Jaelyn's Birth Story

First off, I would like to congratulate my dear friend Holly, who gave birth to her daughter Lainey Iris yesterday afternoon. I am so excited for her!!

I suppose it's time for me to finally get Jaelyn's birth story down on paper. I haven't had much time for the computer lately, Jackson has been demanding a bit more of my attention since his sister arrived and I am trying to get a new routine to my day. He is alright with me holding her unless he wants something, "baby down" he says and has a hard time waiting for me to finish feeding her. And when I get on the laptop, he says "Mommy down," and tries to close the laptop or goes crazy pushing the buttons on me. Goody! Hence, I haven't gotten this post out in a week and half. This is my second day home alone with the two kids without help. My parents were just a wonderful support the past week, I was very grateful for their help.

As my friend Allison had posted, after my 2pm 39 week appt on Monday, Sept 13th - I was quite discouraged. I was told by my doctor that Jaelyn STILL wasn't engaged in the pelvis and so she wasn't going to strip my membranes again. Dr. K said if she accidently broke my waterbag while stripping, we would be running a risk of the umbillical cord slipping between the head and cervix which would result in immediate C- section. She said she was able to stick her entire index finger thru my cervix and that's how far the baby's head was floating away. My goodness!! So we pretty much assumed that my scheduled induction on Friday would be the day for Jaelyn's birth.

Then around 6pm, I started having contractions. They didn't seem to be anything special because during the past week I would contract in the evenings due to the day's activity. Around 7pm I thought I would start to count them because they were getting stronger and pretty regular. Well, just like Jackson's birth - after my 39 week appt, my contracts were 5 mins apart lasting 1 mins. It only took an hour before they were that close together. I was still doubting myself about whether to call the neighbor and head to the hospital. I knew with being GPS positive, I shouldn't wait long - but was still in the mindset that Friday would be the day because of the way my appt went.

By 8pm, we had taken Jax over to the neighbors house and we were on our way. The contractions were pretty intense at this point. I knew that since I was 4cm at my appt earlier that day, that it wouldn't take long to fully dialate. When we reached the hospital, we had to check in at the maternity ward desk - which took forever! The desk lady kept on answering the phone while trying to hand us all the papers to fill out. She would repeatedly say, "Are you alright, how are you doing?" as I was braced up against the wall heaving thru the contraction while Paul was pushing on my back (yup - more back labor with this delivery too). I wanted to grab the phone from her and hit her over the head with it! Do I look alright??

When the nursed checked me, she said I was 7cm. I had gone from 4cm-7cm in 2.5 hours (6pm-8:30pm). I knew that the quickest part of labor was the transition from 7cm-10cm, so when the nurse told me that the anesthesiologist and on call anesthesiologist wouldn't be available for 20 mins - 1 hr because they were in surgeries - I started to panic. I told the nurse how I had torn during my first delivery (if you haven't read Jackson's birth story - I tore from the top of the vagina all the up to the clitoris... yes, apparently that IS possible!) I told her if I had to push without an epidural and I tore like that again, I would die in the hospital bed. :P Needless to say, the anesthesiologist took it upon himself to call in a 3rd dr. who came from home to administer my epidural. I ended up getting it at 9cm. Those contractions were so heavy, I had my epidural during jackson's labor at 4cm... so I hadn't experienced those intense ones before.

I started to feel a bit more of the baby decending and was getting worried that the meds wouldn't hold out until after I pushed. My doctor came in at 11:50pm to break my water and with 3 contractions had delivered Jaelyn at exactly 12am Sept. 14th. She weighed in 6 lbs 9oz, 20 inches long. I had definitely felt a whole lot more of the pushing than I had with Jackson. And low and behold - I tore the same way again! Literally, right along the same path. Thankfully the tearing wasn't as severe as before so I didn't require as many stitches, but it still took her about 25 mins. I had started to feel the stitching, so she injected me with a local anesthetic - ouch! That area is super sensitive because of all the nerve ending collected in the clitoris. I just crinch everytime I think about that.

Because I only had 1 dose of the antibiotic for GPS - Jaelyn was placed on a 48 hour vital watch, just like Jackson was. She also had blood taken from her hand for a culture to see if the bacteria had been transfered to her during delivery. Thank goodness that came back negative. I felt terrible for her though because not only did she get the Vitamin K shot and Hep A (or B?) shot, she was also poked in the heel a number of times to check her bilirubin count. Poor thing didn't go a day without getting pricked at least twice.

I was extremely surprised that my bottom wasn't nearly as swollen as it was with Jackson's delivery. That had been my only experience so I assumed that every delivery would be like that. But this

time I up walking the same day. As the swelling did go down, I felt less of the stitching too. I remember feeling those pull everytime I moved after I had Jax. So over all, my recovery with the first pregnancy was worse than the actually delivery... this time, the delivery was more painful but the recovery was alot easier for me.

Jaelyn was awake for 3 hours after her delivery and nursed perfectly! Here I thought that she was an automatic pro at breastfeeding, but that turned out to be false :) More on that later because I need your advice on a few things! I was admitted into the hospital on Monday evening, but because I had her on Tuesday at 12am, Tuesday was considered our delivery date - so we were in the hospital until Thursday afternoon. The food wasn't great, but my husband and I were thrilled to watch cable in the evenings during our stay. HA!

I will share more on how our time has been since bringing Jaelyn home in the next post. Thanks for reading!!