The Birth Story...Late

I realize that I never wrote down the story of Jack's birth, I just was not (still am not) able to justly articulate the day that transformed me from a child into a mother.  However, I fear that I will forget, that as the years pass, as more children (probably) come along, the beauty of that day will fade into a short two or three sentence event.  Oh, yeah...Jack was born at 8:37 in the evening, after 15 hours of labor.  He weighed seven pounds, one ounce, nineteen inches long.  I cried.  Not that there is anything wrong with that story, but there is just so much more.  More to remember, more to celebrate, more to learn.  Jack's birth, while beautiful, was not what I expected.  There are many things that I will do differently next time.  I don't regret a single thing that brought my son into my arms, but I do believe things could have been handled better. And I need to remember that day.  In as much detail as I can. 

So for my own sake, here goes nothing.

www.summerhousephoto.com Taken about a week or so before I popped!

I was still two weeks away from my due date, and I was starting to feel incredibly worn out.  Due to what my doctor called an irritable uterus, I had been having contractions every 5-10 minutes for SEVEN WEEKS, and then I developed a cold. I broke out the baby's humidifier, which helped me get an almost decent nights sleep on the 5th.  Early the next morning, I woke to feel the baby kicking.  He was always wild in the early morning, which I loved, but this morning I suddenly felt a little...well...um...I thought I had wet myself.  I went to the bathroom, and the trickle didn't stop.  It was 5:33 in the morning.  I went to our room, but just stood in the doorway for a minute, because I suddenly had no idea what to say.

How do you tell your husband that he is hours away from becoming a father? All I could do was turn on the light.  He sat up and squinted at me, and I finally spit out the words "Matt? I think my water just broke."  He smiled...the covered his head and tried to go back to sleep.  Needless to say I put the kibosh on that!  I called the doctor on duty at the hospital, who told me they would like me to come in to be checked.  I had met him several times throughout my pregnancy and I liked him very much.

I promptly called my Mom and my sister, who I had asked to be in the delivery room with me throughout labor and delivery.  Then I called my Dad, who was on vacation in Virginia for his fiftieth birthday.  I apologized for cutting his trip short, but told him he might want to head home to meet his newest grandchild.

Matt and I prayed together, then off we went!  We stopped on the way to the hospital for a hot chocolate and my last Devils food Krispy Kreme, then headed in to the hospital.  I won't go into too much detail (you're welcome Dad) - the doctor confirmed that my water had indeed broken, but that I was only a fingertip dilated.  In the weeks leading up to the birth, my blood pressure had been rising slowly, for no apparent reason, and when they took a reading there, it was once again a little higher than they would have liked.  They tested me for proteinuria, but I would not hear the results until after Jack was born.

I was hooked up to the monitors, and within an hour of being there the nurse on duty started talking to me about the possibility of a c-section if I did not deliver my baby within 24 hours.  I was scared.  Very scared. They started a Pitocin drip, then the Doctor came into our room.  Surprisingly...this was a different doctor.  One I had never met.  He sat down, and talked to Matt and I for a full hour about birth control.  Birth control.  When all we wanted to think about was this baby we were so eagerly awaiting!

Not what we expected.

Okay you guys, this is getting long...I will have to continue this in another post. If you made it this far, thank you for bearing with me as I try to get this jumble out into written words.