The Birth Story of Baby Jude {Part 2}

With Jayden, I was a day past my due date, got to the hospital after Midnight and was admitted a few hours later around 3 am.  After painful contractions, two epidurals, pitocin, being totally out of control (picture kicking, screaming, oxygen mask) and 16.5 hours later Jayden was born at 9 lbs 12 oz and I said aloud that I'd never do that again.  

Baby Jayden (born the size of a two month old, ha!)

Fast forward 10 years and there I was, 38 weeks pregnant, up getting Jayden ready for school and going through our normal morning routine when I started feeling painful contractions.  I remember Jayden going on about not being able to find something and I mumbled under my breath that I was having contractions and he was a big boy and could handle it himself.  Not the best parenting moment, but in my defense I was in pain and come on, he IS 10 years old.  I started timing my contractions and kept telling Brandon I felt like today might be the day but refused to rush to the hospital.  We had an appointment already scheduled that day at 1:30 pm for an NST (Non Stress Test), and I told myself I'd just take a nap just in case this was THE day and I'd bring it up at my appointment.  The contractions didn't stop and I wasn't able to sleep much, it was a combination of pain and panic.  Right before we left for the appointment I started packing my hospital bag (something I thought I would get done later that week), and asked Brandon what he wanted me to grab of his.  He shrugged me off and said, "we live 20 minutes from the hospital, if you do get admitted I can just come home and grab what I need."  Which I threw dagger eyes in his direction and told him once we are at the hospital he wasn't going to leave me.  So needless to say we threw a bag together, grabbed the already packed diaper bag for baby, placed his carseat in the car and headed to the doctors office.  

  

My contraction app, after many close contractions this is what popped up!

We got to the office and they hooked me up to be monitored and I let them know my contractions were consistent and about every 7-10 minutes apart.  At some point the doctor came in, saw I was in the middle of a large contraction, ripped the sheet from the machine and told me to follow him to the exam room.  There he let me know that they wanted to send me over to the hospital for more testing because they saw that my blood pressure was high, something I didn't have an issue with my entire pregnancy.  So it was now 3pm and we were headed to the hospital.  Thankfully we have an awesome Father that was able to pick Jayden up from school at a moments notice, Grandpa Mack to the rescue!  

They admitted me to the hospital where I was then hooked up to another monitoring machine for the next hour.  Brandon and I were sure they were going to send us home, another false alarm.  We were taking silly photos, making jokes about obnoxious yearbook and field trip prices and telling Jayden over the phone that we were fine.  Then a nurse came in and I knew the moment I saw her face something wasn't okay.  She let us know that my blood pressure was rising, they noticed protein in my urine and they were ready to get me into a birthing suite because they realized I had preeclampsia.  She told me, "you will be having this baby in the next 24 hours".  I thought, what a weird thing to say, how can she know when he will be arriving?  So we made it across the hall to our room and called our family to let them know what was going on.  My emotions were all over the place.  I was terrified, because I had no idea what the risks were with preeclampsia, I just remember Kim Kardashian had it (don't judge me for keeping up with the Kardashians).  I was angry, because I had a birth plan.  I was much younger when I had Jayden, naive and didn't do any research so I let the doctors take over my birth that time.  This time I didn't want to stay in my bed, I wanted my birthing ball, I wanted to use different techniques to handle my contractions, I didn't want to use Pitocin or any heavy pain medication.  All of these wants of mine were thrown out the window, and I was in pure panic mode because I no longer could control what or how this labor was going to go.  Jayden came and visited after school just to check on us and say hi, it was nice to see his smiling face and helped calm my nerves a little. He brought me hugs, and a flower in a Burger King chicken fries box.  

An hour or so after they left, the doctor came in and told me the baby was still up to high, and that they were going to insert a balloon catheter in order to widen my cervix so that baby could start to make his way down.  Which let me tell you, I thought my spacer in the roof of my mouth when I had braces as a kid was painful, nope, this was WAY worse.  I was in so much pain, so very uncomfortable and an emotional mess.  I kept telling Brandon with tears in my eyes "this isn't what I wanted, at all."  As my contractions continued I was in more and more pain and asked for something to relieve me that was stronger than Tylenol.  The nurse suggested Stadol, which I of course knew nothing about, but she explained that it would work really good at first but decrease it's abilities each dose.  I didn't care, just give me something!  Whoa, let me tell you, NEVER ever would I take that again.  It made me so loopy and out of control of my body and I was saying things to the nurses I normally wouldn't say and I couldn't get myself to stop saying things.  I didn't like the way I felt, I could still feel pain and was frustrated.  They finally came in and removed the catheter the next morning and let me know that around lunchtime we would be ready to start pushing.  I was exhausted, I barely slept (they checked my blood pressure ALL night long) and I was emotionally numb at this point. Every time a nurse or a doctor asked me a question I just said okay, I was ready for the labor to be over and to be able to hold our sweet baby boy.