A lesson in patience...Jude's Birth Story

Well, when I said it was "just a waiting game" a few posts back, I didn't know what I was in for!  Yet, finally 10 days after his due date we met Little Mister.

Let me start off with: BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR.  My whole pregnancy I prayed I would go past my due date.  When I would tell that to people, they would look at me with shock and horror.  Mostly, I just wanted Jude to have his own separate day as a birthday (as opposed to mine), but also wanted more time to earn some PTO at work, get some projects done...that sort of thing.  And luckily, I was pretty comfortable physically up until I delivered.  Yet, my mental comfort level was a whole different ball game.  I can honestly say this was the worst part of my pregnancy.  I felt like I was living the same day over and over and over...and over again!  With each day past May 30th, my anxiety level rose.  I felt that even though my body had done so well the past 40 weeks it didn't know how to let go.  I felt incompetent, in a way.  And everyone was so excited, and I was letting everyone down.  I was reluctant to schedule an induction because I really wanted to see how it felt to go into labor on my own.  But, I just wasn't dilating.  At 41 2/7 weeks, I was still at a 1.  And, Rachel was soon going out of town and I wanted her in the room.  And my dad was also leaving, and wouldn't be back in phone service range for a whole week.  Anxiety, anxiety.  So--we scheduled our induction.

I opted for a cytotec induction (they give you a pill to get things rolling) thinking that I would get to go in, get the pill, and then go back home until labor kicked in.  Then I found out that no, I would have to stay and be monitored.  Then I also found out it I couldn't eat anything past 11 am, yet wasn't to be induced til 8 pm that night.  This obviously made my grumpy disposition even worse. 

We arrived at the hospital on Tuesday night at 8 pm.  Yet, after I was all set to go, we learned that my contractions were coming to quickly for the cytotec induction--3-5 minutes apart, but just not painful enough.  So, they sent me walking the halls for 2 hours to see if that would get me dilated on my own, and if not, we would move to a pitocin induction.  Below are some pics Rachel took while we roamed the halls and stairways of the hospital.

This is how happy I was when we returned and I was checked and I was STILL dilated to a 1.  So, at around 11:00 pm, I was given low dose pitocin to get me going, and if all else failed, my doctor would be in at 8 am the next morning to manually dilate my cervix. 

 

When I was checked again at 4 am, I was STILL (still!) dilated to a 1.  But the contractions were beginning to be pretty painful.  All along, I was told that once I did start to dilate, that it would sorta just "pop" open, and things would move quickly from there.  Because of this, I decided to get my epidural before all hell broke loose.  From that point, I tried to get some sleep.

At around 8:15 am, my doctor shows up and to my delight, I'm dilated to a 6!  Hurray!  After days of waiting, from this point everyone thinks I'll move pretty fast because the baby's head is just right there waiting to come out.  He tells the nurse to check me again at 10 and keep him posted.  And sure enough, at 9:30, the baby's heart rate starts having "variables" (HR dips with each contraction--a sign that it's go time).  My nurse checks me and I am at a 9 1/2.  This wakes my sister right up out of her sleepy haze--everyone is so excited, but I start to get my anxiety--I hope he's ok, that everything goes alright, that sorta thing.  The nurse calls Dr. Roth to tell him to head on back to the hospital, and he says, "I'm 4 patients behind...stall!"  Ha!  We were only able to stall for another 15 minutes.  By 10 am, I am pushing.  I push in bouts of 3, 10 second long pushes.  It was funny (and sorta annoying) cuz everyone was telling stories, and joking around--and I'm trying to listen to the stories and join in, while at the same time push this child out.  HELLO, help a sista out and FOCUS!!  After 50 minutes of pushing, we decide to use the vacuum to help his head past my pelvic bone and 10 minutes later we had our baby.  At 11:01 am, our little love officially entered the world. 

Jude Xavier

8 pounds, 13 ounces & 21 inches

 

This is my absolute favorite picture from the day.  It perfectly shows Dave's mood.  Yes, he was beaming.  He reminded me of a little kid on some sort of super fun field trip...hey, what's this do? oh lis, check out his heartbeat, lis, your blood pressure says 100/70, hey guys, did you know i was born breech??, lis, you want some more ice chips...and so on.  Lucky me to have an easy-going, fun-loving guy around all the time.  It sure did make the night go by that much faster.