Jackson's Birth story
Jackson David
Born November 8th @ 12:23pm
Weighing 7lbs 9oz & 19.5in long
On Sunday, November 4th, I lost my mucus plug. It really looked like a little tampon which I had read online and thought to myself "yeah right," but no, it really did look like that.
On
Tuesday, November 6th, I was very uncomfortable all day at work. I had to change
position from sitting to standing a lot and I was going back and forth
to the bathroom constantly. I left work assuming I wouldn't be in
Wednesday based on how uncomfortable I felt. My legs were swollen when I
got home and I felt exhausted but we manage to walk down to vote and
grab dinner from the election night donation dinner before crashing on the couch with my feet up for the night.
On
Wednesday, November 7th, baby's due date - I took the day off because I didn't sleep well at all the
night before. I spent the whole day going between my bed, the couch, the floor
and the bathroom. I was having a lot of braxton hicks contractions with some real contractions towards the end of the night. I had to force myself to eat a couple small meals/snacks but mostly I just drank a lot of water because I didn't feel hungry at all and I just felt so incredibly tired.
On Thursday, 11/8 at
2:00am I woke up to go to the bathroom and found some spotting which wasn't an alarming amount so I thought to myself "that might be the bloody show, but maybe not." I
grabbed a towel to put down in bed to sleep on "just in case." I woke up again at 3:00am needing
to pee, I started to roll over and I felt a pop and then a gush, my water broke! I tucked the towel between my legs and jumped out of bed as fast as a 9 month pregnant lady can and waddled to the bathroom. I then confirmed that what had just happened couldn't have been anything but my water breaking. The fluid was clear and my contractions weren't too close together or too terrible yet, so I knew we didn't need to rush but that it was definitely time to start to get ready. After cleaning
myself up, I got Joel up - I was now only leaking a little, as it turned
out his head settled back down when
I got up and "plugged the hole."
Joel called the birthing center to tell them my water had broken and they said to come in but not to feel the need to rush since the fluid was clear. So Joel
called my mom to come stay with Alex, who slept through all of this. He packed the car up with our bags, while I breathed through some contractions that were beginning to get more intense. My mom got to our house, wished us luck and we were on
our way! After avoiding five different deer and one 8 point mother of a
buck, we arrived at the hospital at 4:00am. My
contractions were averaging 4-5 minutes apart and were strong enough for
me to have to concentrate on them but not too terrible. We listened to some music and talked a little bit on the drive, but mostly we were quiet while Joel watched out for suicidal animals and I concentrated on my contractions.
After
getting to the hospital and up into our room the nurse checked my vitals, took a urine sample and a blood sample. Then the doctor came
in to check my cervix. When he did that my water broke the rest of the
way all over the doctor, the bed, the floor...it was crazy how much fluid there was. We all laughed because it just wouldn't stop!
After the doctor got cleaned up he continued to check me and I was 2cm
dilated and 100% effaced, and his head was right there.
Our doctor was awesome, he was the same one we had during the c-section with Alex and he was so encouraging and comforting. He said he "As Yoda says 'there is no try, only do' I don't 'try' for VBACs, I do VBACs and I need you to decide right now if you're committed to this because if you say yes, that's the only way baby is coming out. There will be no 'I can't do this, let's just do a c-section.'" He also added that I was presenting with the ideal circumstances for a successful VBAC, my risk level was very low for a rupture, I had showed up in spontaneous labor and I was already showing progress and I had a great attitude towards labor. This made both Joel and I feel very confident and reassured that we were in great hands. We only got more excited when we heard that our favorite midwife that we saw most often during the pregnancy was the next to come on and would likely be there for delivery!
After the doctor left, our
nurse, Tanya, hooked me up to the contraction monitor and the fetal heart rate
monitor which were really uncomfortable. After a while I didn't notice it as much but the belly band was tight and the monitors were pressing hard into my stomach and I unfortunately needed to be on the monitors consistently throughout the whole labor. At this point my contractions were between 2-3 minutes apart
and starting to increase in intensity. I began laboring on all fours in the bed, rocking my hips. The contractions weren't in my stomach like I had thought they would be. They were across my upper thighs, butt, hips and pelvis/lower abs. It did feel like a wave of aching/burning/muscle soreness that would gradually intensify as the contraction went on and then slowly let down to nothing and I would get a break for a couple minutes.
8:00am -
Our midwife Michelle, came in and checked me and I was now 5.5 cm dilated and she could feel his
hair more than my cervix because it was so thinned out and he was already so low. I felt really encouraged by this because it meant I was a little over half way there!
I
continued laboring on all fours in bed with pillows. With the urging of our midwife and nurse to try a different position that wouldn't use as much energy, I did try to lay
down a couple times to rest between contractions but it made the pain
worse, so I would just end up back on all fours. They said to just to do whatever I felt was best. Joel tried to rub my back and do various things we had practiced to help but it just didn't feel good in that moment and I was concentrating so hard on breathing and staying focused that anything else felt like a distraction and broke my concentration.
9:30am(ish)
- I was feeling very nauseous at this point and Joel had to go get me a bucket which I did end up needing twice, I felt much better once I threw up. Then I started to feel more pressure and felt like I wanted to push
so they checked me again and I was now 7cm dilated. They told me to fight the
slight urge to push during contractions by blowing out through my
mouth. They told me if the urge to push became overwhelming to call them so they could check me again. At this point I would have three contractions in a row, each with their own peaks and then I would have a
short minute break between before the next one would start again. On the third one I would reach my breaking
point, then it would end & I would feel ok. This was the point
where I told Joel twice that I wanted drugs but then the contraction
would end and I'd say "never mind I'm good!" He didn't even say anything when I said it because he knew I was doing fine. He did great by giving me ice chips and sips of water throughout what I now know was definitely the transition phase of labor. I began alternating between laboring on all fours in the bed and standing/rocking/squatting at the side of the bed.
11:30am -
At this point I had an overwhelming urge to push, so we called our
nurse in and our midwife came in soon after. She checked me and I was
basically 10cm dilated!!! She could only feel a tiny lip of the cervix left and she was able to pull
that tiny lip back over his head. This probably hurt but in the moment with the contractions, I didn't really notice.
Now it
was time to push! They told me when I felt a contraction coming on to bare down and begin pushing. So as soon as the next contraction hit I bared down by
the side of the bed and started pushing with everything I had. Joel said he has never seen me more determined
than I was in that moment. I pushed while squatting by the bed for a while. Then they brought in a birthing stool to help support my legs. I labored on birthing stool
facing the bed for a while when the midwife asked me to feel down there while I was pushing to see if I was able to feel his head. I did this and felt a squishy hairy thing and said "I'm not sure but I think I feel his head!" Our midwife checked and it was was indeed his head!
At this point we moved the birthing stool so it was facing forward instead of towards the bed so the midwife and nurse could see what was going on, coach and catch :) Joel sat
behind me on a stool so I could lean back on him and he could help support me while I pushed. Soon after, I got a bad cramp in my right hip and
Joel held my leg up so it wasn't pressing down on the metal bar of the stool which helped so much. I remember when I got to
"the ring of fire" and thought to myself "okay, this is it, the last little bit." After a few pushes I asked if the midwife could just pull
him out already, I seriously felt like I was being ripped in half and it is such a mental struggle to keep pushing when you know you're doing physical damage to yourself in a very sensitive area! The midwife
and nurse did such an amazing job helping me refocus during pushing, at
one point I started to be totally overcome with the pain and started to
scream, our midwife told me to look in her eyes and said "You can do this, I
know it burns, I know it hurts but you're almost there just a few more
pushes and he'll be here!" It was two pushes
later that his head and shoulders were out and another two pushes and
some maneuvering by the midwife to get the rest of him out because he
was so long. I remember being a little annoyed because I always thought that once the head and shoulders were out the rest just kind of slid out, but I needed to push more to get the rest of him out!
After 45mins of pushing Jackson was born at 12:23pm.
They placed him right on my belly/chest and Joel and I were both able to hold him
there which was amazing. We rubbed him and talked to him as they suctioned his mouth and nose. He
pinked up and was breathing but was not crying. Joel had wanted to cut
the cord and the midwife was going to let him but said if he was going to do it he needed to do it fast since baby wasn't crying and they needed to make sure he was definitely okay. Joel said for
her to just do it since they were trying to make sure Jackson was ok and he was still holding my leg and didn't know if letting it go would make the cramp come back or not. Our midwife cut the cord, the pediatrician came in and they gave him oxygen through a mask. He started trying to pull the
oxygen mask off and was moving around, so we weren't too worried, after a couple minutes he let out
a little cry. They decided he must just be a laid back guy that wasn't upset and didn't feel like crying. His APGAR score
was 7.9. Once we saw everything was ok with Jack, the midwife helped me
deliver the placenta which only took two little pushes and was pretty interesting looking. The umbilical cord was really interesting looking also, I didn't get to see either of these last time so I had been curious about what they looked like after growing them for nine months! After they got me into bed with Jackson, our nurse showed us the placenta and the sac and the cord and the different parts. I was surprised at how large the placenta is and Joel was surprised that it looked like "a real organ" to which I replied "it IS a real organ!" lol). We had some
quality snuggles before I took a quick shower and Joel and Jackson got
settled in to our postpartum room. They gave me a bag of pictocin in my
IV to help my uterus continue to contract and periodically came in to
message my uterus and I did the same to help it go back down in size. My uterus was small and firm and
right under my belly button at that point which was perfect and as it should be.
Everything
went perfectly with the VBAC, I was kind of in shock that I did it and that it wasn't as bad in some ways as I thought it would be. I would say what got me through
labor with no meds was Joel's support, the awesome coaching from the
nurse and midwife and controlling/focusing on my breathing. I also
think if I hadn't gone from 7 to 10 as quickly as I did I probably would
have gotten the numbing shot to give myself a little break since I had
no breaks at all during the 10 hours of labor and pushing. I also
didn't feel the contractions in my stomach, they were all in my hips,
thighs and butt because Jackson was in the optimal position for birth
and I didn't have back labor.
However, 8 hours later after our
families left I was just about to get out of bed to use the bathroom
when my ears went muffled and I felt my vision starting to go dark. I
told Joel, who was on the phone with his aunt that I felt like I might faint and then clicked the nurse
call button and told them that I felt faint. Two nurses came in, one lowered my bed so I was lying
flat while the other took my vitals. My blood pressure was 60/32 they
immediately called for the crash team and asked Joel to go sit down
because he was walking around asking what's going on since neither of us
realized just how serious things were at that moment. One nurse
checked for my pulse on my wrist and subtlety shook her head no to the
nurse on the opposite side of my bed. Suddenly the room was flooded
with people all performing so specific tasks. Someone put an oxygen
mask on me, another placed a cold wash cloth on my head, they stripped
me down and the midwife started asking me questions and telling me to
stay with her. She felt my belly and noted that my uterus was pushed
over to the side and was now larger than it was earlier. They put in a catheter
to empty my bladder.
Then the midwife apologized and said what she was
about to do was going to hurt. I remember saying I didn't care and to
just do whatever they had to do to make me feel better. She had to
reach inside and clear out my uterus with her hand. Joel said there were a lot of
really big clots. They started a new bag of pictocin on my IV and pressed
on my stomach to make get as much blood out as possible. At this point I was
stabilizing. They called again for the OB doc but it was right at shift
change so it took a minute for the doctor to get there. When he came
in they explained what they had done and he told them they did a great
job. At that point he ordered that I get two more bags of pictocin and
our nurse was to monitor me like a hawk. Then he spoke to me and told
me to 1) never do that again and to 2) never EVER do that again. I told him I didn't plan on it!
After
that the nurse came in frequently to massage my uterus and check my vitals. I was also doing the same thing when she wasn't there so we could make sure my uterus went back down. They also took a vile of blood to check my blood count. When
that came back it showed it had dropped from 33 when I was admitted to
23, I had lost around 1/3 of my blood volume. The doctor said I had the
option to receive a unit of blood or to see how I felt the next day and
decide if I wanted it. I felt pretty terrible right then and thinking
about running after Alex and caring for a newborn lead me to decide
getting the transfusion would be a good idea. So after asking a bunch of question and hearing the risks, they started they started a bag of blood. After that they did another blood draw to check my count, it had bumped my
blood count only slightly to 25 so after taking the night to see how I
felt I opted for a second unit the next morning. I felt a lot better
but still no where near 100%. The doctor said it would be around two
weeks before I would be asymptomatic and a month or so before I'll feel
close to 100%.
A week later I was feeling an improvement. I could walk around for ten
minutes without feeling faint or super tired. I was surprised how out of breath I got just trying to talk to my friends when they came to visit the day after we got out of hospital. I felt horrible because I was just laying on the couch trying to tell the story and I had to close my eyes for a bit to regain strength and catch my breath. I've never felt that way before. I felt good from the
delivery itself. I only have one teeny tiny tear and "skid marks" as
the nurse called them lol all on the inside. So not too bad. I'm sore
but not as bad as I thought I would be. Now, two weeks out I'm able to function pretty normally. I still get tired more easily/quickly and if I don't eat lots of small snacks and iron rich foods I do start to feel a little faint.
Joel asked me if I could compare or choose which birth I would opt for if we did do it again (which we're not!) The c-section was much easier in some ways since I just laid on the table while they doctors did all the work, but the recovery was very uncomfortable, even though I would say I had a very easy recovery. I was able to only take motrin and felt okay with that but I had to brace my stomach were the incisions was for a long time whenever I would laugh or stand up or get out of bed. Obviously with the natural vaginal birth the labor part was challenging and painful, but if I had not had that additional blood loss I would say the recovery was super easy. My lady bits are obviously sore and I've been having back spasms as my body readjusts to being normal sized again, but overall I feel back to normal. If I had to pick, I would do a natural birth again because now that I'm about two and a half weeks out from delivery I feel pretty much back to normal. I'm so glad I was able to have the experience that we had been preparing for when I was pregnant with Alex.
Both births were special and great experiences and it is true that lightening can strike twice. I had been afraid that there was no way I could love another human as much as I love Alex, but somehow your heart grows and fills with more love than you knew you were capable of holding within yourself and I feel so incredibly blessed, lucky and thankful for our two healthy handsome little boys.
