LABOUR AND DELIVERY : JACKSON GRAHAM PAUL
Sunday, 3 February 2019
Our perfect little boy is finally here! He arrived January 17, 2019 at 2:27am, and was 8lbs 9oz of pure perfection! I was 37 and a half weeks along and this little boy was ready to make his debut, and to be honest, I was so ready haha. If you have been following along throughout I'm sure you know that I was so ready to meet this sweet little face. From the very start this pregnancy was tough and a lot of the time it was scary, so to have him here in my arms is all I have been waiting for! I wanted to sit down and write out my birth story like I did for Everly before I forget it all, so here it is!
January 8 I went in for my weekly appointment, I was a little early to have a sweep done but I was having contractions and cramping so my doctor wanted to check me. I was 5cm dilated already, and it didn't really surprise me because I dilated like that with Everly too. So I was already half way there and I knew it was coming up and we would be meeting this little boy soon! I scheduled my next appointment for the following week (and I planned it later so I would for sure get a sweep lol) and carried on with our week.
January 15 I was feeling a little off, I was really tired and felt sick so I asked my mother in law to come and get Everly and have her spend the night there so I could rest a little bit and try and feel better. My doctor's appointment was the following day so the plan was to pick her up on my way home. January 16 I had my appointment first thing in the morning so I got up and left the house to go right there. I felt really nervous for this appointment, mostly because I knew I was already halfway there and I had been having anxiety for a while about labour. My doctor told me we could do a sweep and so I got up on the table and he gave me one. He told me I was about 6cm dilated and that he was pretty certain that I would have the baby within the next 24 hours. I was a bit skeptical about his statement because he said the same thing with Everly, and she ended up coming 4 days after. I scheduled my next appointment just in case Jackson was a no show, and I went to my mother in laws for a few hours to kill some time just in case things did start to happen.
My doctor told me that if I started having any types of contractions to go right to labour and delivery because I was already so far along. We live out of town so I wanted to stay close. I had to time it right because Kyle was also at work, and I didn't want him leaving unless things were actually happening.
My appointment was at 10am, and around 1pm I started feeling some cramping and light contractions. We started timing them just to see, but they would only happen when I was sitting down and they would stop when I walked around. I told Kyle to stay put, but maybe see if he could have an earlier day and leave around 3pm. Of course as soon as I said that my contractions stopped, and around 3:30pm I went and got something to eat because I was starving. Around 5pm we were still at my mother in laws, and we were making plans to head back to the house (we decided to let Everly stay one more night there just in case things picked up again), and my contractions started up again. This time they felt more intense, and they were about 4-5 minutes apart. We timed them for about 45 minutes and finally I said I wanted to go to the hospital to get checked.
They hooked me up to the machine and my contractions were actually about 2 minutes apart by that time, so they called the on call doctor in to take a look at our options. At that point, I was so far along that I felt the best option for us because we do live out of town was to break my water, admit me, and get things going. I have to take a moment and say how amazing our doctor was, we had Dr. Mckinney deliver our son and he just had an amazing bedside manor and humour that was so similar to ours. It was just such an amazing experience having him as our doctor, I was pretty bummed at first that we wouldn't have our doctor deliver, but I could not have asked for a better person to help bring our son into the world.
Once they got me into the birthing room, the doctor came in and told us that the man who delivers the epidural is tied up in a surgery and may not be able to come in time. I think at that moment the entire world stopped and part of me died inside lol. I have so much respect for women who can give birth naturally, I just know that isn't me. He said he would do his best and I started praying for a miracle. Turns out I dilate quickly but once my water breaks things slow right down, so even though they thought I wouldn't have any time, I did. Although, I had to wait about 3 hours before I was able to get the epidural, I was just thankful I could get it. I let him know about a million times how thankful I was too, because for those three hours I was experiencing back labour like I had with Everly and it is just another level of pain. The good news was that because I had been having back labour for three hours, my spine already felt numb and I didn't feel the needle to in which was one of the things I was really afraid of.
Once the epidural was in everything in the world was alright. I also made a point to push the button a lot more because with Everly by the time I was ready to push, the epidural wasn't as effective because I didn't push the button very much. This resulted in me being a little too numb (from the neck down lol) so they told me to stop pushing it so I could get some feeling back into the upper part of my body. I could feel the pressure starting to become more intense, and I knew that pushing was just around the corner.
When I reached 10cm like with Everly they let my body do a bit more work for about an hour before they told me to start pushing, just so he could squeeze his way down a bit more. I was really nervous and I was shaking a ton which made things a bit more difficult. I think I was scared of tearing, with Everly I ended up needing an episiotomy and the healing aspect of that was extremely hard. But I knew this baby needed to come out one way or another, so I started pushing.
So this is where I knew we had a doctor who was just hilarious: when the head was out and we were waiting for the next round of contractions to finish pushing, he saw Jackson had a head full of hair and while he was waiting he made a mohawk. His head just chilling there lol Kyle thought it was the funniest thing and it just made the room less tense (the pressure you feel is insane and you can't do anything until contractions start up again).
45 minutes of pushing and he was here, it was a moment I won't ever forget. I loved everything about this labour experience and honestly if they could all be like this I would have 20 more babies. The best part was I didn't tear. He gave me one stitch because I had a cut that was a little stubborn and wouldn't stop bleeding, but other than that everything was fine. With Everly, even though she was a vaginal birth it didn't seem like one because we were in an operating room in case they had to go in with an emergency c section. She was taken away and I didn't get to hold her for a little while until they knew she was alright. This was such a different experience, I literally pulled out my son. I got to hold him right away and I held him for almost an hour before they took him to weigh and measure.
The doctor afterwards even showed us the placenta and showed Kyle where Jackson had grown for the past 9 months. It was truly just a beautiful experience, one that I won't ever forget. The nurses we had in the room with us were amazing, the doctor was perfect, and the energy was just so happy and positive. I was so nervous leading up to that moment, but when it was all said and done I could not have asked for a better birth (even with the scare of possibly not having an epidural lol).
We are home and adjusting well, overall my post partum experience has been good and we are all settling in to our new routine!
