Jacob's Birth Story

We are 3 weeks into this journey with our little man and being a family of 4! Jacob Ryan is the sweetest, most cuddly little boy and I could just hold him all day long! The last 3 weeks have gone by incredibly fast and I can't believe he's 3 weeks old already but on the other hand it feels like Jacob has always been a part of our family... if that makes any sense. :) Big sister Hannah is adjusting perfectly and she also acts like he has always been around. As of yet we haven't had to deal with jealousy issues, I'm sure they will come, but I'm hoping since she is a little older they won't be quite as severe as if she had been a toddler when we had another baby. Jacob has kind of just slipped right into our routine, he joins us at the dinner table and has yet to miss out on story time, sometimes things take a little longer than intended but it all still gets done! We are so lucky to have been blessed with this sweet boy and are very thankful he is here, happy and healthy! Now onto how he entered this world...

Our last Dr appointment was January 16th and Dr Cueto wanted for me to go the rest of the week to see if I would go into labor on my own and then by Friday he would call me and set up the induction for Monday, January 23rd, morning if nothing had happened. To say the least I was totally deflated after that appointment. I was done being pregnant and so ready to meet Jacob that the thought of another week seemed forever! I had not progressed anymore so Dr stripped my membranes which I had had done with Hannah a couple times so I had zero faith in that actually doing anything. The week goes by and Dr calls Friday afternoon telling me to call labor and delivery Monday morning around 5:30 am to check for an available bed. He said it should be slow on a Monday morning and we would have no problem getting started early. We enjoyed our last weekend as a family of 3 and got the house and last minute things ready to bring baby home. Sunday night we drop Hannah at my parents house and both of us get barely any sleep cause we were too excited about the next morning. We get up early, shower and get the car packed and I call L&D at 5:30 am, they inform me there are no beds available and the charge nurse will call when one becomes available, she (the most rude woman ever) said she had no idea when we would be able to come in and to just wait for a call. We watched tv and around 7 am I called the nurse back just to check, again she informed me (very rudely, I might add) that she would call as soon as a bed was available. Oh to say I was upset was an understatement, I think I instantly started crying. We continued to wait around ALL morning and I made a call to Dr Cueto to find out what the plan was going to be, he finally called me back around 1:30 pm to say the hospital was just too busy today, too many women were in labor and no one was progressing so we would just have to wait for Tuesday morning and try this whole thing all over again. I instantly broke down and cried for pretty much the rest of the day, I layed in bed and did nothing but mope around. I was so upset that we would have to be away from Hannah another night and that there was no guarantee that we would even get a room on Tuesday morning either, Dr Cueto said it was a guessing game and no guarantee's since I was not a risk or "having" to be induced for a specific reason. So, Monday night we bring Hannah back to my parents around 5 and head out to dinner, just the 2 of us. We were literally down the street from Chili's when I get a phone call from Dr Cueto! He asked if we wanted to come in that night and be induced!! A room was available and we should be there in an hour to get things started! We rushed home to shower and get our bags and arrived at the hospital at 7 pm.

We get our room, which happened to be the big room, start paperwork and nurse starts my IV of fluids. Dr Cueto comes in and that's when we find out he's the dr on call that night so he would for sure be delivering, woo hoo!!! (At this point I was still very skeptical that we would be delivering in a timely manner, Hannah's induction took over 32 hours and I was expecting this one to take the same amount of time at least) Dr checked me, I was 2 cm and 50% effaced and very soft cervix, Dr was going to break my water at that point to get things moving (which scared the heck outa me since I knew once your water is broken contractions are so much worse) but baby put his hand on top of his head and Dr didn't want to break my water with his hand there since he would start to come down the birth canal with my water broken and it would make for a more difficult delivery if his hand/arm got stuck there. So we got started on pitocin and told to get comfortable. :) Our nurse was not the most personable but she was nice and would check on us every hour or more if needed. She showed Nick how to plug everything in and reset the contraction monitor so she didn't have to come in after every time I went to the bathroom which seemed like every 10 minutes! I started feeling contractions but nothing painful and they were coming every 2-3 minutes. Around 11 pm Dr Cueto came in to check on us, I was still 2 cm but baby's hand had moved so he broke my water. Now typically it's not supposed to be painful when they break your water but oh boy that was the most painful check I had ever had. I was practically jumping off the bed and the hook kept slipping on the bag of water so it took way longer than it should have but finally it broke and I had that lovely wetting your pants feeling for the next 30 minutes or so. :) Lovely.

As I knew they would, contractions got a lot worse and around 1 am I could not talk or move through them and they were coming every 1.5-2 minutes so I was not getting a break. The nurse said I was 4 cm and 80% effaced! (I was so excited since with Hannah I was 2 cm for about 24 hours into labor and I couldn't believe I was actually progressing this time!) I asked for some pain meds in my IV to help take the edge off so I could try and sleep. Well, it took them a full hour to actually bring medication in my room and I thought I was going to die. The nurse administering the meds asked if I had planned on getting an epidural, which of course I had, I just wanted to wait until I had progressed a little more so the epidural wouldn't slow my labor. She then told me she was going to give me the same meds in my IV that was in the epidural so I would have to wait awhile to get the epi since I would have that same medication in my system already and my labor wouldn't slow since I was on pitocin and they control how my labor goes. It didn't take much convincing for me to say OK!!! to the epidural and that sweet, sweet man came in about 5 minutes later with those wonderful drugs! Getting the epi was so terrible, having to be still during contractions but he literally only took 8 minutes from start to finish! This anesthesiologist was a god send for sure. This was also the best epidural ever, I had the best warm tingly feeling down my legs but I could still move them on my own and I didn't feel any more contractions! At this point Nick and I tried to get some sleep, but since my BP cuff was going off every 30 minutes I couldn't actually fall asleep but I was able to rest.

Around 5 am I was 6 cm and 80% effaced and Dr Cueto said once I hit 6 cm it would go fast from there. Over the next hour I kept feeling like I had to pee really bad, I kept asking the nurse to make sure my catheter wasn't kinked, cause it felt like my urine wasn't flowing but she said everything was fine and that's when I noticed I was getting that feeling with every contraction so I guess the baby was just pushed up against my urethra? I dunno, but I never got the "I gotta poop" pressure they always tell you about so I just thought I was going to have to deal with this feeling for the rest of my labor- which still had to be hours more since I was only 6 cm. Well, since I mentioned this "feeling" a couple times the nurse checked me at about 6:15 am and I was 9 cm!! She said it would probably be 30-45 minutes until I was ready to push since I still had some cervix left and she had me lay on my side. No more than 10 minutes later Dr Cueto walked in and wanted to check for himself and he had me do a test push and instantly told me to stop pushing and we needed to get the nursery in the room cause we were having a baby! I couldn't believe it, it was all of a sudden happening so fast! While he's telling the nurse to hurry and set up, get the nursery in the room, he was staring at baby's head and kept telling me not to push or do anything cause he was going to be here any minute. Finally, about 8-10 minutes later, Dr let me push and it only took 3 good pushes and there was our baby!! The dr was holding him up and I just reached out for him! It was the best moment ever. At 6:34 am Jacob Ryan was born! He was able to lay right on my chest for as long as I wanted, the nursery nurse said I could take my time and that baby looked great. Nick cut the cord and we just enjoyed those first minutes with our new son.

Eventually, they weighed and measured him, he was 7 lbs 3 ounces and 19 inches long (although, at his first dr appointment he measured 21 inches, which seemed more correct), he got his antibiotic eye ointment and vitamin K shot, for which he didn't even cry, he just looked down at his leg wondering what was going on. He was so calm and quiet, just taking everything in. It was all such a wonderful experience. (The only not so wonderful part was getting stitched up, the epidural was starting to wear off and I was able to feel the last stitch and when they were pushing on my stomach to make my uterus contract and get everything out). I never thought I would say I had a great labor and delivery but I really did, sure I was in pain for some of it but overall the entire experience could not have been more perfect. Labor was only 10 hours from beginning pitocin and recovery was even very smooth. I am so happy with how everything went, and most importantly with our end result- our sweet baby boy!

*The pictures weren't able to upload for some reason, I'll put them in a separate post*