My Birth Story

I wrote this story before Jacob went into heart failure. I knew that if I didn’t type it up when it was fresh in my mind I would forget so many details. But when I read the first sentence, “Jacob is one week old today!” it brought up all these emotions. I thought I had a healthy boy. I thought I would have a relaxing summer spent playing in the yard with all my beautiful, healthy children. Little did I know that exactly one week later, my entire life would change.

Jacob is one week old today! The week definitely went by quicker than I anticipated. As much as I look forward to him getting older and things getting easier, I’m trying to enjoy these moments as much as I can. This is going to be the last time I experience all of these newborn moments.

Now onto the story of Jacob’s birth!

On Sunday, the 20th of May, I started to get a lot of Braxton Hicks (BH) contractions. I was getting them pretty regularly throughout my entire pregnancy but these were definitely stronger. I went bowling with my oldest son that night and it seemed to get things started! The BH weren’t painful but I found myself needing to stop and breath through them because it was so much pressure and tightness. I knew it wasn’t labor but they kept coming on stronger so I was hoping that meant an imminent labor.  

On Monday, I told my husband, Justin, to make sure he kept his phone on in case anything happens. Unfortunately, Monday during the day was uneventful. But then on Monday night I started getting the real contractions.

They were coming regular enough that I started to keep track of them. From the time I went to bed until about 3am they were coming almost every 6-7 minutes apart. Occasionally there would be a longer stretch. At that point, I called my OB and told him what was going on. I didn’t think I was going to have the baby soon but because we didn’t know the position of the baby I was more nervous. He had been breech on every ultrasound but I could tell he was constantly moving.

They called his position an “unstable lie” which refers to the frequent changing of fetal presentation.

 The OB said to be safe I could come in or just wait a bit longer and see if they progress. I decided to wait a bit and of course immediately after that phone call everything stopped. I woke up around 6 or 7am feeling frustrated. I did not feel like going through another night of contractions again without actually being in true labor.

Once all the kids were up and my oldest son was at school we decided to go for a walk down the street. Maybe that would help things progress?? I think I had one strong contraction during the entire walk. It took my breath away, but it didn’t last very long and I didn’t have any more. It felt like I was having more BH but I was so confused with everything that was happening. Braxton Hicks, then regular contractions, then nothing, then one strong contraction during our walk. Once we got back home I had another “take my breath away” contraction. Again, it didn’t last very long and it was probably 30 minutes from the last one. I really didn’t know what to think. I called the OB again to update them and she said to come in and just get checked especially since we don’t know the position of the baby.

She said that since it was my fourth child it could come very quickly and I was still an hour from the hospital.  

My husband and I decided it was best if we went to the hospital just in case things happened quickly. I took a quick shower, packed up my stuff and Justin went for a quick run. My parents arrived and couldn’t believe Justin was out for a jog while I was in labor. Honestly, I wasn’t really having regular contractions so I didn’t even think it was going to happen that day. I knew that if Justin got his exercise in he’d be much more able to help me when I actually needed it. My parents took a few pictures and we were on our way to the hospital at around 2pm. While we were driving to the hospital I had a contraction every 10-15 minutes. They still weren’t that painful and they were so spread out.

Once we got to the hospital we went right up to the PET unit. I remember sitting in the waiting room seeing a woman in agony, hunched over, who seemed to clearly be in labor. I felt happy as a clam and was able to breathe through any contraction I had without difficulty. When I went to sign in they asked how far apart my contractions were and I felt silly saying 10-15 minutes apart because that clearly couldn’t mean I was having a baby any time soon. They brought me to a room and when the nurse came in to ask me questions I was seriously embarrassed. I told her my OB told me to come in because it was my fourth and my contractions were very irregular. I told the nurse that the baby has been breech so they connected me to the monitor and sure enough the heart beat was reading at the top of my stomach. I was devastated. The only thing that made a c-section appealing to me was the fact that I could get my tubes tied immediately after delivery. While I waited for the doctor to come in to do a vaginal exam I became panicked. I was suddenly absolutely terrified to have a c-section. But when the OB arrived she checked if I was dilated and she tells me “The head is down. You’re 5cm dilated. 80% effaced and your sac is bulging”. If you don’t know what any of that means it’s code for “your baby is coming very soon”. I could not believe it. Here I thought I was going to be like 2cm dilated and they’d be telling me to walk around the hospital for hours.

At that point, I was sent over to labor and delivery. Once I was settled in on all the monitors they checked if I had progressed any further and sure enough I was 8cm dilated. At this point I was still calm, cool and collected. The nurse even said she’s never seen a woman so happy at 8cm dilated. Justin knew my nurse from when she worked in the ER with him so it was like we were all friends, laughing and hanging out. Eventually the contractions started getting a little worse, but I’d say they were still comparable to being 3cm dilated with my other labors. The nurse asked if I wanted an epidural-something I had with all my other labors. I always wanted to do it without an epidural but the fear and/or pain always won and I’d give in. But with both Scarlet’s and Bennett’s labors, as soon as I got an epidural I had a prolonged contraction with a drop in the baby’s heart rate which almost required a rush to the OR for an emergency c-section. I just had this urge to give birth naturally, the way our bodies were designed to do it. I was nervous to decline it though so I gave myself some time and decided to wait until the nurse anesthetist came to see me. I kept going back and forth. In the end, seeing my adventure tattoo convinced me and I realized that giving birth without any pain medication was a crazy adventure and one that I had always wanted to do. My labor was so easy and I knew I wasn’t having any more kids so I thought this is my last chance. So, when the nurse anesthetist came in, I said I didn’t want it. I seriously just got the chills typing that because little did I know that immediately after refusing the epidural my contractions went from a walk in the park to a walk in hell.

I think this part of labor is called “transition”. At this point, everything changed. It probably lasted 10-20 minutes in total before my baby was born, but let me tell you…it.was.bad. Once the contraction would end I wouldn’t even get relief because my body was still shaking from the pain and not even able to relax. As soon as I’d start to feel another contraction coming I’d start to get scared because I knew the terrible pain that would soon be upon me. Prior to this, my OB kept coming in to try and break my water but I told him I didn’t want him to because I was progressing perfectly fine and I wanted it to happen naturally. I asked him why he was so insistent on breaking my water other than speeding things along and of course he tells me there was no purpose other than that. It was the end of his shift and I guess he just wanted to get in another delivery on his tally for the day? Well I’m so glad I waited because the doctor that came on after him was the same OB that delivered Bennett and I LOVED her. When I was in this “transition” she checked me one more time and while she was checking me, my water broke.  

At that point, the head dropped down and was ready to go. I think I had one contraction after that and then I took some deep breaths knowing that the next contraction would be the contraction that would nearly kill me with pain.  

On the next contraction, the plan was for me to start pushing since I was feeling so much pressure from his head. As soon as I started to push the pain took over my body. When I say it felt like someone was ripping me open, it literally felt like that. Because that is actually what was happening. I hardly remember this. It was like an out of body experience. I remember yelling and screaming “FUCK FUCK FUCK! I can’t do this!”. I was pushing my legs straight out in front of me. I didn’t even know how to handle the pain. I had two people on each leg trying to hold my legs back and telling me to push. They kept saying, “Stop screaming. You need to breath and you need to pull your legs back to help you push”. Even Justin was having a hard time holding my legs back. I remember eventually feeling the head coming out and pushing and being like “Ok I guess this is what I’m supposed to do”. But then despite pushing, he wasn’t coming out. The contraction ended and I was so exhausted. I stopped pushing for a few seconds so I could calm down in between contractions and the doctor was massaging my vagina trying to help get the head out. I pushed a few more times and then the head finally came out. I remember everyone telling me the head was out like that was supposed to motivate me to continue pushing or something. I pushed again and the rest of his body came out. It literally felt like a wet baby deer was flopping out of me. Once the baby was out I was like in shock and disbelief at what had just happened. The pain. The fear. A new human. Everything. I was so exhausted. I remember being like “is everything ok? Am I ok? Is baby ok?”. It was so much pain that I thought it couldn’t have been a safe delivery. Fortunately, we were both perfectly fine.

Justin cut the cord and he said, “It’s a boy!”. I remember this all happening but it was like I was watching through a window or something because my body was just out of it. If it was a girl we would have named her Ruby Evangeline, but since it was a boy his name was Jacob Jonathan (not to be confused with John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt). Jonathan is Jacob’s grandfather’s name.

The nurse put Jacob on my chest and I couldn’t even move. I couldn’t even be excited or happy, I was just purely exhausted. Justin was asking if I could nurse him but I didn’t even think I could move my body or my arms to hold him up. It was insane.

Then they took him and weighed him and got him checked out while I was rested. He was 8 lb 1oz and 21inches long at 7:28pm. Everything was perfect. He had to be suctioned several times but otherwise he appeared to be perfect. His cry sounded a bit like a whistle at first but after the pediatrician came in to examine him the following day he reassured us that it was perfectly fine.  

And just when I thought I was done, I realized I still needed to deliver the placenta. And then I was afraid they’d need to stitch up any tears. Fortunately, I didn’t need any stitches and delivering the placenta was weird but nothing compared to delivering an actual human being. They pushed on my uterus and everything came out the way it was supposed to.

Justin went to the nursery with Jacob while the nurse took me to the bathroom to get cleaned up and then we went to see family in the waiting room.

Unfortunately, they only allow visitors once you’re in your postpartum recovery room but at this point all the kids were over tired and we weren’t going to get up there until close to 10pm. So, my wonderful nurse pushed me in the wheel chair out into the waiting room so I could see everyone before they went home. At that point, Justin and Jacob were in the nursery and they opened the curtains so everyone would see him. No one knew if it was a boy or a girl yet so it was such a fun surprise. The nurse held Jacob up to the window, butt naked, and it was obvious at that point that he was a boy! Nana Simpson, Grandpa, Nana Darcey, Pop Pop, Josiah, Scarlet, Bennett and Danica (our neighbor) were all there at the window with the biggest smiles, and some tears, staring at him. Everyone was so excited.

I think everyone knew his name was going to be Jacob if it was a boy, so then the question of his middle name came up. I was so excited to tell my dad that his middle name was Jonathan. My parents were crying and giving hugs to everyone. It was such a special moment.

 Eventually, everyone went home besides the three of us! Once in my room the nurse gave me Pitocin to speed up the natural contracting of my uterus. It was incredibly painful and I’m pretty sure I just told them to stop it because I was in such pain and I had had enough. They gave me the usual stool softener which always helps and maybe one or two other routine medications.

Whenever I would breastfeed Jacob I would get those after birth pains when your uterus contracts. I’ve heard it gets worse after each birth and let me tell you, they weren’t lying. But if I’m comparing it to delivering a human it wasn’t that bad, but I was just so over feeling any pain at that point. A day or two of Percocet and I was fine taking Motrin or whatever they gave me as a safer alternative. We decided to hold off on his first bath and his first vaccine until we were discharged, but they did give him his Vitamin K and the eye ointment. I also got all those goodies they give you after you’ve given birth like sexy underwear, a squirt bottle, etc.—all the good stuff.

The rest of our time in the hospital was spent cuddling Jacob, visiting with family and resting as much as we would.

If given the chance again I don’t know that I’d do it all natural, but I’m so glad I went through with it once and now I can say I delivered a human without any pain medication! Giving birth is hard no matter how you do it, but whenever I hear a woman tell me she gave birth without any pain medication I want to pat her on the back and tell her she’s superhuman, because she is.

Be good. Be wild.

 Xoxo Rachel