Josh and Korey

I no longer have a baby bump…unless I want to. 🙂

Tomorrow I’ll try to get a post up about the post-baby weight loss.

To recap: my water has broken, I’ve had an epidural and I’ve dilated to 7. It’s been about 15 hours. Around this time, the epidural had all of my contraction pain under control, but I started to have some breakthrough pain – more like intense pressure – near my tailbone area. It continued to get worse and I was back to my yoga breathing and gripping the bed rail. [By the way, the deep, slow breathing I practiced in yoga really served to be a blessing during this process.] The journey from 7 to 10 centimeters of dilation happened very quickly, and before I knew it, my doctor was being called and the room was being prepped for labor. After all the time and lack of progress, and all the talk of a c-section, I was in disbelief that it was *actually happening*. There were blankets brought in for the baby, the lights were dimmed, and the doctor’s supply cart was rolled in. I started to push around 4:30 am (17 hours since arriving at the hospital). My doctor joined us as the baby’s head was pretty close.

I thought we were minutes from having a baby, and we probably should have been, but then each push brought no progress. The doctor worked on trying to move him out from my pelvic bone, and then started pushing him down from the top of my stomach. That area, right under my rib cage, hurt for days. With each push, the baby’s heart rate would plummet. I was given an oxygen mask and told that time was running out. We couldn’t keep him in distress much longer. Ironically, throughout all of the intense labor pain, they had been amazed at how well he had handled it. They kept telling me what a calm baby he was. His heart rate hardly changed with each contraction, even after hours of them. Something was wrong. My doctor was trying to move him from around my pubic bone and get his feet out from under my ribcage, but things weren’t changing, and we couldn’t risk his health for long.

Eventually, the doctor decided to use suction. He told me that the baby was stuck and I had one contraction with suction to get him out or we were going downstairs for a c section. Obviously I knew I’d be devastated to have worked that hard for nothing! It’s funny, in this process, you are trying as hard as you can, but of course the doctor and nurse will tell you to try harder with each push. I was exhausted, but this was my final chance and I was determined to give it everything I had. I pushed, the doctor pulled on the vacuum, and Josh says we were both shaking from the exertion. His head came out, and the cord was wrapped twice around his neck, which was causing the heart rate drop that was so troubling. The doctor unwound the cord, then pulled on Jacob’s body and he was born. He made a small cry and they whisked him away to clear his nose and mouth and hope for a louder cry. It never came. They poked and prodded him, rubbed him and jiggled him and he made nothing but small sounds. They wanted him to clear his lungs with a good cry and this quiet baby wouldn’t do it. It felt like they had him forever. I was worried, knowing that the hospital has a policy of instant skin-to-skin contact and they were working on him instead in the baby warmer. I kept asking if he was okay, and they were telling me that he seemed great, they just wanted him to cry. I honestly don’t know how long they had him because I was so out of it. That whole time is a blur.

Once they moved Jacob to the warmer, Josh stood with him, and reached into the warmer and said that Jacob grabbed his finger and held on. When they had finished with his Apgar score and decided that his coloring and respiration were great despite his lack of crying, they brought him to me and laid him on my chest. We had our first glimpse of one another. I couldn’t believe how perfect he was, how round his head was (I expected a cone head from all the pushing and being stuck). His head was really bruised and was bleeding from the suction, but honestly I have no regrets about that having to be used, because it enabled me to deliver him and brought him to us safely. We enjoyed our bonding time and when we were ready, our anxious families came in to meet him. He was, and continues to be, a calm and happy baby. He rarely cries, and when he does it’s not for long. He smiles at us routinely, and has adorable dimples. He makes the most adorable, soft little sounds and squeaks. We are so enjoying him!

Celebration dinner at the hospital

I have been wanting to share the story of how Jacob joined us. It was quite an adventure!

After finding out on Thursday, December 15 (4 days past my due date) that I would be induced, I had a pretty sleepless night. I was still not dilated and only 50% effaced, so I would need a medication to encourage my body to dilate. I made sure everything was done around the house, finished packing, and then laid in bed thinking…my last night pregnant (possibly), my last night uncomfortable (hopefully), my last night of life as I know it. Also, what would the next day bring? How would the experience go? Would I end up with the birth I wanted? It’s weird to think about labor as a concrete time (knowing when it will happen) and wondering how you will fare and what you will go through in the next 24+ hours.

I woke up and got myself ready. I picked an outfit (which is silly, I know) and showered as slowly as I wanted. Josh and I left for the hospital to arrive for our 9:30 am “appointment” with labor and delivery. Unfortunately, L&D had us down for 10:00 pm (still not sure why this happened). We were left with the choice: do we go home to rest and save our energy for a long process ahead, or stay and start the process then? The nurse suggsted going home to rest so that the medication they were going to give me (cytotec to help progress my cervix) would work all night and they could start pitocin (which would initiate contractions) in the morning. We talked about it, and as I hadn’t slept much at all the night before I knew I wouldn’t rest at home. Besides, I’d taken care of everything at home so that we could come home to a clean, organized, ready house — I didn’t want to return home and sit there, restless. We decided to stay. I am so glad we did…

They got us set up in a very nice, large corner room. Once I had a gown and monitoring belt on, they started the medication. As it turns out, I had been having contractions when I arrived, but I couldn’t feel them. I was excited about that! I felt like it was good news for labor…little did I know! I was still not dilated and still only 50% effaced. The hospital had a bunch of movies on the tv, so Josh and I started one and tucked in to wait. It ended and we started another. I had started to feel some pain in my stomach, like light cramping. During the second movie it got worse, to the point that I was wincing and breathing loudly, but otherwise handling it fine. When the movie ended, I had reached a point where I had what felt like one long, unending stomach cramp. My stomach cramped up and stayed that way. I was really hungry (my last meal was at 9:00 am and I was not allowed to eat once I was settled in there) so I couldn’t tell if I had a stomach ache or contractions. As it turns out, I was contracting so close togethe that there was really no “downtime.” I had 1 minute, 30 second contractions which were 30 seconds apart. They were on top of one another. The nurse even debated whether or not I had nausea-realted cramping from the medication instead of contractions. The medication was intended to be given every 4 hours until enough dilation had occurred. Unfortunately for me, my doctor almost debated not giving me any more of the medication after that first dose because he knew it would make my already intense and continuous contractions worse – and making them worse was not an option. Without the medication labor would completely stall and would have ended any chance of a non-surgical birth, so I wanted to keep trying. They waited after the medication had worn off for an extra 2 hours before giving me the second dose, and sadly I was still not dilated or any more effaced than when I had arrived. The contractions were still non-stop, but the pain was less. They gave me a second dose and yes, the pain got worse.

At this point, it’s 8 pm and I have had a dose of morphine for the pain, which did nothing. Hours went by and I was in increasing amounts of pain. I was walking around the room, disconnecting the monitoring equipment if need be and stretching. The pain was pretty intense. I was started to get frutrated – all of this pain and no progress. They wouldn’t even label me as “in labor”! I started to have the thoughts – the kind that whisper “I don’t want to do this any more” (not like I had a chance) and this was the point that I probably would have given in and gotten an epidural had that been an option, but without progress, there was a high chance the epidural would have slowed the process down further. There was also a chance that the intense cramping was preventing my body from progressing because I was so tense…but there was no way to know. Suddenly, my water breaks. Wonderful! This must mean progress! The nurse comes running in ecstatic for me, as she thought we were losing the labor battle.  The downside is that the pain of the contractions had gotten so bad it was making me nauseated, and I threw up for a while, so I was not enjoying the good news.  As it turns out, I was dilated to 2 – labor had begun. The best part of my water breaking and labor starting was that my new best friend, the anesthesiologist, could come in and administer an epidural. After that I felt so much better, and my whole body relaxed, which I really needed. From 11 pm until maybe 3 am I went from 2 to 7 centimeters.

The calm before the storm...

Stay tuned for part 2 tomorrow…

He is cute when he’s not projectile vomiting like Linda Blair.