Here's your TMI warning! A couple pictures are slightly graphic but nothing rated R :) Oh, and it's long!
For the sake of keeping memories I'm going to start Jovie's birth story from all the way back on Nov. 30.
I had been having bad pain in my upper stomach, what I thought was heartburn, for a couple days, by Saturday Nov. 30 (35w1d) I had enough and we headed to L&D to get it checked out. I got hooked up to the monitors and they showed me having frequent contractions. My blood pressure was elevated and they did some testing for Pre-Eclampsia. I had lab work done, and a 24 hour urine test that all came back fine. My contractions eased up by the next day, and I went home late Sunday night with orders from Dr. G to go on strict bed rest until my appointment with my OB on the 3rd.
(The boys come up with my parents to visit Sunday afternoon)
I had a 3:00 appointment with Dr. G on Dec 3. (35w4d). She said my 24 urine collection from the weekend showed just a trace amount of protein and my blood pressure readings put me at 'borderline pre-eclamptic'. She set up an induction date for Dec 13, at 37 weeks exactly. She did the group B strep test and also checked me to see if the contractions I had over the weekend had done anything. She surprisingly said I was 4cm, 80% thinned and had a bulging bag of water! She sent me straight to L&D for more monitoring.
They hooked me back up to the monitors and once again, I was contracting regularly. The nurse checked me and said I was dilated to a 5 now, she told us we weren't leaving without a baby this time. They gave us a wheelchair tour of the NICU and started me on antibiotics to treat group b strep, just in case, since my test was just done 20 minutes ago and the results take 72 hours. We filled out a bunch of forms and ordered our "Celebration Dinner!"
(oh my word, now I understand why they make hospital gowns so big!)
The doctor on duty came in and asked me if I wanted an epidural and if I wanted him to break my water while Robb was home packing our bags. I told him I wanted to wait for my husband to get back. When Robb got back the DR came back in around 9 and we talked about breaking my water. He decided to check me first and since I hadn't made any cervical change (in fact, he considered me to be back at 4 cm) he decided to wait. Thank goodness!
We spent the night waiting and watching almost an entire season worth of Chicago Fire episodes online! A new nurse came in with the baby warmer thing and it all felt so surreal…I still wasn't feeling that uncomfortable and couldn't believe we were, supposedly, having a baby that night!
Morning comes and the contractions have stopped. My doctor comes in and is shocked to see me still pregnant. She has me take a little walk to see if contractions start back up, they don't and she sends me home again on bed rest and hopes for me to at least make it to 36 weeks so the baby won't need to go to the NICU.
I have non stress test done on the 6th and again on the 9th. A nurse checks me at the last NST and I'm still 4 cm, so no change in almost a week! All turns out well and we are back on board with the Dec. 13th induction. I have lots of bloody show during the week as well as irregular contractions, but we make it to my induction date at 37 weeks! Praise God!
We arrive at the hospital a few minutes before 7am on the 13th
My favorite nurse is there and they get an IV started and a low dose of pitocin going by 8am.
The monitors are picking up contractions, but I don't feel them. The pitocin gets upped a little and that's all it takes to get things going! I'm feeling the contractions but they are just slightly uncomfortable.
At 9:20 my doctor comes in and wants to break my water but she feels the baby's hand by it's head! Surprise, Surprise! This baby ALWAYS had it's hands by the face during the ultrasounds we had too. She gets an ultrasound machine so she can see when the hand moved away, and it already had. She attempts to break my water but says its so tough it won't break! So she uses some sort of needle instead of the hook and half a second later the room was flooding. Seriously, she and the nurse both commented on how much fluid I had, in fact one of them referred to it as a pond! It just kept coming and coming. That poor nurse had to change my sheets 3 times! Boy am I glad my water didn't break at home (likely in bed, since I was on bed rest!) or somewhere in public! What a mess!
Before Dr. G left again she said things were going great and she was hopeful for a quick delivery. Music to my ears, we were so excited to meet this baby boy or girl!
That's when the contractions became painful, after an hour of intense contractions I ask the nurse to check if I'd made any progress. I was 6 cm at 10:30. Yah!
I went back and forth about getting an epidural or trying for a natural delivery during the entire pregnancy. Ultimately we decided that in order to both best enjoy this experience I'd get the epidural. Robb can't stand to see me in pain and I wanted to take his feelings into consideration as well.
I endure another hour of painful contractions, every 2 minutes, before calling in the most loved man at the hospital...the anesthesiologist.
I get the epidural at 11:30am. Oh that sweet man, I wanted to tip him! Even though pitocin contractions are no joke, my labor with Brenham was much more painful.
It took awhile to get the epidural working properly, and I had flip from side to side to get it to distribute the medicine evenly, but it took the edge off just like I was hoping. I could still feel them but not as intense.
I got checked again shortly before 12 and I was between and 8-9cm.
The nurse says she'll come back at 1:00 to check me again and when she does I'm complete!! She has me do a few practice pushes to see how I do before she calls the doctor. She said I was an excellent pusher and was excited to see that the baby would likely be here before her shift was over at 3pm.
After talking to my doctor, the nurse comes back and told us Dr. G wanted to let the baby come down more and I could start pushing again at 1:45pm.
During that waiting time we all made guesses on what time the baby would be born.
At 1:45 I began pushing, the hours ticked by and we all redid our time guesses 2 or 3 times! I pushed 3 times to the count of 10 with all my might every 2 minutes during contractions, but the baby just wasn't getting past a certain point.
I tried pushing in couple different positions and gave it my all. I can be kinda stubborn and was not going to give up easily. Around the 3 hours mark my doctor started to get concerned about the baby's heart rate, it was dropping every time I pushed. They put me on oxygen and had me push every other contraction for awhile. After another half hour my doctor called in another doctor, Dr. K. to see what she thought and they determined this baby just wasn't going to come. She just wasn't in the right position, her head was coming out at the wrong angle and they needed to do a csection. I was so swollen down there and had even given myself a hemhroid (I did warn you!)
I had a good cry and gave up. I was completely exhausted and was just ready to meet this baby!
The anesiosilogsit came in to up my epidural dose and I was off to the OR.
Things went really quick, I remember a lot of freaky cutting noises, and lots of tugging and pulling, and I remember them commenting on seeing my kidney! (I was so nervous about it being in the way and getting cut so I was relieved they saw it!) My doctor also said she had the cord around her a couple times.
At 5:55pm, 4 hours after I started pushing, Jovie Breann was finally here!
The doctors and nurses all yelled "it's a girl!!" and I instantly choked up, I don't know if I even said anything!
Dr. G peeked her over the curtain and I opened my eyes to see her for the first time, bright eyed and perfectly beautiful. My first thought was that she looked like my niece Peyton.
The pediatrician then took her and got her all checked out and weighed. 6 pounds, 4 oz, and 18.5 inches long.
That was when I heard her first cry! I wasn't expecting this but that was when my tears started flowing! I think because I never had that with Brenham, he never made a sound. The aneshesiolost, who was so nice and calming the whole time, was wiping my tears.
After a few minutes I finally got to hold my daughter for the first time.! There are no words in this world to adaquitly describe that moment. A true gift from God!
Robb went with Jovie and the nurse to the nursery while I finished getting stitched up in the OR. When I was finally done they wheeled me out, but not before asking for a peak at my placenta, yea I'm kinda gross like that, and I was back in my room to wait some more for Jovie to be brought back to me.
At 6:45 she was back in the room with me and we called our parents around 7 to tell them their new grand baby was finally here. We made them wait to find out if it was a boy or girl until they got the hospital! :)
We were so excited for the boys to come meet Jovie, so they came around 7:30 along with our families.
We've been loving our little family of 5 and are so incredibly grateful to God for giving us this little miracle. We are beyond blessed.
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I also want to take this time to thank you all once again for your many prayers and support during my pregnancy. It means so much to us.
*Photo credit:
bee tree studios, I'll be sharing more photos from our birth photographer soon!
