Jacob's Birth

Well, the day we had been waiting for finally arrived, so here's the play-by-play of how things went down after my last update. As I mentioned in my last post, I woke up Wednesday morning still having some contractions after the doctor's appointment. By about 2:00 the contractions were coming about 5 minutes apart on average and starting to get more uncomfortable, so I calles the dr's office and was told to head to the hospital. When we got there I was put in a triage room so they could monitor me and see if I was in true labor before putting me in a labor & delivery room. I was still 2 cm when I got there so they had me lie on my side first to see if that did anything. Then Josh and I were told to walk around the floor for an hour. I had to stop walking with each contraction to breathe through it, but I was scared there wouldn't be any progress and we'd be sent home. When we got back to our room I was at 3-4 cm, so they had us walk for 30 more minutes while they got us admitted & moved to a labor room. The contractions felt like really bad menstrual cramps just like I had been told, but the worst part was the pressure in my outer hips. Basically it felt like really bad, cramping pressure that wrapped all the way around my hips & pelvis. Josh was great and massaged my lower back to help with the pain.

After our walking we moved to our labor room. Now I knew we would be having a baby! They gave me a birthing ball (just an exercise ball) to sit on to help open my pelvis more and help with some of the pressure. The baby was facing the wrong way, so I kept getting back labor which didn't help with all the pressure. The ball helped, because I could lean forward on the bed to help the baby turn and help some with the contractions. When they checked me later (about 8:30/9:00) I was still only at 4 cm, but the pain was getting much stronger. I knew labor would be long, but the lack of progress really frustrated me. I had a bit of a breakdown at that point, because I was in so much pain and knew we had so much farther to go. Some doctors came in then to tell me about the epidural, and I decided it was time to get it. I just couldn't keep going through all this pain. And let me tell you, those things are amazing! I felt so much better. I was also able to get some sleep before it was time to push.

At 2:40 AM I was finally ready to start pushing. It took almost 2.5 hours-ugh! The first hour made no progress, because I couldn't feel where to push. The epidural was too effective. Then they turned it down so I could start to feel a little. I was not happy about this, but it wasn't as bad as I thnought. The worst part was that Jacob's put was pushing against my left rib for half the pushing, so every time I leaned back to take a breath I hadto push up through that pain. Finally these two new nurses came in to hold my legs back, and they were much more aggressive in getting me to push hard. This did the trick, and Dr. Lee was called to deliver the baby. I started to get emotional again, because I was excited to see him and overwhelmed by all the hard work. The nurses thought something was wrong, but I told them they were good tears.

Then at 5:03 Jacob came into this world. I was sobbing and could not believe this baby was ours and that I delivered him! Josh cut the cord and took pictures while they examined Jacob. Then I finally got to hold him in my arms. It was all over, and our sweet baby boy was here. Life will never be the same!