Dunken James: A Birth Story

The day before Dunken was born Suz and I decided to have a sister sleepover as a last little baby free sister hoorah.  Friday January 24th was my last day of work giving me a little over two weeks to get all my last minute projects and things done before my due date.  That next Tuesday I was at Suz's for our sleepover.  I woke up at 3 in the morning to use the bathroom and when I laid back down I started having contractions.  They weren't very painful at first and I haven't had many prior to this so I wasn't entirely sure if I was actually having contractions or not.  For the first few I though maybe I just needed to use the bathroom, but pretty much right away they were about 5 minutes apart.

After about 30 minutes of regular contractions I woke Suz up to time them.  Suz called Jensen for me to tell him we though I might be in labor.  He told us to call the hospital to see what they say and promptly fell back asleep.  The labor and delivery nurse I talked to asked if I was able to talk through my contractors (yes) and how long they had been going (about an hour).  She told me to take a bath and wait another hour to see if they get worse or closer together.  She said if they continued to progress to come into the hospital.  I took a bath while Suz stayed with me and kept timing them.  At this time they were about 3 minutes apart and getting more painful.  We called Jensen again after another hour had passed to tell him it was time to go to the hospital.  He suggested we call the nurses one more time to see what they say.  They basically said the same thing and said it was a good time to come into the hospital.

When I got out of the tub my water broke!   After that I got dressed and gathered my things and Suz drove me to the hospital.  On the way we called Jensen (who still seemed to be sleeping) to tell him we were going.  We arrived there around 5:00 am.  Once I got to the hospital they checked me in, did a test to see if my water did actually break, and it did!  We called Jensen again to tell him I was actually in labor and to see where he was and Suz told me he still sounded like he had just woken up.  Silly man.  Makes me a little glad I was with Suz during all of this instead of at home having Jensen try to convince me to just go back to bed. ;)

I continued having regular contractions while we waited for Jensen to come.  When we first got to the hospital I was dilated to about a 4.  As the pain got worse I decided I wanted an epidural.  Before coming I never had a "birth plan" and wasn't 100% sure I wanted an epidural or not, but assumed I would get one.   Jensen finally showed up right before 7.  At 7 the anesthesiologist came in to give me the epidural.  I held on tight to Suz while I was bent over for the epidural.  Getting one was the most amazing thing ever.  After it kicked in no more pain and I was able to rest.  The nurse checked me again and I was dialted to a 9.  She said she wanted to let my contractions do most of the work getting the baby down so we waited.  From about 7 to 11 we waited for the contractions to get my baby ready.
At 11 the nurse checked me again and said it was time to start pushing.  Those were pretty scary words to hear, but once I did start pushing it was not nearly as bad as I thought it would be.  After about an hour and a half of pushing we were greeted by the most beautiful baby boy I have ever seen.

2 comments:

  1. So sweet! Epidurals are the best! So are babies!

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  2. awwww what a sweet story! I'm so happy for you and Jensen.

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