Posted by
MrsB
on
Thursday, September 1, 2011
Jasmine's Birth Story
from Dad's Perspective
Day of (August 22, 2011)
The day started out with Sarah
getting some much stronger contractions (around 4AM) than she had been getting
for the last week or so. She was able to
breathe through them though and in the morning when I got up for work she seemed
pretty much the same emotionally and physically as the night before. This happened to be my first day of work back
in the office after working from home the entire previous week. Off to work I went and the day proceeded on
as usual. At about 9:30AM I received an
IM from Sarah asking what my work schedule looked like today and tomorrow. I was immediately suspicious of the question
and began to get excited! I told her I had
1 appointment today and one appointment tomorrow. She then said, “You may need to cancel your
appointment for tomorrow”. Which I then
was super excited and responded with, “Really?!” She told me her contractions were now 5 ½
minutes apart and the same intensity as the early morning ones. She also said that she wanted to take a walk
and needed a walking buddy, so she drove up to her mother’s house in
Vista. (We live in Escondido.) They
walked all over a local park but things didn’t advance any further. I was
anxiously awaiting an update as I continued working throughout the day. Sarah decided that she wanted to go get a
trigger point and reflexology message from a friend of ours. I highly recommend this to anyone as long as
they go to someone who knows what they are doing. You’ll see why in a minute.
After a
few more IMs throughout the day, it was decided that I would not need to come
home early as she had not progressed any further. Sarah finished her “massage”, I say “massage”
because it is not a pleasant massage as one typically thinks of. This “massage” is designed to trigger
contractions and get things moving down there.
Sarah left from her “massage” at about 5:50ish PM. She called me immediately on her way home and
said that her contractions had become even more intense but still at about 5 ½
minutes apart. While we were on the
phone I hear “oh --- , my water just broke”!
Two weeks prior
Braxton
Hicks contractions have now turned into steady actual contractions. Doctor’s visits are weekly now and during our
regularly scheduled visit we stated to the doctor (Dr. Langley is awesome!)
that Sarah had been having actual contractions now but that they were not
consistent yet. The doctor checked her
cervix and to our surprise Sarah was 2cm dilated and 60% effaced! What joy!
Hold up. Don’t get too excited
yet.
The
next few days roll by and contractions went from 10 minutes apart to 7 minutes
apart. Sweet! She is making more progress! Her cervix is checked this week and she is at
3ish cm dilated and still 60% effaced. I
just kept telling myself and Sarah “Hold it together and don’t get discouraged”. We are so close! Also, I think we walked about a bazillion miles
over the next couple of days, to include lots of stairs!
Over
the following weekend we continued with normal plans. We got up on Saturday morning and Sarah ran
some errands while I did some long needed house work. On Sunday we went to church as usual and then
off to hang out with a friend of ours who just had a baby. I’m telling you, we pulled out all the stops
to get things going.
Day of continued…
Recap:
“Oh --- , my water just broke”!
Immediately contractions were much more
intense. She needed help cleaning up the
truck, so I met her in the drive way to help cleanup. I started gathering the last minute things
that we needed to throw in the truck and head to the hospital. Sarah said, “Just because my water broke
doesn’t mean we need to rush off to the hospital”. Which I knew but was very worried with how
intense her contractions were. They were
veeeeeery strong at this point and seemed to be probably about 2-3 minutes
apart. I wasn’t tracking with my
contraction app at this point. I was too
busy trying to help Sarah through another contraction. By the time we got in the house she was
starting another contraction and said she wanted to get in the shower. (Ladies, I highly recommend a nice hot
shower. It was amazing for Sarah.) The water felt great and it helped the pain
be more manageable but at this point the contractions have now kicked up
another notch. Then I hear, “I really
feel like I need to push”. What?! “Don’t push” I kept telling her. To which she would respond with “No push” as
this was all she could manage at this point.
At this point I have to leave her
in the shower and pack up as much of the last minute things needed as much as
possible in between contractions. Now
they are right on top of each other and I’m not getting a chance to really do
anything. So finally I tell her, I’m
sorry love, I have to get this stuff out to the truck and then we are going to
the hospital. She said OK then I am
going to stay in the shower. I quickly
pull together the last few things and go flying out to the truck. I run back into the house and Sarah is out of
the shower and getting her robe on so that we can get on the road. She is still having contraction after
contraction with only about maybe a minute break in between.
On the freeway now from Escondido
to Scripps Encinitas, this was the longest car ride in history! We couldn’t get there fast enough! Why are there other cars on the road
now?! Argh! So it is now 6:20ish PM and I’m breaking just
a couple of laws ;) with hazards flashing and me waving people over like a mad
man because they won’t move out of the way.
I drove fast but safe. By the
way, if you ever see anyone with hazard lights flashing and driving fast down
the highway, move out of the way! You
are supposed to turn on your hazards when you have emergencies and other
drivers are supposed to move out of your way, but I digress. So, Sarah is hanging on to the door and the
handle trying desperately not to push.
She just kept saying “No push” over and over. I kept encouraging her. “You are doing so great baby. I love you.
Don’t push.”
We finally get to the hospital and
it is now 6:45PM. We get to the counter
and I said my wife is in labor, we are already registered in your system and we
need to get into a room ASAP. I had
called in ahead so I knew they had one for us.
J I highly recommend everyone do this as
well. We get into the room and the nurse
hooks Sarah up to fetal monitor and checks her cervix. At first she said “oh wow, she has no
cervix”, but then checked again and said that she was at 9cm and baby is at 0
station. Sarah is now having a serious
urge to push and shaking uncontrollably trying not to because the nurses told
her she can’t yet until the cervix is all the way gone. The nurse called the doctor to come over
because things are obviously about to go down. The whole time this is happening (maybe 10
minutes) they are still trying to get babies heartbeat. They got a week signal and wanted to use the
internal monitor instead. To which we
both said “no, we want to do this natural”.
The nurses response was then “that has nothing to do with natural but
OK”. Looking back on it now, she was
correct but we knew what we wanted and we just said the wrong thing. Sarah did have to get an IV due to the
precipitous labor with electrolyte fluids and an oxygen mask because she kept
saying she felt like she was going to pass out (focused on breathing out, no so
much the breathing in). The doctor comes in and it’s now 7:15 PM and he starts
filling out all the required paper work that you typically do prior to
delivery. Little things like consent
forms.
The nurse checks Sarah’s cervix
again and I hear “oh…. That’s babies head”.
“Doctor you need to get over here to catch”. He is getting his scrub top on and Sarah
yells “No push”! The doctor asks why “no
push”? Sarah said “I’m not allowed
to”. Then the doctor said that she was
cleared to push and that it was actually “highly recommended at this
point”. Sarah gave a couple of grunts
with some decent pushes with a good yell and the head came out up to Jasmine’s
(our baby) eyes. The nurse quickly
grabbed the head to get ready to catch as everyone was caught off guard due to
how quickly it all happened. The doctor said,
“please don’t scream, we are about to bring your child into the world” (which
was meant to be funny and we laugh about it now) and came over and said “when
you are ready, go ahead and push again”.
Sarah gave one more good push and our babies head was out! The whole time I’m encouraging Sarah and
giving her a play by play of what is happening.
I told her I could see the head now and that she was almost there. “Keep pushing.” She pushed one more time and our beautiful
baby girl was born at 7:42PM on 8/22/11. If
you are doing the math Sarah was only in hard labor for 1 hour and 42
minutes. Insanely fast for a first time
baby.
Coming in at 9cm was waiting a
little too long but we think it worked out in our benefit because Sarah was
concentrating so hard on not pushing that she barely even tore when it was
finally time to push. All in all it was
a truly amazing experience that I wouldn’t trade for anything in the world.
Jasmine Marie Baker
7lbs 15oz
19.5 inches
A BIG thank you to our Bradley Method instructor, Liza Janda.
We were armed with an arsenal of knowledge that helped immensely!
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No two days have been the same since our family expanded from two to three. Between guest visits, errands, and other outings we definitely have not had anything to go off of as to what a typical day is other than busy. Thankfully a good family friend of mine has lent me a hospital grade double pump which has been very helpful on the mornings I wake up with a boulder or two attached to my chest (ouch!). Another plus about the pump is that over the past week Daddy and a few other family members have been able to feed Jasmine. Having the bottle option will give Grandma the opportunity to babysit Jasmine at the ripe old age of 5 weeks (next week). It has also been a nice peace of mind for me to get a visual on how much Jasmine can eat in a feeding session. The majority of her feedings have been straight from the source (i.e. me) where I just let her go until she falls asleep which means I don't know how much she gets in those feedings.
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