Jensen’s Birth Story

This is the story of how Jensen was born, some parts are a bit graphic.

So the funny thing is Jensen was our surprise baby, not to say he was a mistake because we totally planned on having at least 2 children just not so close together.  Mr. A and I both are the oldest children and our siblings are younger than us by at least 4 years so that was our plan to have our kids be 4 years apart.  Well we decided not to use any birth control that contained hormones in it as I was breastfeeding Ian.  Well you know the birds and the bees and in May 2013 I found out I was pregnant with Jensen!  As an added bonus we decided not to find out the gender prior to Jensen being born.

Alrighty, onto the real reason you’re here.  I woke up a little earlier than normal, 6am, feeling anxious and then I felt it the cramps.  That’s how my contractions start they feel like menstrual cramps and then they get way more intense.  I told Mr. A I think today is the day and he was not convinced since we were still 2 weeks from the due date, he took Ian to daycare.  I decided to work from home that day, emailed my boss letting her know that I might be having the baby that day.

I worked like normal and had contractions once or twice an hour.  I was really determined to work that day because I had one last meeting to hand off my work to my team mates at 1pm.  Poor guy I was training had no idea I was in labor and I personally thought I would have more time too. I wrapped up work around 3pm then called our disability line to schedule my leave and told Mr. A he needed to come home and pick up Ian from daycare. I also called my mom to come over so she could watch Ian while we were at the hospital. I attempted to watch TV to distract myself by now contractions were every 5 min lasting about 1 min long, the contractions were a 6 on the pain scale.

We headed to the hospital at 4 got checked in at 4:15pm, the nurse, Holly, checked dilation and I was about 5cm dilated. I had expressed that I wanted an epidural so they started the blood work and bag of fluid required before they could administer the epidural, by now it felt like the contractions were coming faster and longer and more painful, I couldn’t talk through them it was very hard to do the required breathing, during one of the contractions I told Mr. A “man that’s a lot of pressure” and Holly promptly checked me and she said oh wow you are 8 cm dilated we need to call your doctor and I asked if I could still get my epidural.  Holly didn’t say anything and Mr. A looked at me with the “I don’t think that’s happening” look.

 

2 more contractions and Holly wanted me to give a trial push, I was still freaking out. I was was in denial about not getting an epidural. The pain by this point was an 8 or 9, I was shivering uncontrollably, my body’s way of coping with the pain. I had the shivers with Ian but that was due to the epidural. The doctor arrived and got dressed and told me to push on the next contraction this next part was a blur the pain of pushing Jensen out was intense, apparently I screamed pretty loudly because the next day my throat felt raw, Dr. Thomas informed me she would break my bag of water and that actually relieved a lot of pain and then I grabbed my legs pushed, I have no idea how many times I pushed but it wasn’t more than 4 times and the immense relief of the shoulders passing the birth canal is nothing short of fantastic. Jensen was born at 5:41pm, I was at the hospital for less than 2 hrs!

Whenever I hear those news stories about women not making it to the hospital to deliver I always think “why’d you wait so long to go to the hospital” well now I know, they probably didn’t. I still can’t believe how quickly I progressed, they always say births after the first are much quicker 🙂 After he came out Mr. A announced that it was a little boy and he cut the cord, which he later said it’s not all that great of an experience haha :). They promptly put him on my chest and we got to snuggle and I got to breastfeed him, they cleaned him off right there on my chest. Then they took him away only long enough to weigh him and he was back in my arms.  Jensen weighed 6lbs 8.6oz.

So that’s how my unplanned natural birth went.  Did your labor and delivery go as planned or did your baby have plans of their own?