Labor & Delivery!

For those of you who may be interested, I thought I'd post about my labor and delivery of little Jackson. Ever since being pregnant with Chyler, I've always been curious about everyone else's labor.

6:30 a.m.- On the morning of Monday, November 28th, I woke up to an upset stomach. Brian wasn't feeling well either, so I thought we must have either eaten something bad or caught something.

7:00 a.m.- I got up with Chyler and let Brian sleep a while longer. I still didn’t feel that great, so I took it slow, just letting Chyler play and eat cheerios for breakfast.

8:00 a.m.- Brian got up and left for work and said he was feeling better. About that time, I started noticing my contractions more, but played them off as Braxton Hicks.

9 a.m.- I noticed the contractions were getting stronger and about 4 minutes apart. I wasn’t positive I was in labor, but decided to call Brian to let him know he might need to come home.

9:30 a.m.- The contractions were still 4 minutes apart and some were really hurting. I also noticed that my thighs were burning during contractions, something that I remembered feeling when I was in labor with Chyler. I called Brian again and told him I was pretty sure the contractions were legit. He said he needed to finish some things up and then would head home in about an hour.

10 a.m.- I called Brian again and asked him to come home now. He said he just needed to finish some things up in the next 10 minutes and then would come straight home. In the meantime, I finished packing last minute things for Chyler and I.

10:40 a.m.- Brian got home and quickly packed the suitcases into the car. We dropped off Chyler at a ward friend's house and then headed over to the hospital.

11:00 a.m.- We checked in to the hospital where they checked me to see if I was truly in labor. It was obvious the nurse was surprised when she found that I was dilated to a 6! Brian then mentioned that I wanted an epidural to which she responded, “we’d better hurry.” They quickly moved me up to another floor where they started my IV and took blood work to see if I could even have an epidural. Within an hour, my blood work returned and looked fine and the anesthesiologist arrived to give me an epidural.

My experience with this epidural was vastly different from the epidural I received with Chyler. With this epidural, I still felt touch (whereas with Chyler, I didn’t) and it didn’t take as well to my right side (whereas with Chyler, it didn’t take as well to my left side). For the remainder of labor, I continued to feel pain on my right side that never went away.

12 Noon- I was dilated between a 6 and a 7.

2 p.m.- My doctor arrived and broke my water. I was dilated to a 7 then, but not for long!

2:45 p.m.- The nurse checked me again and said I was dilated to a 9. She said she’d come back in a half hour and check me again. It was 5-10 minutes later that I told Brian I could feel the baby moving down. He wanted to get the nurse then, but I told him to wait a little bit longer because I didn’t think I could progress that quickly.

2:55 p.m.- The nurse came back in because the monitor on my tummy wasn’t picking up the baby’s heartbeat very well. It turns out I was dilated to a 10, the baby was down, and I was ready to push.

3:00 p.m.- All the nurses rushed into set everything up to deliver little Jackson!

3:05ish p.m.- My doctor arrived and I started pushing. I pushed for 5-10 minutes and little Jackson arrived at 3:17 p.m.! He was healthy and weighed 8 lbs. 1 oz. and measured 21 inches long!