A blow by blow account!

Here it is folks the long awaited much anticipated blow by blow account of my labor and delivery of the most beautiful baby ever.....Jack Robert Gentry!!!!!

I had been contracting almost the whole week leading up to the momentous day. The day in question I hadn't really been noticing them too often, sure I felt them but they weren't coming very regularly. I walked around at work and was feeling pretty tired, and my back was aching something awful.

Got home from work and piddled around doing nothing really....After Travis got home from work we got a call from our friends Kevin and Lisa, who asked us if we wanted to go out to eat, we said Sure! And met them at B&D burgers. Afterward, Travis and I went to the grocery store to get snacky stuff to take with us to the hospital. We got some granola bars and some reeses pieces, and a pint of Ben and Jerry's Fudge Brownie Ice cream. Mom had suggested a milkshake because it worked for her (inducing labor), made her throw up but she went into labor. We came home and I read a bit and Travis got online. Anyway the fun stuff started at around 10 pm.

I grabbed that icecream as soon as we got home and ate the entire pint...In one sitting....I had never done that before, partly because I like to stick to the serving sizes but also because I didn't want to get fat...Ha...Anyway I ate the whole thing, and I enjoyed every spoonful. I was sitting in my wonderful gliding rocking chair watching a rerun and Law & Order SVU, and could barely keep my eyes open and figured I better go to bed, went and brushed my teeth and crawled into bed; fully expecting to wake up the next morning as I had done the last few being a bit sad I hadn't gone into labor.....Little did I know......

So, as soon as my head hit the pillow my eyes popped open. I was suddenly wide awake! Just thinking about stuff I needed to get done before the baby came. I lay there thinking for a few minutes then had to go to the bathroom, gee I thought I just went I hope I don't have another bladder infection......

plop!

There went my m**** plug! I giggled cause I knew that's what it was. I called Travis (who was sitting where I am now) and said I just lost my mucus plug.....And he said "That's great but I don't need to see it!!!"

Well that was interesting, so I went back to bed....Then got up and walked around a bit, then I thought maybe I could help things along...And squatted a few times. I needed to hold onto the bed though or else I would have landed on my butt. Then went to the bathroom again.

I laid back down again. Travis came to bed and I said "You know I think tonight might be the night" and he said "That's good! Just wake me up when you need anything".

Now it's about 12:30-1 in the morning and I'm contracting a lot. Nothing too strong but they felt much more organized. I kept getting up to go to the bathroom too, everytime I noticed more of a bloody show. I was getting excited but didn't want to get my hopes up. I knew just cause you lose your plug doesn't mean you'll go into labor......But not in my case!!!!

One thing that really was irking me was that my toilet seemed to be sluggishly flushing. At one point, it didn't go down at all! So I grabbed the plunger and started to plunge......Then I felt a little trickle of warm fluid running down my leg, hmm I thought was that my water breaking? No it's was more just a trickle...

I came out here and turned on the computer, and noticed my contractions were about 10 minutes apart, then 7 minutes apart, then 5 minutes apart....Actually it seemed as soon as I started timing them every contraction was coming closer and closer.

Once they got to be 5 minutes apart I called the doctors office after hours call line. They said they'd get a nurse to call me back and about two minutes later she did. She asked me all kinds of questions like: 1. How far apart are the contractions 2. Has your water broken....Then she said "Well it sounds like you're in early labor...So go ahead and come on in."

Travis had come out to see what was going on when the nurse called me back and I turned to him and said "lets get to the hospital!!" He ran around getting dressed and brushing his teeth and fixing his hair.....I ran around getting more stuff than we needed to take with us but felt I needed anyway.
We got in the car and made our way to the hospital. I'll admit this, (I didn't say anything on the way there but) I did look to see how fast Travis was driving.....There were a few other people on the road which was a bit odd as it was about 2 in the morning. Seemed we got stuck behind the slowest people....But still Travis was only going the speed limit or five under most of the way there.

He wasn't going to rush and be stressed out. His goal was to get us there safe and sound. Can't fault him for that, he's a great guy.

You know he was wonderful through out the whole ordeal...No question the best husband ever!

So we get to the hospital, and we sit down in the ER admitting/waiting room. Sign in and wait for the wheel chair. It came and we went up to the triage room on the maternity floor. Travis had to wait before coming in, so I took off my clothes and put on a hospital gown and went to the bathroom before going out and sitting in the neat little chair/bed thing they had with the doggie diaper. There's something free and wonderful about sitting in a chair without underwear or fear of what others might think if you "make a mess."

The nurse got me hooked up to the monitors and checked to see how are dilated I was. Travis came in and did his best to make sure I was comfortable and had everything I needed. The nurse left to go let the delivery staff know to get a room ready. I was having some of the worst heartburn of my pregnancy....And I have to go to the bathroom again!!

TMI warning...

Both times I went to the bathroom in triage, I pooped. I was glad too, I thought hopefully I won't poop when I deliver the baby now!!

Lets just put a TMI warning on for the rest of the post, to spare people blushes.....But you gotta expect certain things when reading a post about birthing a baby....Duh...

So I go back out to the chair/bed thing. The contractions are pretty strong now, they do hurt but I'm breathing through them ok. Funny thing I noted too, I kicked my legs when I had them because they hurt....The kicking helped! Another thing too, sometimes the contraction would hurt so bad I'd start laughing. the triage nurse said "No that's not right you aren't supposed to be laughing!!" There was another lady in labor in the curtained room next to me and she wasn't breathing hard at all...I started worrying that maybe I wasn't going to make it drug free. The heartburn was starting to get really bad, like making me want to throw up.

Travis was sitting right next to me stroking my hairy legs and breathing with me, encouraging me to get through the contractions and letting me know, by watching the monitors, when the contraction was almost over. I can't tell you how much that helped, that and his telling me over and over that I was doing good.

At one point, I don't remember if I asked him or just pointed at it but I got the garbage can and threw up into it...A few times. Travis pressed the assistance button and a voice said "yes what do you need?" and he said "she's throwing up" and they said "what do you need?" We were both annoyed by that, what do you think I might need? Some water or something for nausea? All this happened in about 20 minutes.

The room was ready now, so the nurse disconnected me from the monitor and asked if I wanted to walk down or ride in a wheelchair. I thought about the wheelchair but decided on walking. I didn't make it to the door before the next contraction hit, I leaned on the wall and breathed until it passed then made my way out into the hall. I had one more big contraction before we got to the delivery room and leaned against a spare bed in the hall.

Once we got into the delivery room, I was relaxed and settling in but feeling sick. The nurse asked if I wanted any pain meds or anything to help with the nausea (heck yeah I wanted something for the nausea!), I told her no pain meds, I wanted to try as natural as possible. She offered me a birthing ball and other alternatives and then went to get the IV stuff to administer the nausea meds.

She gave me the IV, and told me if I changed my mind she'd give me pain meds right away. After the IV she checked to see how far dilated I was now, remember 15- 20 minutes before I was dilated 3-4 cm.....When she checked me I was 8!!! So she and the other nurse started running around getting things ready, they both weren't expecting me to be that far along.

The doctor was paged again with the new info, and things were being done around me. I threw up two more times and started pushing....The nurses kept telling me not to push (ha!), I really did try but it was pretty much impossible. My back was really hurting, the contractions hurt but in between those my back was killing me!!I just remember wanting to ask for something for my back, I couldn't actually verbalize anything at this point.

I had been on my back in a kind of sitting position for this whole time and I remembered hearing that with "back labor" that it helps to get on your hands and knees. I tried it, and it did help!! My butt was hanging out for the world to see but I didn't care, my back wasn't hurting. The nurses told me to turn back around because that position is one of the easiest ways a baby can be born, and since the doctor wasn't there they needed me to turn back over. I did, but not happily. The doctor finally came in and checked me out, I pushed a few times for her but they weren't very good pushes, he'd come down a bit but then he'd go back up. The doctor assuming I'd be at that for a while went to check on another patient.

Two pushes later, the nurses were frantically asking Travis to hit the call button and running around getting things together....Travis was asked to hit the call button quite a few times and the nurse was acting very stressed....I wasn't worried though, strangely......Anyway two pushes later the nurse caught Jack!!! He was followed by that gush of amniotic fluid most people wait to feel but never do....I apparently had a leak, I broke just enough to bring Jack down to block the rest coming out till after he came out.

Travis watched the whole time, he told me I was doing great and told me he could see Jack coming. He was the best birthing coach ever!!

I held on to Jack for a little while while things were being done elsewhere, then the nurse came over to clean him up and stuff. Dr. Pettigrew was taking care of delivering my placenta, we had a nice conversation about a story I saw on TV about a woman who had saved her placenta, frozen it and then one year later made it into a pate she served to guests (the guest were told what it was before they ate it). Dr. Pettigrew had seen it as did one of the nurses, we all talked about how strange certain rituals are and the nurse mentioned how some people take the placenta home and bury it in the yard (or something to that effect) to bring luck or ward off evil or some such thing.

I was pretty tired after such stimulating conversation oh and giving birth, but I was really happy when Lisa, Kevin, Lil Trav, Matt and Jessica came in!! They took lots of pictures and talked about how beautiful Jack looked, how they couldn't believe I had done it without epidural and how fast it went....I was very happy they were there, but too exhausted to talk or do much else then sleepily look around at them all.

Travis will have to remind me about a lot of things, they get fuzzy in my mind from here on out...I don't remember how long we stayed in the delivery room before going down to the recovery room. I remember being in the wheel chair and wheeled down there, Jack was in a bassinet being pushed by another nurse. I remember getting into the bed in the recovery room and thinking it was the most comfortable bed ever....I'm sure we must have gone to sleep after that I don't remember.....

Anyway that's how Jack made his grand entrance into the world as we know it! I can't believe I ever lived before him, I'm so happy to be a mommy and so lucky to have such a wonderful baby boy!!!

Thanks everyone for all your support and love during my pregnancy and now that I'm a mom!!! All I have left to do now to fulfill my lifes goals is get my degree and work as a nurse. It'll happen, I know it!