Happy Birth-Day Jack!

Our sweet little Jack entered this world a bit earlier than we planned last Friday afternoon. Below is the cliché/classic “birth story” of his grand entrance.

Here are some bullet points for those who don’t want to read the novel:

• ·         Labor from start to finish was 23 hours
• ·         I used an entire bag of pitocin…I guess this is unusual because the nurse was impressed!
• ·         I used 3 bottles of epidural liquid over the course of labor
• ·         Mark was a champ and did not pass out. He did have to sit down partway through the epidural procedure, and close his eyes a few times during the end, but he was amazing.
• ·         I do not believe I yelled any obscenities or accused Mark of anything.
• ·         Jack Andrew was born at 2:46pm Friday February 14^th at 19 1/12 inches long and roughly 7 pounds 5 ounces. (There was some confusion due to a very busy NICU that day.)

I went to the hospital Thursday afternoon for a “routine” non-stress-test. I reported to the nurses that he had seemed a little sluggish movement-wise in the last day or two. They also observed this based on his heart rate and the few minor contractions. The hospital doctor came in and said they were concerned about his heart rate during contractions and wanted to send me up to Labor and Delivery for inducing.

 A million thoughts flooded through my head resulting in a teary-eyed 38-week pregnant woman (a rarity I’m sure when you’re told they want to induce you!). My hospital bag wasn’t packed, we still had some last minute things to buy, none of his clothes had been washed….and the next day was Valentine’s Day! We didn’t have any fancy plans but they certainly didn’t involve bringing a baby into the world! Oh and then there was having to call my husband and relay the news. Thankfully he’d been on edge and already suspected when I called him at 2:30 in the afternoon what was going on.

I got started on paperwork while waiting for Mark to arrive. I called my mom but as luck would have it, she was stuck in parent teacher conferences that night until 8 and didn’t see the message until a few hours later. In the mean time, my secondly awesome co-support, Shelene, came and sat with Mark and me. She was there for the less eventful part but it was nice to have someone there who had been through this before, and as a nurse herself, made sure I was being taken care of. She dropped everything of her hectic day, got a sitter, and drove all the way from Lehi to sit with us for 5 hours. (And later somehow convinced her husband to spend their “date night” in my hospital room eating malts after the baby was born!)

They started the pitocin around 4pm on Thursday. The contractions started to increase but I wasn’t really feeling a whole lot, just some minor pains now and again. At 6pm, a new nurse came on for her shift and got me through the next gruesome 12 hours. She was an angel…words can’t describe how wonderful she was. Shortly after she got there, they had the anesthesiologist come in for the epidural and then my doctor came in and broke my water. As she left she said “get some rest, you’re going to need it!” Nice advice but anyone who has been in labor and delivery knows that rest is the last thing you get.

Over the next 8 hours, contractions came and I gradually made more progress. My mom arrived around 9 and through the wee hours of the night, she and Mark attempted to sleep sitting up on the couch in the room. By 2 or 3 I was getting restless and sore from lying on one side, then switching to the other. Around 11 the epidural seemed to be wearing off. I was feeling the contractions indefinitely and I was not a happy camper. My mom tried to make me feel better by saying that the pitocin often makes contractions worse. Either way, I knew that a drug-free birth was something I’d never want to do. That 45 minute segment just affirmed what I already knew about my pain tolerance!

After a booster dose of the epidural around midnight, I slept here and there in with nurses coming to check on me and my progress every hour or so. Around 4am, the room got really cold and I started shivering. We tried more blankets but it didn’t work. My blood pressure soared and so did Jack’s. They monitored my temperature and the nurse said if it reached above a certain temperature they would have to take blankets away to help my body cool down. This lasted for over an hour. After contacting my doctor, she ordered an EKG and blood work to be done. I remember the blood draw lady was nice. The guy that did the EKG was awkward and tried to make a joke to help me relax- but I didn’t really get his punch line. After the tests were done, I asked Mark to give me a blessing. I really hadn’t felt anxious about giving birth, but so much of the situation was unexpected and looking scary, I needed some comfort. I knew that the blessing wouldn’t make Jack’s birth go “my way”, but I knew that I needed comfort so I could be calm no matter what happened. A short time later, my fever went down and my heart rate and the baby’s went back down to an acceptable rate. Worried about infection, they added another bag to my IV line of antibiotics and turned down the pitocin for a little while.  

Between 5 and 8 AM I made literally no progress. I had been stuck at an 8 since my fever started. I was frustrated, stressed, and quite frankly, pretty sick of the hourly “exams”. Not to mention I was hungry as the last thing I’d eaten was a waffle for lunch that day, and my body was starting to feel nauseous from ice chips.

Through some miracle, I managed to sleep from about 8am to 9. When I woke up, they checked me and I finally had moved from an 8 to 9. Long past my goal/ideal of having him out and snuggling him by breakfast time, the new goal was to start pushing at 10:30. At 10:30, they called my doctor and she wanted me to wait until 11:30. She wanted me to go through a process of “rest and descend”. The theory is for an hour, once you are fully dilated, you let contractions do a little bit of the work for you in helping the baby move down. So another hour of sitting and waiting…Thankfully my day nurse was equally as fabulous as my evening nurse. She was a great cheerleader especially during pushing. Mark asked her if she had considered being a football coach because of how motivating she was. I told him she was too nice to be an effective football coach.

Finally, at 11:30, we started pushing. She said on average most first time moms take about 2 hours. Unfortunately, the next thing I knew, it was 1:00 and nowhere near being ready. The doctor came and affirmed what we thought: Jack was laying face up, making his descent a lot harder. The doctor was able to coax him into turning but despite his new position, he still made little progress. At 1:30, my nurse asked if I had the energy to keep pushing. I figured since my doctor wouldn’t be there for a while still as she had one more patient to attend to, I might as well try and be productive. Pushing another half hour didn’t do much. Jack’s head was pretty much stuck and he couldn’t make any more progress. My doctor finally arrived around 2:15. She said that at this point because I had been pushing so long, they would need to do an assisted delivery which would mean a rougher post-recovery for me. At that point, I really didn’t care. Ultimately I wanted my baby here safely and after 23 hours of labor, I wanted him out no matter what the cost! Due to forceps, he ended up with a few small bruises and a very cone-shaped head for a few days, but still better than a C-Section.  

With the delivery finally only a few minutes away, Mark and I were both getting anxious. It’s one thing to anticipate having a baby any day, or in a few hours even. But once the doctor got in her “catching” position, it was surreal to think that within minutes we’d be holding our baby. After a little more pushing, Jack’s head emerged and the nurse, doctor, and my mom were excitedly talking about all the hair on his head. When he was finally out, Mark cut the cord and they laid our anxiously awaited little angel on my chest. Despite his blue-ish appearance and weak cries from lack of oxygen, I couldn’t believe how instantly in love I was with him. No surprise, I cried seeing him. All of those months of waiting, imagining what he would look like, he had arrived, and our lives were officially changed forever. 

I was fully aware this would be an awful picture. You try 23 hours of labor and see how you look. 

After a minute, they took him over to the warmer and worked on trying to get him breathing better. They ended up calling in respiratory therapists from the NICU. When they got him breathing better and a better color, they let me hold him again for a minute before whisking him away to the NICU to be put on the CPAP machine and put him on antibiotics to make sure he didn’t contract any infection I had earlier that night. Mark got to go with them and watch as they hooked little Jack up to machines and took his measurements. My mom stayed with me as they got me ready to transition into recovery and I enjoyed a nice cold Sprite. (Something I’d been craving since that morning!)

They wheeled me into the NICU an hour later before being transferred to the recovery room where Mark and I got to see him again.  It’s a bit scary to see your newborn hooked up to so many machines. But with him being 38 weeks and already looking better, and a great nurse watching over him, I took the few hours he was in there and got to sleep! Finally, around 8 that night, they finally brought him to me. Mark had gone home to shower and take a short nap. As much as I would have loved to share that moment with him, it was a sweet experience to have some alone time with my son and just adore every little thing about him.

He is a healthy and pretty much the most adorable baby ever. (We are not biased at all!) We are so grateful for modern medicine and wonderful nurses who helped us get him here safely.