my husband. He asked his usual nightly startled questions "what happened? Is the baby okay?" I couldn't answer him since I was in the middle of the pain & out of bed he jumps all panicked. Once I could talk, I told him what was going on. We started timing the contractions & they were all over the place. They would go from 10 minutes to 7 to 11 to 8 minutes. They never got close together for 30 minutes. I slept off & on from 3:30 until about 6 or so. At 9 am we finally called the midwives to make an appointment to come in.
Finally at 1:30 we went into town to our appointment & I was in so much pain I could hardly stand. When we got into the exam room (very quickly) one of the midwives did the exam & I was in some of the worst pain of my life (other than the time I had a kidney infection). When she told me that I hadn't started dilating & that my cervix had not move up yet.
She suggested that I go to the hospital for a stress test on the baby & that I get a dose of morphine. I said that I would get some fluids & do the tests on the baby. So we got to the emergency room a little before 3. As soon as I told them that I was having contractions & we had been told to have a stress test, they got me admitted right away (they had been notified that we were on the way). We got into our room & hooked up to the machines.
After about 2 hours I was checked out by my midwife & she finally had good news, my cervix had moved & I had dilated 2 centimeters! I was officially in labor! By the way I was having bad contractions this whole time. I informed the nurses (for the third time) that I wanted the epidural!
When the epidural man finally came in, he reaked of cigarettes! Then he prepped me & had to wait for my next contraction to pass. Then he gave me the most intense pain yet! Holy crap do those hurt! But once the drugs take effect, life is good again. The next several hours, I had no pain & didn't even know when I was having a contraction!
At 4 Justin went out & got some food. I was finally able to get some good sleep. Things are a bit of a haze from when I got the "praise the Lord" drugs until I started active labor. When they finally told me to push I had no feeling in the lower half of my body. It was basically like telling me "hey, you can't feel it, but try to do this thing where you don't know what you're doing when we tell you to". I felt a lot of pressure, but had no idea if it was working. They also broke my water at some point, but I'm not sure when that was.
After a hour of my husband telling me we were almost there & to push harder, I politely informed him that he kept telling me we were almost there & the baby hadn't come out yet. He wasn't being very helpful.
At some point I was asked if wanted a mirror so could see what was going on down there & I immediately said NO!
During the active labor, Jackson's heart rate would dip down (which is normal), but wouldn't recover. They had me move around in hopes of getting him in a better position. If that didn't work,the midwife informed me that she was going to have the surgeon prepare the O.R. for a c section. I really didn't want that to happen, & that is when I started pushing even harder.
I had started screaming with each push until I had no more air. I was thinking this baby might never come out! Then one of the nurses went to stand behind Justin & even I noticed that he didn't look good. She got him. To sit down before he Would have passed out. Then a few minutes later I finally had the magic push & out came Jackson at 10:41 pm (only 20 hours after I felt my first contraction)! About that time is when Justin asked me about having another baby & I suggested we adopt the next one.
Before I gave birth, I thought brand-new babies were gross. they come out all covered in blood & goo! But once they lay your prize package on your chest, your preconceived notions run out the window. Now it isn't necessarily love at first sight. If you see your baby for the first time & think that he or she looks like an alien, it doesn't mean that you have already failed as a mother & that your baby will grow up to resent you. It just means that you are normal! In fact there will be many times in the next few weeks that you will (not might, but for sure will) have some unpleasant thoughts about your child. You will have momentary wishes that he had never been born, if there are more permanent ways to shut him up, & why in God's name won't this supposed bundle of joy let you get just a few hours of G.D. Sleep?! Don't worry it really isn't you, it is your hormones.
Justin had called his parents & they Came out to the hospital. I think Justin also informed my family at some point, but I don't really remember it.
Justin & his parents went home & I was moved to my post-partum room around midnight. When I first tried to stand up for the first time, I promptly sat back down. Once I was in the room, they made me try to go pee. After I wiped, it felt like there was something still stuck down there.I had assumed it was a witch hazel pad. When I felt around I realized that it was just from the swelling!
That night I didn't get much sleep. If they weren't coming in to check on me, they were bringing baby Jackson in for a feeding. When Justin came in the next morning, I was very happy to see him. He looks so handsome when he is holding or playing with our son! But then when Jackson first started crying, Justin got a panicked look & handed him back to me.
The staff was very good to me. In fact the head nurse that second day had a daughter who was also pregnant, in the same midwife centering class with me, & also had the same due date as me (Nov 10th - I delivered a week early).
That is pretty much what I remember. Now that we have our bundle of joy, & he is letting me get more sleep, & my hormones are in check, I would totally do it again! He really is the best thing we have ever done!
No matter how disgusting they may sound, I think that there is nothing more beautiful than a birth story. Thanks for sharing it, I love to hear them. I'm so glad that you didn't have to have a c-section. I wouldn't wish that on anyone.
ReplyDeleteLove ya!