WARNING:BIRTH STORY- I had no intention of ever posting a birth story. I kind of think they are strange. I mean who really wants to read about that? But then several people asked me about it and my husband convinced me its a right of passage of sorts, especially after last year with our experience of such a sacred birth that will never be shared publicly I should get to share my story now. So here it goes:
I had a scheduled induction. It was one week before my due date. This was for a couple reasons: One being our experience last year we were always told if we made it to 39 weeks I would just deliver then because in a way there was more risk of him being inside me than outside me (generally it is the other way around), the other was I had slightly high blood pressure for a lot of my pregnancy. Really it wasn't high, because I had a cuff at home and would take my blood pressure 3 times a day and it was always in normal range, but the second I showed up at a doctor office I would start to freak out and it would creep up. I think I was always expecting someone to tell me that my baby has no heartbeat again. The stress was insane. But anyway, back to the story.
So we (me, David, and my sister Shayla) arrived at the hospital around 6:15am to start the process. A little bit after arriving I found out I was in a slow labor already. So whether I was being induced or not, this kid would not have made it to 40 weeks.
Oh before I continue with the next part I have to go back in history a little bit. I had non stress tests twice a week to check the baby's movement, heart rate, and fluid levels because of our experience last year. I went in for my regular non stress test 2 days before my induction and they sent in the resident to do the ultrasound. I have had residents do my ultrasounds before and they take longer to find the fluid, but they are generally fine. This one, however, was not. Not only did it take him about 45 minutes to measure the fluid (it usually takes between 5 and 15 minutes), but he was digging the ultrasound wand into me so hard that I was crying from pain...to which he responded, "uterine ultrasounds are hard to do because there is abdominal tissue in there too". Um what? No one else seems to have an issue. And no one has made me cry. I went home that day and told David all about how mad I was and how much I disliked that resident and the bruises he left on my stomach. Anyway, back to the birth story (bet you can see where this is going).
After getting checked in they sent in our team to meet us. I already knew who the doctor on call was as I specifically picked that day because he was there, but I would only be seeing him if there was a problem. So two midwifes and a resident came in to talk to us. Guess who the resident was!? My not so good buddy from my non stress test a couple days before. And he was the one who would be handling my care with the midwife overseeing it. Well after the most painful cervical check of my life (and at this point I have had many because of my history) I decided he would absolutely NOT be handling my care and told the nurse that she needed to tell the midwife to get rid of him. Which she did. Thank goodness for nurses!!! I love them so much! (I also think David might have told the midwife to get rid of him also because he was more than a little upset with him)
So after that fiasco, they decided to start pitocin to try to speed up labor a little because the contractions were not super active. Well little man did not like the pitocin at all. His heart rate kept dropping so they turned it off. They thought it might be because my blood pressure would go up with each contraction, but they weren't really sure because the machine measuring my contractions was not working right. Eventually contractions started getting really strong so I requested my epidural. The anesthesiologist asked me about ever having one before to which I replied I had. She asked me when, and I said last July. She made a comment about having Irish twins (what they call kids that are less than a year apart) and the nurse had to tell her that we lost that baby. It was a little bit awkward after that. Right in the middle of getting the epidural my water broke. That was also awkward. So after my epidural was in, the midwife decided to try pitocin again. The nurse turned it on and walked out. About 2 minutes later a whole bunch of people came running in to turn me on my side and put an oxygen mask on me because little man's heart rate dropped again. So again, the pitocin got turned off. A few hours passed and my labor wasn't really progressing so they decided that maybe the baby didn't like the pitocin because it made contractions too strong and there was no fluid in there because my water had broken so maybe replacing the fluid would help. Also, my blood pressure wasn't increasing with contractions anymore because of the epidural. So they got a fluid line in place and started pitocin again. About 5 minutes later a bunch of people came running in to turn me on my side and put the mask back on. Safe to say at this point, that the little dude is not fond of the medication AT ALL. The nurses kept commenting that we must be having a boy because boys are always trouble makers. I know they were trying to keep things light hearted, but I was SCARED.
At this point they decided to keep me on my side with the oxygen mask on to see if they could leave the pitocin on low. If the anticipation is killing you, the answer to that is NO. So again the pitocin went off, but the oxygen stayed on because by this time I am so scared I am crying and apparently not doing a good job of getting oxygen to the baby. It amazed me that even though I was in a hospital and for sure going to meet my baby that day how scared I was that something could still go wrong and I could lose him too. Lots and lots of prayers were said. I think at one point I told them to just give me a c-section because I was so terrified that Jax would not make it through labor.
After that, they decided that since I was in natural labor they would just let me go with it, even though it was going to take awhile because it was in such a slow build and they would just let me relax for several hours before checking me again. At this point it was probably around 5:00. David decided to go get some food and I was supposed to be trying to take a nap, but come on, how would that even be possible. Between the stress and the anticipation, sleep was not going to come. Not long after David got back there was a staff turnover. The resident and doctor were done for the day so I met the new doctor and the new resident. The resident told me he would be back with the midwife in a couple hours to check my progress. I commented to him I was feeling a lot of pressure which he kinda just blew off and said "that's great". So I asked my nurse to go get the midwife to check me because I was pretty sure it was time to get this kid out. The whole time it kind of bugged me that I kept kind of being told that my experience with childbirth last year doesn't count. Even now, I can tell you that even though the end result was VERY different, the experience leading up to it was the same...in a medical sense. So the midwife came in and guess who was right!? Oh yeah, me. I really lucked out with the midwife that was on call that day. She was AMAZING! She knew I was scared and knew that people not listening to me was not helping so she had the resident leave and took over everything herself.
So at about 6:15 I started pushing. It was interesting because my contractions were still about 5-7 minutes apart and usually at this point they are 1-3 minutes apart. It doesn't matter except for the fact that you only push when a contraction comes, so the resting time between was pretty long which can make it harder to bring the baby down. So I did some pushing with the nurses for about 45 minutes and then the midwife came in. About 30 minutes after that A LOT of people came in which made me really nervous because one of them was the on call OBGYN and one was the doctor on call for pediatrics. To this day, I don't know what was going on but they stayed the entire time. David told me he knew there were some issues but no one was really telling us about them. Finally, another hour or so later (for a grand total of a little over 2 1/2), at 8:50 pm, right in time for the Miami playoff game to start, my perfect little boy was born. They pulled him out and put him right on my chest where he stayed for the next hour and a half. People kept texting and calling asking what his weight and height was, but we didn't even know because they only did a necessary vitals check on him while he was on my chest and didn't weight and measure him until 2 hours later when they took him off of me to bathe him and finish checking him out.
When I think about those first moments with Jax, I realize how much of a daze I was in. For the first little bit it almost felt like I was holding someone else's baby. Like my brain was shocked that he was alive. I was kind of concerned that I didn't have the same feeling that I had when I held baby David for the first time. And even though he slept in our room all night because there is no nursery (which at this point was only half a night because I think it was around 1am by the time we finally got to recovery), It wasn't until the next day when David left to go pick up my sister and I was alone in the room with Jax that my brain made the connection that he was mine and I loved him so much. And every day since that I have seen his sweet face and held him as he snuggled into me or comforted him while he cried, I have loved him even more. He is a great reminder to me that Heaven is real, and not only is it real, it is really close. I am still sad he doesn't have his brother here, but I know he was sent here to bring us hope, because hope like that could not come from anywhere else. We love you baby Jax and we are so happy you are part of our forever family.
And to end on a very random note: like 15 people told me to pack chapstick. I did. I never used it. What is with the chapstick???
