Welcome John Joseph III "Jack"!

Having a Baby....Take 3! What a few weeks it has been! It's so nice to finally be at home with DH, Molly and Jack.

We begin again Tuesday morning, January 20th. I was up for a better part of the night, just thinking about things, what was going to happen if the pitocin didn't work again, but also just the general excitement/anxiety of knowing and hoping that Tuesday would be the day one way or the other. It definitely helped that Molly was already down at my mom's, so I was also able to sleep in just a bit since we didn't have to be to the hospital until between 8 and 9 am. We arrived at the hospital just before 9 am, got admitted and headed upstairs. We were given the same birthing room as we had Molly in, so that felt like a good sign and we were getting off to a good start. They got the Pitocin running at 9:55 am. There was a little bit of miscommunication between the nurse and my doctor so the nurse didn't up my dose as fast as the doctor would have liked. I was having contractions every 2-3 minutes, but the doctor knew I needed significantly more to make them contractions that actually did something.

The doctor came in around 12:30 to check me and I was between 2 and 3 cms, and she said he had moved down some more but still not far along to break my water. She'd be back at 2:30. 2:30....still the same. My cervix was also over the left, which made it difficult for them to examine me as well as feel exactly where the head was. I asked her about some of my options at that point and she was really hesitant to even discuss a c-section and mentioned doing another round of cervidil that night or maybe another type of gel. This was the last thing I wanted! I don't think I could have handled another night of it.

Finally between 3 and 4 pm I started having contractions that felt like they were doing something. My entire upper abdomen was tight constantly tight and while not incredibly painful, they felt different. Good news, when she checked me at 4:30ish I was a solid 3 cms and he had moved more center so she tried breaking my water. She was so close and then he moved and she couldn't do it without risk of a prolapsed cord. Since I had made some progress she was hopeful. She was heading home at 5 pm and the other doctor would be in between 5:30 and 6 and hopefully he would be able to break the water then.

Good news at this point was that because I wasn't officially in labor I got to eat dinner. I had a nice Chicken Caesar Salad and a fruit platter. Yum. The other doctor came in around 6 pm to check me. No progress!! He said the cervix was back over to the left and the head was “bouncing” and he didn't feel comfortable even trying to break my water. The other good news was that he was definitely more proactive in the c-section department. He told me he would give me another 1 to 1.5 hours and if there was still no progress we would have to make a call. Which I was fine with. After 9+ hours on pitocin with little to no progress from where I was last week, I needed to know this baby would be coming and soon. I called my mom to let her know what was going on and that it looked like I might end up with a c-section. While it wasn't what I wanted, I also needed things to be done.

I was still having contractions every 2-3 minutes, but they started to become less painful again. They upped my pit one more time and apparently that did the trick. At about 7 pm I started having more painful contractions again. In the next half an hour I was in serious pain. I was in the recliner and breathing through them, but kept looking at the clock knowing that it was either going to be worth it or it would be over then because we would be looking at a c-section. My new nurse, who was fantastic, came in at 7:30 and told me the doctor was ready to examine me again so I went to the bathroom and came back out. I was standing and looking at the monitor and saw that my contractions weren't even going down...they were basically flatlined at the type non stop. I was seriously afraid my uterus was hyperstimulating and freaking out. But what was actually happening was I was finally in labor! The doctor came in and had to wait for a contraction to die down before examining me but it took only 2 seconds for him to say you are 5 cms, let's break it! That was at 7:44 pm. What a bizarre feeling to have it all come out at once, I had a natural gusher with Molly, but not the same as the hook. Which really didn't hurt as compared to the contractions I was having...

At that point I asked if they could turn the pit down because I was having contractions non stop and I needed to be able to breathe. The doc suggested an epidural and I said I really didn't want one if I was progressing this fast and I went from 3 cms to 5 in 90 minutes and felt like I could handle it a little bit longer. The doctor agreed to turn it down as long as the contractions kept up, he didn't want to lose momentum. I'm not sure if it was the pit going down or the water breaking, but I was able to have a few contractions that were 3 minutes apart and I was able to regain some sense of composure. I also was able to let the nurse know that with Molly I went from 7 cms to 10 cms in about 45 minutes. She said well thanks for letting me know, because we could go from 5 to 10 in that time or less...I'll get things ready. The next few contractions I am fairly certain I dilated a cm with each contraction. I was in serious serious pain. I'm not going to lie. Because it was such a different experience than with Molly and I didn't know how fast things were going to happen, I started to seriously consider an epidural. I had one more and told the nurse I needed one, I couldn't do it. She was amazing and talked me through it and reminded me that just 10 minutes ago I was insistent on not getting one and told me I could have one if I wanted but we should have the doctor check me again because if I was already 8 cms chances are it would only be a few more contractions before it was time to push and she would get me through them. I said ok and no sooner did I say ok that another contraction started and I realized I needed to push...I take that back, not that I needed to but that I was pushing. She told me not to push, HA! and to wait for the doctor. During this time she was also trying to find the fetal heart rate which she couldn't find because he was in the birth canal. A few nurses came into find out if she needed pediatrics and she said no we need the doctor the baby is coming. They were able to get me to lay back and by the time I did the doctor came in the room and he didn't even need to check me because he could already see the head. John was shocked and looked and said, Jen it's there...just a couple pushes and it's all over. The next contraction came and said I needed to push again and the doctor said ok that's fine...if you need to push go right a head. He was still getting his scrubs on. With that push the head came almost all the way out. The wait time between that push and the next seemed forever because I felt the burn, but finally it came (I'm sure it wasn't more than a minute) and the head came right out. It was funny because DH said it's out, and I said oh I know...the pain was gone....with the next contraction I pushed just barely to get the shoulders and the rest of the body out. John Jospeh III “Jack” was born at 8:07 pm. So it was 23 minutes from water breaking to birth. Who would have thought 23 minutes would take this long :).