With Jaden’s 6th birthday last week, I thought it was only fitting to finally post his birth story on the blog. Many of you have already read Parker James’ (if you haven’t… it’s a doozy!)
MY PREGNANCY
I found out I was pregnant with Jaden the summer of 2014. I was immediately sick (even at only 5 weeks pregnant.) Everyone told me it would be a few short weeks of nausea and then smooth sailing!
They lied….. HA! I threw up around 6-10 times DAILY…. Even after I was 20 weeks pregnant! I even lost 20 lbs in the first trimester! (I had them to lose though so they weren’t too concerned!)
Once February rolled around, I was pretty ready to meet my sweet boy!!
The day before Jaden was born, I was eating breakfast and realized that my stomach was starting to contract! After another hour or so they were coming pretty close together.
After a several more hours, the contractions started to come faster and were about five minutes apart and soon after, only three! By then, the doctor told us it was time to come into the hospital.
We got to the hospital about 11:30pm on Monday night. Once we got there my contractions slowed down a bit. (Of course!)
After checking out how dilated I was (only 3 cm) and walking for an hour to try and see if it would help more contractions and to dilate further, they gave me the choice to stay and give me some pitocin or go home and sleep a few hours and return in the morning.
I decided I would rather go home to my bed for a few hours to try and sleep.
Unfortunately, by the time we got home at 3:30 am that morning and tried to go to sleep, my contractions started up again but stronger. This time they made me feel a little sore and “crampy”.
BUT! I didn’t want to go sit in the hospital any longer than I had to. So we waited just a few more hours at home, then finally packed up again and headed back to the hospital.
IT WAS GO TIME!
Once we were checked into a room, hooked up to allll the things, they checked how far along I was. At this point, I was 5 cm dilated! (Halfway there!)
We knew that when we were done in that room we would have our baby in our arms!
Unfortunately, again, my contractions slowed. The nurses brought in a birthing ball to try and help push things along. I also tried to walk around a while in her room; still not many contractions.
When the nurse came in to check how far I was this time I was still at 5 cm. However, by checking how dilated I was, it kicked some contractions into gear!
For about an hour they started rolling in closer and closer! Even overlapping. Things were getting exciting!
The nurse told us that our doctor wanted to have my water broken so that things would start to progress a bit more. I knew that if they were going to do that, I was going to need an epidural first.
(The water around your baby acts as a nice cushion during contractions. Once that water cushion is gone… contractions hurt a LOT more! If you plan on getting an epidural, be sure to do so before they break your water!)
So the nurse called in the epidural doctor. About an hour after the epidural had been administered, they broke my water. At this point, they said I was still only 5.5 cm dilated.
By the time all this happened, my muscles were so tired I was extremely shaky and trembling.
THINGS WERE TAKING A TURN
Here’s where things started to look a bit scary.
After about an hour or so, the nurse came in to tell me that there were a couple small problems. Every time my stomach contracted, the baby was starting to go into distress.
Since there was no bag of water to cushion around the baby, my contractions were compressing the baby too hard.
They could tell on the monitor his little heart was having some trouble with each squeeze. They were also worried that I had only been 5.5 cm when they checked me last. (Even though that was before they broke my water!)
The nurse told me she would be back in about 10 or 15 minutes to see if I had dilated any more. They told us a couple things that they could try to help if I wasn’t dilated any further but if those things didn’t work I would have to have a C-section.
They told me, if I had dilated more than 6 cm, things would be fine! She told me to take a few minutes to rest.
THE WORLD STOOD STILL
While they were gone, it seemed like hours. It felt as if the whole world stopped. We prayed. I tried to rest a bit before my body did the hardest work it would ever do.
At 7:15 PM Tuesday night, the nurse came in and said it was time to check. When she was checking she asked, “Lisa, if you could choose a number what would you want it to be?”
I told her, “At least more than 6! That’s all I care about!”
She said back, “How about a 9 and a half”
They were realizing it was GO TIME and SOON!
Minutes later, I started to feel some pressure in my pelvic floor. I remembered that the epidural doctor had told me if I felt that pressure, then I was getting close and needed to tell the nurse.
TIME TO PUSH
After I told our nurse, she came back in and said it was time to practice pushing. They told me that this could be the most exhausting part that it could take maybe even an hour or two!
However, I was hesitant to believe her because I could really feel what was happening… But of course, being my first child, I didn’t say anything…
The nurse told me to take a deep breath in and then push out as hard as I could for 10 seconds… I didn’t want to push too hard so I gave a little, tiny half push to start with.
The nurse literally yelled, “STOP!” She told me not to push (or sneeze…) Then ran to get the doctor.
After about 10 -15 minutes (of me basically holdling my breath!!) The docotor hurried in and got into her scrubs.
At 8:03 PM, Matt asked how soon did they think Jaden would be here. The doctor told him maybe only 20 minutes!
On the next contraction, they told me to give a big push! Once again, Ididn’t want to push too hard, so I gave a “test”, half push.
The doctor and nurses all laughed and smiled! The doctor told me, “One more push just like that!”. So I gave another half push just like before and……
JADEN COLE GROVE, BORN MARCH 3, 2015
At 8:05PM on Tuesday March 3, 2015, Jaden Cole Grove was put into my arms! He weighed 6 pounds, 9 oz and was 20 inches long.
The nurses told me this was the easiest “first birth” they had ever seen! I considered myself lucky! (Once again, if you read Parker James birth story you know how quickly the tables turned.)
Two days later, we went home with the most beautiful baby we could have ever asked for. He will forever be the boy that made me a mama and I am so grateful for him!
If you’d like to read more of my postpartum story, go check out these posts!
14 Musts When Bringing Home Baby
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I LOVE reading birth stories! Do you have yours written out? I’d love to read it! Shoot me an email with your experiences! Be sure to subscribe below so you don’t miss a thing as well as follow my on Instagram and Pinterest!