The Lyman Log: Jack's Birth

Jack was born March 28, 2017 at 6:19am. Here's the story, written a few days after I had him while it was still fresh in my mind :).

Well, time for the birth story of baby number three! Jack came a day before his due date. I was beginning to think he'd made himself so comfy in there that he'd never come out. I'd had contractions for weeks but all just Braxton Hicks. My body was definitely prepping ahead of time since I was at 4 cm and almost all the way effaced before I went into labor with him. The night before I had him I went for a walk with my mom, which we’d been doing each night since she came into town. Then we watched some episodes of “I didn't know I was pregnant” (ha! I think this helped) I took a really long and really hot shower. Then as I went to lay down I started thinking about all the old wives' tales about making yourself go into labor. One thing popped into my head about being relaxed and trying visualization/meditation. I thought, why not try? So I laid there and pictured the delivery and holding my little guy and tried to visualize the emotions and experience. I fell asleep and woke up a few times to pee, then woke up around 3:15am to a painful contraction. I knew right away this was it. It felt different than all the other contractions I'd been having. I stayed in bed though to see if more would come. One more came ten minutes later, then another five minutes later. That's when I woke Tom up and was like "let's get to the hospital." I knew if it was anything like the last one that he'd be coming fast.

We got to the hospital around 4:15am. They hooked me up to the monitors - which I hate - and had me lay in the bed for awhile. When they checked me I was at a 6. It seemed like they were kinda taking their time with everything, and I had to remind them that I was GBS positive and they were like “oh yeah better get the antibiotics started.” The girl doing the IV tried two spots that didn't work out. While waiting for them to come back and do an IV that worked I told Tom to go find the nurse because I needed an epidural. Our nurse came in and said “ok we have to wait for the IV and something else" (can’t remember). So we were waiting in the room for a few minutes by ourselves and man the contractions were coming! Finally I thought, what are they going to do to me if I get out of the bed? Kick me out of the hospital? So I finally just stood up and all the monitors fell off and started beeping. haha It is soooo so much easier squatting through the contractions and actually moving around than laying down like I was dying. At this point my legs were shaking really bad. Lots of pressure going on down there! I remember with Natalie when my legs were shaking like that it was time to push her out, so when the nurse came back in I asked her to check me one more time. She checked and I could see the surprise on her face. I was complete!

All of a sudden it got real and more people came filing into the room. They called the on-call doctor from my practice who luckily lived right by the hospital. The resident doctor who was already there was like, "I'm going to wait to break your water until the doctor gets here, but push if you feel like it." I pushed through a few contractions and thought I broke my water (later found out I was just peeing everywhere haha). The doctor arrived and they tried squeezing some more antibiotics into me. Then she broke my water and it was pushing time! After one round of pushing she said the baby was face up and when I started pushing again she somehow turned the baby so he was face down (worst pain I've ever felt!!) I'm so glad she knew what she was doing because he came out in the next round of pushes! She said if he stayed face up it would've been a lot longer and harder to push him out.

They immediately laid him on me and he was quiet for a few seconds, then started crying. I got to hold him skin to skin on my chest for the next hour, which I loved!! Tom cut the cord and took some pictures. I delivered the placenta and they stitched me up since I had a small tear. After all that we got to relax and enjoy the quiet and calm with our new little Jack. After an hour they took him and weighed him. Still can't believe he was 9 lbs because he didn't look like it. 9 lbs, 21 inches of pure sweetness.