Okay, there might just be a baby sleeping next to me, and I might just attempt to blog the whole story before feeding time. Let's see how this goes! This will, by the way, be in real time. :)
Thursday, March 29th
A fairly normal day, at 39 weeks and...oh, four days, I woke up at 6:30 a.m. to go to work. Work was just fine, I felt some pressure in my back and the tinsiest bit of cramping. But I had been so tired of thinking maybe this would be the day that I thought nothing of it. After work, I went for a walk with my friend, Lindsay, while a fairly nice storm was brewing up. Jordan and I were going to grill out, but because of the storm we went to Dairy Queen, instead (because, if you know us, all things seem to start out at Dairy Queen :D ). Jordan and I had some good talks about the future, then we went home and he played some X-Box while I played on Pinterest instead of organizing all the tax info we had pulled out and spread out over our table (oops!). We joked about how storms can cause women to go into labor (I even posted a link about an article I read on facebook), then decided to go to bed a little after 11:00.
Well, with no warning at all, at about 11:30, my water broke! And, I mean broke. None of this "Did it, or didn't it?" stuff. I called the first nurse while Jordan stood there with his hands shaking from the adrenaline flowing through him (how cute is he?). I made him sit down on the floor next to me while I talked to the nurse, and she told us to come on in.
Friday, March 30th
We arrived at the hospital a little after midnight. They checked to see where things were at and, I'll spare you all the numbers because some people just think it's creepy, but let's just say that the baby was still really, really high, and I was showing no signs of being in labor except my water breaking. To our disappointment, they also said that Baby was facing the wrong direction, so it was going to be very difficult to push the head out. Our goal was to try to keep moving my body in such a way as to make the baby rotate into the correct position.
We need to speed this story up. Feel free to skip to the last subheading if you'd like. I just want to make sure that I remember everything that happened, since it happened so fast!
- 2:30 a.m.--My contractions started; I tried sleeping through them--to no avail--since I hadn't slept at all, yet.
- 4:00 a.m.--My contractions got stronger, so I got out of bed and did the timeless (and extremely boring) walking of the halls while Jordan slept.
- 6:00 a.m.--I finally woke Jordan up because I felt like my contractions were strong enough that I couldn't handle them on my own any longer.
- 8:00 a.m.--They checked me and said that there was no change. :( Many more contractions ensued.
- 1:00 p.m.--My contractions almost skidded to a stop. We decided to take a nap while we could, then reassess afterwards.
- 2:00 p.m.--During my nap, I'd only had four or five contractions, so I reluctantly decided to go on Petosin (the fake hormone they use to speed up contractions). That seemed to help a lot.
- 6:00 p.m.--They checked me again, and the baby had moved down a tad, but I had only progressed one centimeter since arriving at the hospital. That's 16 hours of contractions already on one hour of sleep!
- 6:30 p.m.--I decided to take the plunge and get the epidural, since my contractions were pretty strong, and I was getting nervous that I would have no energy left to push this baby out at the rate I was going. This part sucked a lot. I'm sure others will tell you; it's very difficult to curl your body into a ball so they can stick a giant needle into your back when you're in the middle of a contraction! I most definitely cried through this part.
- 8:00 p.m.--I was finally able to sleep! The medication helped a lot, and I finally got a break from all of those contractions. Unfortunately, this was when the Pitosin decided to start working against me. It kicked me into a weird contraction pattern, where I would have two or three in a row, then nothing. Baby's heartbeat was staying consistent, so they weren't worried about that. They just said that that kind of pattern was not conducive to actually pushing the baby out. So, they adjusted the dosage a million and a half times during the night until they found an amount that gave me consistent contractions.
Saturday, March 31st
- 8:00 a.m.--They checked me again and saw that I had progressed sometime during the night to what should be the second stage of labor; however, my contractions, while consistent were now not as strong as they should be.
10:00 a.m.--Once again, I was checked, and I had not progressed at all. Now I was starting to feel terrible, as I could feel contractions, as well as other unexplained pain between contractions. I was so confused. They told me that there was no pressure on me to make any quick decisions. I had somewhat of a fever, so they gave me antibiotics for that.
When you pass the 24-hour mark from your water breaking, they are worried that you and/or baby will get an infection. What they did say was that baby was still in the wrong position and trying to come out cockeyed. The head was trying to come out with the back corner first, instead of forehead first. They thought that maybe my slow progression and maybe even the pain I was feeling was my body's way of telling me that this baby was too big and in the wrong position for me to be able to push it out.
We had been praying through this whole situation that we would make the right decisions every step of the way. It was disheartening to me to have to keep taking more medication, but my world started spinning when they told me I might want to consider surgery after all the labor I had been through (30 hours at this point!). I cried again when they told me that they do not do natural deliveries for women after they have had a cesarean at this hospital. But we felt like God was telling us that we had done the right things--been leaning on him--and that we needed to keep trusting him as we took the plunge. We decided to schedule the c-section, and at this point, I was so exhausted and in so much pain, I had no idea how I was going to wait for them to get everything set up
- 11:58 a.m.--But they did! At 11:58 in the morning, a very healthy baby was born to us. I was brought through surgery by an amazing doctor and anesthesiologist, and we are very, very thankful for God's provision!!
Kieran James
As I said, at 11:58 a.m., on March 31st, 2012, Kieran James was born to us at 8 pounds and 2 ounces and 21 inches long. He has dark hair, blue-gray eyes for now, a cute button nose, an even cuter little bow-tie set of lips, and these long toes that like to curl up against his feet. We have a son! How crazy is that? God is so, so, so good, and I can't stop thanking him for bringing us through all of this. I know people have much more traumatic stories that don't always end like ours, but it was an experience that brought Jordan and I closer. We love our little boy and, of course, think that he is absolutely perfect in every way. He is starting to become a good feeder, he loves to be swaddled, but he also loves skin-to-skin time, and loves his papa! Jordan was so good with him that first day, as I was confined to bed. I am scared and excited to take our family home tomorrow!
