On July 29th 2011 at 9:32 pm, my son Jordan Orlando was born.
We had been expecting a girl, so it was quite a shock!
My water broke at 1am, it felt like someone had headbutted me from the inside! I got up to use the bathroom and when I stood, I felt this gush. When I went to the bathroom I saw I had lost my mucous plug (gross I know). I wasn't sure my water had broken though, so I went back to bed, but couldn't sleep because I was feeling contractions now. So I went on the site baby-gaga.com and looked up people who had their water break and lost their mucous plug at the same time. I found a few posts about it and by then I had to pee again and was feeling contractions pretty close together, I was getting nervous so I texted my sister who was thankfully awake! When I stood up to go to the bathroom yet again there was another gush, so now I was pretty sure my water had really broken. I decided then to wake Michael up, I said I thought I was in labor, but I wasn't sure, so I called Labor and Delivery and told them that I thought my water had broken and they asked me some questions and told me to come in. My contractions were like 5 minutes apart, I was really nervous. So we packed up the bags and got in the car. On our way to the hospital, I was worried I was going to have the baby in the car! The contractions were pretty strong already. Luckily no babies were born quite yet ha ha! We made it to the hospital just fine. I was admitted after some tests, because my water had indeed broken. At first I felt like I could take all the pain, I stood in the shower, rocked on a birthing ball, all that good stuff. I would like to mention my labor nurse was so awesome! She helped me so much. I will never forget her! Julie! A God send! Anyway, I did it natural for 8 hours, and I just was drained, May I remind you it was 1 in the morning when this all started, and 9 months pregnant nobody gets good sleep! The nurse could tell I was losing steam. She suggested (in the most caring way possible) that I might think about an epidural. She explained that it wasn't a failure or a character of weakness to not be able to do it all by myself. (I was exhausted and to be completely honest I was immediately ready for one!) But we waited a little bit longer.
Finally I gave in and said I wanted the epidural, so they started the procedure. It was so hard holding still through the contractions, just thinking about that big needle made me so nervous! Finally it was done and oh the relief!! I could finally doze! It was hard to rest though because someone would come in every 20 minutes or so and check everything and that damn blood pressure cuff, it drove me insane! Hours passed. They checked me and I stalled at 5cm for a couple hours so they decided to give me pitocin. I could still feel one spot in my groin where the contractions were, no matter how many times I pushed that button the pain did not go away! (I pushed that button a lot! Ha ha!) They checked me again an hour later and I was 8cm dilated, but I stalled there again, so they boosted my pitocin and cut back the epidural. The baby's heart rate was dropping with every contraction and they were beginning to worry. My eyes did not leave the monitor that showed the heart rate. They told me if there was no change in two hours they would have to do a c-section, and oh that scared the crap out of me! But I didn't need to worry because I made it! 10 cm! Then it was time to push! Now, I was still so numb, I couldn't tell if I was pushing or not, but it seemed like I was doing okay. The pain in my groin was on fire now! After about 45 minutes of pushing my baby was out! They held "her" up and all I saw under the umbilical cord were some testicles! Ha ha ha! I screamed in shock, it's a boy! Michael's face lit up like Christmas morning. I wish I would have gotten a picture of that. He was one proud daddy! He got to cut the cord and then they put him on my chest, and he looked at me, oh the magic. I'll never forget seeing him for the first time or holding him in my arms, and the way he smelled. I know it's kind of gross but it's something I will always remember.
I was in labor for a total of 20 hours. It was not a bad experience given it was everything I didn't want. The support of my nurses helped tremendously! (Michael was pretty nervous ha ha!) But I had a healthy baby and that is truly all that matters.
You'll never meet a more proud grandmother!
Michael's mom was pretty over the moon about meeting her first grand baby!
Michael's grandma as well!
My mom holding Jordan (who was jaundice, I called him my little glow worm)
