Back-Blogging and Posting: The Birth Story

I’m back-writing and dating all the info, to give time and space to each event.

The whole birth story would take too long—so, here are just the basics…induction was recommended due to a 8lb 14 oz estimated weight, which was a huge overestimate, as we were soon to find out!

At midnight we checked into OSF hospital and made our way to the labor and delivery floor where we were greeted by a fantastic group of nurses and medical professionals. Even though the toilets and water were not working on the floor (ugh!), we were comfortably placed and very happy with the treatment we were receiving. To start the induction, the cervical gel was applied at 4:30 a.m. The IV was put in place for the saline solution and Pitocin. Dilation and contractions progressed so quickly, that the Pitocin ended up not being necessary.

The contractions were actually not that bad and I was surprised when I was dilated to 4cm and told that an epidural could be administered. I wanted to actually wait a bit longer, to see how much stronger the contractions would get, but the nurse said that the labor was progressing too quickly and I could miss the window of opportunity. Surprisingly, the epidural didn’t hurt and wasn’t at all scary. The excitement of the moment overrode any fear I had of needles. I was so comfortable by the time I was dilated to 7 cm at 1 p.m., I was confident that the whole childbirth pain was very overrated.

Sounds good so far, eh? Although I couldn’t feel the pain of the contractions, we could see them spiking on the monitor and could hear the loud thumping of Jack’s heartbeat, which slowed each time I contracted and prompted the nurses to attach the monitor internally straight onto his head, to make sure that the beats were accurately captured. Then, the scariest moments of my life happened. Jack’s heartbeat stopped on the monitor. The nurses rushed in and began to flip my body around to place him in a better position and stimulate his heart to working. The third time his heart stopped, they flipped me once more, got the heart working again, and prepped me for an emergency c-section due to ‘fetal distress’.

The nurses called the attending doctor, tossed Jamie his scrubs and began upping the epidural medicine to numb me from the waist down. I was so scared for Jack and scared that I wouldn’t be numb enough in time for the incision. Five minutes after I was rushed to the emergency room and Jamie was allowed in, we heard his first cries. My crying turned from fright to relief as his heart was pumping and the nurses untangled the cord from around his neck.

Because Jack’s body temperature was lower than a normal newborn’s, Jamie was allowed to hold him for only a few minutes and show him to me, but the baby wasn’t allowed to lay on me. Instead, they took him down to the nursery for evaluation and was put in a ‘warmer’.

With the scariest parts over, the doctor stitched up the incision and the nurses wheeled me into recovery. Although Jack was born at 2:48 p.m., we weren’t allowed to see him until after 9:30 p.m. so that he could stay under the warmer and the nurses could keep an eye on him. Confined to the bed, I couldn’t even go to the nursery windows and look in on him. Jamie went down and took pictures to bring back to me. The pictures helped, but still didn’t calm me down. The nurses gave me one Ambien and a sleeping ‘shot’ during those seven hours, but I couldn’t close my eyes til I saw him. Fifteen minutes after holding him in my arms, I fell into a much needed sleep.