Jack's birth story.

As a record for myself and, eventually, Jack's baby book, here is his birth story!

As far back as 37 weeks, I kept thinking I was going into labor -- at a baseball game, at home on a random Thursday … I knew that it was time …. I was obviously getting more and more uncomfortable (I think Jack was all squished under my ribs) and slower and slower. 

With work winding down for the summer, I was torn between hoping Jack would come early to finally meet him (or her, at the time) and ease my discomfort and hoping he would wait just a little after the due date so I could finish my work and not have to worry about trying to work and handle a newborn. In the end, he came when he was ready and I was able to get the things done that I needed to. 

The weekend before Jack arrived, my oldest brother, Jason, texted me to tell me that I had his blessing to have the baby on Friday, May 6 -- his birthday. I thought it was funny and never really gave it another thought. Until that morning around 5:30. 

I was awake, tossing and turning, trying to find a comfortable sleeping position, and I felt what I thought might be my water breaking. Unsure if I was right or not, I got up and waited about 15 minutes before waking J. By 5:45, I was pretty sure that's what was happening and that we needed to pack the rest of stuff in our bag and head to the hospital. We were going to be parents!!

J said I woke him up and he had to sit on the edge of the bed for a few minutes to really grasp what was happening. It was so surreal. We'd been waiting and wondering when we'd meet our baby, and the time was finally here. 

I called my parents around 6 am and told them I thought my water had broken and that I'd call them from the hospital once we knew for sure. (They must have thrown all their stuff together right then and there, because they made great time to Oklahoma and made it to the hospital 10 minutes after the Little Man was born!)

As we rushed around and took showers, the dogs were completely unsure of what was going on. We were obviously packing (which they usually freak out about) but they were more skeptical of what we were doing this time. Gus seemed to be protecting his crate, not letting us take him anywhere. Poor guy has been so stressed about all the changes and I think if we'd packed up their crates to take them to the vet it would have put him over the edge ...

So, with our bags packed and just about the whole house in tow, we hit the road for the hospital. 

Once my water broke, I started feeling contractions. They weren't regular or anything, but on the drive to the hospital, I started paying a little closer attention to how long and how far apart they were. They were lasting a few minutes and, by the time we were at the hospital, the contractions were less than 10 minutes apart. 

Thank goodness we had pre-registered because getting admitted to the hospital was a breeze. We were sent up the L&D floor where it was determined my water had, in fact, broken and I was at a 3.5 to 4. They then sent us to a hospital room to get fully admitted. The bad news was that my doctor was still out of town, so the on-call doc would be delivering the baby. At first I was a little miffed he wouldn't be there to deliver (his quote earlier in the pregnancy, "Theres a 2% chance I won't deliver your baby"), but in the end, the on-call doc (Dr. Jarvis) was great! She was so calm and helpful when it came time to push.

Our nurse, Denise, was super nice! She got me hooked up to an IV and started the Pitocin (to get the labor moving a little more) and then we waited. As she asked me all her questions, my contractions were getting a little stronger. She finished everything up and told me that when I was ready for an epidural, just give her a call. Now, it has to be said ... I have low pain tolerance. So, about 15 minutes after she left my room, I called her back and said I was ready for the epidural. Those contractions are not fun!

During my whole pregnancy, I had been really nervous about L&D, but the epidural really scared me. Not because of any horror stories or anything, but just the fact that I'm getting numbing medicine in my spine ... not exactly your every-Friday occurrence! The nurse anesthetist came in and started my epidural. Of course in the middle of that, I had a pretty strong contraction, which made it hard to sit still but also solidified the fact that I was right in going ahead with the epidural. 

After that, with the numbness starting to spread through my legs, we continued to wait. I was progressing pretty fast over the next couple of hours and then things kind of slowed. But, at about 10 minutes to 3, it was time to push. 

I have to admit, during the whole waiting process, I had somehow forgotten that I still had to push before we could meet our little guy. But, by the time we got there, I was ready and after 45 minutes of pushing, we found out we had a son!! 

Sidenote: J was a great coach! As I'm pushing, he told me he was channeling Baby Huey, the "pump 'em up" guy from the skiing events in the Olympics.

I was completely shocked when the nurses put him on my chest. I didn't expect to see him so soon, and I certainly wasn't expecting to just have him there. Wow…what a surreal moment. So, then the nurses cleaned him up and weighed and measured him … and that's when we found out I'd been carrying an 8 lb. 10 oz baby. Not the 7 to 7.5 lb one the doctor had assured me I'd have. Ha!

John rushed out to the waiting room to announce that we'd had a boy and a few minutes later the whole family came in to meet our newest member. 

I have lots of pics from the hospital. Once I go through them I'll post some of those. And, we did Jack's newborn photos this morning (sooo excited about them!), I'll post a sneak peek (a pic from my iphone) along with those!