A Birthday Story

A Birthday Story

• Saturday, July 28, 2012

He’s here!  And this is his birthday story… (it’s pretty detailed so be forewarned.  Also.  It’s so hard to write out such an experience and somehow make it flow so I apologize that it’s kind of all over the place.  I know I left some things out but I will try to add extra notes in the picture captions and in future posts!)

Baby Boy decided not to come on his own over the weekend.  On or Monday.  Or on Tuesday.  So induction it was on Wednesday.  Neither T nor I got much sleep Tuesday night.  Me mostly because I was itchy and anxious and T because he didn’t come to bed until 1:30am.  By 4am we were up and getting ready for the big day.

40 weeks, 2 days. Overdue!!

Our last night as a family of 2!  We went to the BYU creamery with my family :]

We arrived at the hospital at 5am.  They checked us in, put us in the room, told me to put on the hospital gown and said they would send a nurse in soon.  Around 5:15 two nurses came in and asked  me some health questions, took my vitals, and inserted my IV.  It took two tries to get the IV in correctly…this is when I still thought having an IV put in was painful.  I learned a few hours later it’s not so bad compared to, say, child birth.  My hand did hurt from the IV for a few hours which was annoying.

Before the nurses came to start my IV

It was around 6am that they got my Pitocin started.  For the next two hours, T & I watched TV and waited.  At 8am Dr. Harward came in and broke my water.  Until that point, I had not experienced any contractions.  He left and my nurse, Debbi, started to go over some paperwork with me.  Halfway through this (like 10 minutes) I started to feel contractions.  By the time she was finishing up (another 10 minutes) I was in a pretty good amount of pain.  She asked if I was ready for my epidural and I told her I was thinking about it.  She said that meant she should go get the anesthesiologist.  While Debbi was gone the contractions started to get even worse and I was really glad she had already gone to request my epidural.  She came back a few minutes later and told me the anesthesiologist was just finishing up inserting an epidural into another patient and would be in in a few minutes.  A few minutes was really 20 minutes and I was dying.  The contractions were so intense and really frequent.  I wasn’t even getting a full break in between contractions.  I was feeling them in my front and my back and it seemed as soon as they started to fade a new one would start.  I was so, so happy to see the anesthesiologist when he finally came in.  I wasn’t at all afraid to get the epidural considering the amount of pain I was already in.  I really don’t know why someone would give birth without an epidural.  It sounds like a whole bunch of misery for no good reason to me!  The insertion of the epidural was seriously completely pain-free.  I only felt the original sting of the skin numbing injection and besides that, nothing!  Not even any pressure as he put the epidural in.  It took about 30 minutes for my contractions to stop hurting after I got the epidural and then I was in heaven.  Next time I’m asking for my epidural a little bit sooner.

IV in, Pitocin started

My stomach is not deformed like that.  It's the monitors.

  

 After the epidural was in T & I just relaxed and waited until the nurse came to check me at 11.  I was so excited to hear that I was already at an 8!  Her words: “Oh, sweetie!  No wonder you were in so much pain, you went 5cm in 3 hours!  That’s really fast for your first!”  Woohoo!  At this point I was thinking it would be pretty easy-going from this point on.  2 more cm, start pushing, have a baby!  It didn’t happen quite like that.

Debbi came back to check me at noon and I was at 9.75cm.  I thought she would come back in another 15 minutes to check me again but she was gone for almost an hour.  By about 12:30 I was feeling like I wanted to push.  We kept waiting and waiting for Debbi to come back in but by 1:00 I was telling T “I seriously really need to push!”  So he called Debbi and she came in and checked me.  I was at a 10 (duh!) so she said we could start pushing.  She explained to me how to push (laying on my back, pull my legs up toward my chest, take a deep breath, chin down to chest and push out your bum for 10 seconds, take another breath, push another 10 seconds, one more breath and push for 10 more seconds).  Seemed easy enough.  So with the next contraction I started pushing.  It seemed like it would be easy since the urge to push was so strong but it was more difficult than I thought it would be to figure out exactly how to push.  By the 3^rd or 4^th contraction I felt like I was figuring it out but it didn’t seem like it was very effective.  Dr. Harward came in to check on me after I had been pushing for a half hour.  He checked me and told me that my pelvis was pretty small and he wasn’t sure that I would be able to get the baby out.  He asked the nurse how long I had been pushing and when she said half an hour he seemed to be a little surprised that I had been pushing that long and the baby hadn’t descended at all.  He told me “Well, we’ll let you push about 3 hours and we’ll see what happens.”  I felt a little worried at that point but thought half an hour wasn’t that long and I would make progress soon.  I felt like the position I was in wasn’t very effective and asked Debbi if there was another position we could try.  She had me lay on my right side and pull my top leg up toward me with each push.  This was a much easier position for me to push and so we kept that position for the remainder of the labor (until the actual delivery).

After pushing for another hour, the baby still had not descended at all.  Dr. Harward came back to check me and again discussed the possibility of a C-Section with me.  He did not sound very convinced that I would be able to deliver the baby vaginally.  He kept saying “you can still push another hour or two and we’ll see what happens but it is what it is.”  I felt pretty discouraged and really worried.  I really did not want to have a c-section.  I asked Tom to call my dad (who is in town for EFY session directing) to ask if he could come help T give me a Priesthood blessing.  My mom and dad said they would be right down.  I texted my siblings, emailed my mother-in-law, and asked for prayers for us.  I was feeling really worried that I would need to have a c-section.  My mom and dad arrived about 30 minutes later.  I took a small break from pushing while T and my dad gave me a blessing.  T blessed me that I would be able to have the strength and energy to deliver the baby and that I would not need to have any surgery.  The blessing brought me such peace and encouragement.  I knew that I could deliver the baby if I had faith in the power of the Priesthood.

Breathing through a contraction right after the blessing.  I needed a quick break from pushing.  I wanted T to take a picture but I wanted to pose for it.  He took this one when I was not ready!  But it shows the real deal, hahah :]

This is the one I actually posed for.  Between pushing.  This is before the pushing got really painful.

 With the next contraction after the blessing I started pushing again.  In only a matter of a few minutes the baby started to descend.  I felt so encouraged when the nurse told me he had SO much dark hair!  Even though the baby was still pretty high, it was so good to know they could see him!  My mom and dad stayed (my dad somewhere in the room on a couch or something – I was so unaware of pretty much everything except pushing at this point) and my mom on the opposite side of T encouraging me.  I should mention at this point that T was seriously amazing during this whole process.  He was so encouraging and got me anything I needed or wanted (LOTS of ice and water).  I couldn’t have asked for a better labor coach.  Even though I hadn’t originally planned to have my mom in the room during the delivery, she was so helpful because she was watching the baby descend and was giving me updates.  It was really encouraging each time they told me he had moved down some.  We were finally making progress!  Pushing for so long was seriously exhausting but I knew I had to keep giving it everything I had to get the baby out.

After pushing for two hours (only not pushing for 3 total contractions the whole two hours), the baby was finally crowning!  Pushing was starting to get painful (I think the epidural was wearing off) and I was so exhausted but I felt a burst of energy when the nurse was suddenly calling everyone and saying she needed Dr. Harward in room 111 immediately for delivery.  Then she called the anesthesiologist to say she needed him for a top-off ASAP.  And then everything was a frenzy as lots of people came into the room and everyone was really quickly gowning up.  I feel like this part was a blur but I remember someone telling me “look, they’re all getting ready for him to come!” (I think my mom?)  I was so excited that I really was going to get him out vaginally and would not need a c-section.  I felt so grateful to Heavenly Father that I was going to be able to deliver the baby on my own.

I think during the whole gowning frenzy I was still pushing but I don’t really remember.  The next thing I knew the doctor was telling me to turn back onto my back and was putting my feet in stirrups.  And then I was back to pushing.  Dr. Harward told me he would need to do an episiotomy.  At this point the pushing was really hurting and was so afraid I would feel the episiotomy but they kept promising me I wouldn’t, that Dr. Harward would do it during a contraction.  I really did still feel it but with the pain and pressure of pushing it wasn’t as bad as I had let myself think it was going to be.  I was seriously in so much pain with each push but nobody was letting me give up as much as I wanted to.  We got the head out and then they had me keep pushing (like 5 pushes in a row) to get his shoulders out.  Do you know how exhausting it is to push for 50 seconds with just one quick breath every 10 seconds?  SO exhausting!  Between each push I kept saying “I can’t do it, I can’t do it” and I think I was probably crying.  But everyone kept saying, “you have to do it.  You can do it.  Push, push, push!”

Finally someone told me to look! and the baby was out (at 3pm on the dot)!  The relief was overwhelming.  I was so happy to finally have him out.  I saw T cut the cord and then the respiratory specialist took the baby.  I think I drank two full glasses of water right after I delivered him, I was SO thirsty.  Dr. Harward started to stitch me up which I also was feeling (seriously, ouch!!) so he gave me two local anesthetics (after I felt like 5 stitches!).

I’ve heard people say that the love you feel for your baby right when they come out is so overwhelming but I was seriously so exhausted I didn’t even care at that point who had him or who was holding him.  I was so exhausted I thought I would pass out.  At the same time I felt so grateful that I was able to deliver him.  They weighed him and told me he was 9 pounds, 1 oz!  WHAT?!  How did I deliver a nine pound baby!?  I kept thinking “no wonder that was so hard!”  He measured 20.5” long.

T cutting the cord

T took the picture a little early.  The next one he got where it says 9lb1oz was blurry.  This will do, it's only .1oz off!

Jack was born very cone-headed from pushing for so long.  It is starting to look better but we still have a little ways to go!

Grandma Davis with baby Jack.  He was totally wide awake like this for at least an hour.

Grandpa Davis with Baby J.

 After several minutes (maybe 15 or 20?) someone finally brought me the baby.  I was happy to get to hold him but still so completely exhausted.  I only held him for a few minutes before passing him off to my mom.  I was afraid I might drop him because I really thought I was going to pass out.  They wanted me to nurse the baby after that but I was so nauseous from all the water I drank right after delivery that I couldn’t sit up.  I begged for Zofran and finally a nurse came in with some and put it into my IV.  After getting the Zofran and resting for several minutes I finally started to feel better.  I took the baby back and nursed him and have been so in love ever since.

Shortly after delivery.

Everyone kept asking us what the baby’s name was and I kept saying we wanted to look at him and talk about it but I was seriously so exhausted that I didn’t even want to really go through a lot of names.  Thomas had suggested the name Jack early in the pregnancy (a few weeks after we found out it was a boy) and we both liked it.  I still wanted to keep our options open so I continued suggesting names throughout the pregnancy but T only liked Jack.  Jack really was my favorite too, I just didn’t want to restrict ourselves to only one name in case he didn’t look like a Jack.  But by the time we were 7 or so weeks from the due date I started to call him Jack or Baby J in my head and then in my journal.  So when he came and I was just so tired and didn’t have the energy to look at him and see what I thought he looked like, we decided to stick with our already favorite.  And so we named him Jack Granville Wallace and it fits perfectly.  He definitely looks like a Jack to me and we just love him and his name.

  Thomas & I feel so, so blessed to have been given such a sweet baby boy.  He has been just perfect and such a good baby and we are so in love.  I honestly cannot imagine that life can get any happier.  We are one very happy little family.

P.S. It was all worth it :)