The Birth Story

(100th post by the way. Kind of interesting)

It all happened unexpectedly, and I’m not being cliche-ish. Every single thing about this whole experience has been unexpected, good and bad. On Wednesday, November 5th, 2008 at 4:45am, I awoke to Jessica saying words not unlike “ADAM!!! Wake up!”. Naturally, I did because I’d been hoping for those words every day for the past week. She was a little excited because her water had broken (“ruptured” as the medical folk say). She had gotten up to go to the bathroom, felt a gushing sensation, and the rest you can guess. After we came to the realization we were going to have a baby that day, my next words, as you can expect, were “Want to go back to bed?”

We did. We lied there for about 5 minutes, quite occupied with our own thoughts when I uttered the profound words “You’re not sleeping are you?” Having my suspicions confirmed, I showed my true genius in asking Jessica if we could go retrieve my forgotten laptop at work. Why? I needed to get some things done for work before the baby came. Hey, whoah, hold on…before you pass judgment on me as a horrible husband, she had told me not five minutes before that she wasn’t having contractions and didn’t think we needed to go in right away. She agreed with me because she was just so deliriously happy that she was going to have that baby OUT OF HER!

On our way to my work, her contractions started (they always happened in the car). We called the hospital, and they said to come in right away. We still had 20 minutes to go because we were all the way down at my work (I all ready apologized to her!!!), and the contractions kept on coming. Once we got there, Jessica got out of the car, felt a gushing sensation, and well, this time she didn’t have anywhere to, uh, relieve herself. Feeling QUITE self-conscious, we walked into the quite-empty hospital at 6:00am. They took her to an evaluation room, did some tests to confirm rupturing (like the half-soaked pants weren’t proof enough), and moved us into a delivery room. Her contractions had stopped completely, and they decided to induce her labor because once the water breaks, you can’t leave the hospital because of risk of infection. So, the amazing Pitocin labor-inducing drug began to be administered (7:30am).

Contractions did start very quickly after that (7:40am), and they were not kind to Jessica. Apparently, contractions from induced labor are much worse than with natural, and they came with a vengeance. Jessica was very brave and lasted as long as she could, but she finally gave the word at 9:00am to get an epidural. Best…Decision…Ever. The anesthesiologist administered it in such a way that Jessica felt all the pressure and everything like that, but no pain until the very, very end, and even then it was minimal. Anyway, Jessica lied there in happy, painless bliss as contraction after contraction passed by unfelt. She had been dilating continuously, and at 11:30pm she was dilated to about 7cm. We alerted Jessica’s parents to come by if they wanted to see Jessica before she began pushing. We did some practice pushes to see if we could get him down the hatch. At 12:30 the nurse informed us he was dilated to 9 or 9 1/2 cm (!). 10cm is the time to push by the way. We urged Jessica’s parents come faster.

We did some more practice pushes, and Jessica’s parents got there around 1:15pm. I scarfed down two (2) Arby’s Roast Beef & Cheddar sandwiches they brought and the curly fries before the pushing began. Once we were ready, her parents left, and we started pushing at 1:35pm or so. We probably did about 15 sets of pushing to get him out of there. I was up by Jessica’s head, but I peeked over to watch him come out at each set of pushing. Slowly, but surely, his little head came down the hatch and into broad daylight. Once the head all came out and the goo got sucked away from his airways, the rest of him kind of fell out, they cut the cord (I wouldn’t because of texture issues), and they brought him right out and onto Jessica’s chest at 2:08pm. Oh, what a beautiful little guy!

All the normal after-birth activities took place (cleaning, weighing, etc.), but the best moment was after everyone left the room and it was just Jessica, Spencer and me. We had our little, private crying together moment, and then he was off to get washed and stuff. The experience was SO positive and just wonderful. Contrary to what we’d been told and read, having an epidural does not, by definition, make the birthing experience less meaningful. It might for some people, but it only enhanced it in an amazing way for us. We consider ourselves very fortunate to only have to be in labor for 8 hours and mostly pain free. God has blessed us with an amazing baby boy, and we love him so much! Call us if you want more details. We have lots. 🙂 Go see the pictures in the previous post if you haven’t yet, too.

[audio:19 – Blessed.mp3]