Birth Story

I guess a lot of people like these so I guess I will post one.

Everything started Sunday night, we had had a nice day and were talking about dinner when I started getting some painful contractions. I always have really contractive pregnancies so it wasn't a big surprise but they were starting to get intense so I decided to head to the bath. I must have been in there for 2 hours or more because Jake ended up making dinner and putting the girls to bed before I felt ok enough to get out. Around 10 I went to bed and stayed on my left side while watching a little tv, everything started to calm down. Jake came to bed around midnight and everything was fine.

I woke up on Monday and felt much better, just a little sore around the sides. The girls and I spent the day washing baby clothes and baby blankets and mostly just relaxing. Jake came home around 6 which is pretty early for him and we made dinner together, as we were eating my contractions started again but they were the painless kind and are more annoying than anything else. When we started cleaning up the kitchen around 8 they started to get intense again so I headed to the bath again, this time taking Isabella and Giuliana with me. We had fun in the bath and Jake came up and we put the girls to bed a little after nine. I decded to go to bed since the contractions were still there. Jake went downstairs and worked on some work emails for about 2 hours and then decided to come to bed. When he got into bed he noticed I couldn't talk through the contractions anymore so he told me to focus on my breathing, relax and see if I could sleep, so I tried. About 30 minutes after Jake had been sleeping (around 12:30) I couldn't take it and called my OB, I found out she was on vacation but the on call doctor said that I should head in pretty soon so the nurses could give me some shots to stop the contractions. I was 34 weeks 6 days and they usually try to stop contractions unless you are over 36. I called Jake's Mom to come and stay with the girls and then woke Jake up and told him it was time to go. While he packed a few things I went out to the car and just waited, I could hardly move anymore. Jake's Mom got to our house in record speed and we were off to get the contractions to stop. We pulled out of the driveway and turned around and BOOM, my water broke. I have never had my water break without the help of a nurse or doctor so at this point I started to panic. 1. I have super fast labors and after my water breaks it's only minutes until the babies are born so I thought I was going to have the baby in the car. 2. Having my water break meant that we were having the baby, there was no stopping contractions or waiting. 3. My contractions started coming 30-60 seconds apart and I was worried that the baby wasn't getting much time to recover.

Well Jake drove as fast as he could (obviously) to get to the hospital and a very nice security lady took my wheelchair and ran me up to labor and delivery while Jake parked the car. They ran me to a room and started with the millions of questions and checkings and blah blah blah. When they checked me the nurse said I was only dilated to 4cm and after they did the epidural they told us we could relax, that was at almost 2am, the OB came in and told us she wouldn't check my cervix until 6am and to get some rest but let her know if I felt any pressure. We answered a few more questions with the nurse and about 30 minutes later I started to feel some pressure so I warned the nurse. She checked and I was complete, 0 station and dilated to 8. The OB came in and did a quick ultrasound to make sure he was not "sunny side up" and to get a weight and she guess about 4 lbs 8 oz. she also started having me make these tiny pushes to open my cervix a little more. That was it, we put my legs up and she said push, I did, she said ok and push, I did, and she said push and there he was, the smallest little man I have ever seen in person. I was crying so hard that I could barely hear that he was crying too, then he REALLY started crying and that made my heart feel so good. All of you Moms out there know how amazing that noise is and how you can't breathe until you hear during labor.

I barely peeked at him before they took him away, this was the first baby Jake didn't get to cut the cord for but he did his best to follow every move they made with him and even caught a few pictures. They wrapped him up and put his head near mine but so many doctors and nurses were fussing with us both that it was less than 20 seconds and he was gone, once again we were both crying. Jake went to the NICU with him and my OB and I worked on getting a very stubborn placenta out, it took forever and was very irritating to both of us. :) So we had arrived at the hospital at 1:30am and had him at 3:58 am, a labor that even beat my best time with Isabella.

After about 30 minutes they had me all taken care of (a couple of stitches and turned off the epidural) Jake came back to tell me how he was doing and what they were doing to him. I was told they had to put him on a ventilator because he was working a little too hard to breathe but he could breathe completely on his own. I sent him back because I wanted to know every single thing that was going on (and I wanted pictures) when the nurses explained to me that I couldn't go in until the epidural wore off and they were done poking J a million times. I didn't have any idea that was going to be almost 5 hours later. Every minute of that seemed like an hour and I was so thankful that Zia Gianna had decided to come here and I had someone to talk to. Jake was wiped out and was napping but for me I needed to see for myself that my baby was ok. At almost 9 I was able to go in and see him, I couldn't believe it when I saw his tiny little body with all of these giants tubes and monitors on him. I reached out and put my hand on his chest, the nurse who was trying to explain the tons of things going on and trying to tell me that he really was ok stopped talking, she looked at his monitor and with a little surprise in her voice said that he must know it's me because he heart rate got a bit lower and his breathing got very steady, she quietly left and Jake and I and our little man had a couple of silent moments together. Even though I knew he had some things to do before he could leave and be in my arms I knew right then he would be ok and started crying again because I was so happy and thankful to finally have our son with us.

He continues to grow strong and gives his nurses tons of work to do (he likes to pull his leads and tubes out) and both Jake and I have never felt so blessed in our lives to have our beautiful family of 5.