Baby Jack: A Birth Story (The End).

We left off with me riding the epidural high-those magic pain-free moments after hours of pain. Magic, I tell you. 
My parents came by and my dad remarked that it was so nice to see me so calm and relaxed. I think what me meant was knowing you, I'm shocked that you're not a terrified bundle of anxiety right now, and he was right.
I don't know how to explain it, but the night before Jack was born will forever be one of my favorite nights. I think a lot of it had to do with the fact that it was nighttime, so everything was just more quiet and peaceful. The lights were softer and there wasn't so much noise. 
It really felt like the night before Christmas, or a big vacation. Christopher and me just hanging out, dozing for twenty-minute stretches every now and then, watching house hunters (the only channel that would come through haha), eating way too many popsicles, and browsing the humor section of pinterest. 

Around 3:15AM I woke up to a popping sound. I threw a pillow at Chris to wake him up and told him I thought my water had broke. He told me it had (perks of being married to a doctor!). 

I fell asleep, and woke up to the nurse telling me she wanted to try a practice push to see how my body was reacting to the epidural. I did what she told me, she screamed at me to stop, and ran and got the doctor. Within minutes the room was full of lights and nurses and my favorite doctor. I figured that meant something was about to happen, so I texted my mom, "Wakey wakey, we're having a baby!"

This is the part where you all get to hate me. 

I looked back later at what time I sent the text. I texted her at 5:35. 

Jack was born at 5:58. 

The first time I held my little bub.

I shouted, "He's so tiny!" When the doctor was handing him to me, and the doctor laughed and said, "No he's not!" But he was just the tiniest little babe I'd ever seen up close, and it was insane to me that his itsy-bitsy arms and legs could already move. 

When he was placed in my arms, I felt a rush of emotions, but they were different than the ones I expected the feel. It was less of an, "I suddenly love you" and more of an, "I'm so happy you're finally here, I've always loved you, you've always been a part of my life and I'm just so glad we're together now." I felt relieved, like we'd been waiting for this moment for much longer than 40 weeks. I felt pride and love and just a downright connection rise up in me and overflow from my heart, and it was perfect. 

It's such a strange experience. One second, this baby is an unseen, unheard face inside of you, and the very next second, it's a moving, crying actual part of this world. It's the strangest feeling.

Our first photo as a family of three. Chris is beaming, I am fading, and Jack is pretty mad about the whole being born thing. 

I'll spare you details, but there's no sugarcoating it: Birth sucks. An epidural wearing off sucks. Recovery sucks. But there are absolutely no words to describe the magic of waking up as a family of two one day and starting the next day as a family of three. There aren't words to adequately explain the feeling of holding something that is half of you and half of the person you love most in this world. 

When it was time to come go home, it felt like we were doing something wrong. Like, surely they weren't about to let us leave the hospital with an actual baby. Surely someone was going to stop us and say, "Yes, but can you really take care of him?"

But they did let us leave, and we went out into the real world to start our life as a perfect little family. And while I still feel pretty clueless, it's been six months, and we're still going strong.

This looks like he's crying, but he's really not. He still sleeps like this, sucking his little bottom lip in. 

Home the first day, after the first shower that felt so magical, letting Gatsby get used to his little brother. 

And that is the story of how little Jack Isaiah Jacobs came into this world.

Baby Jack: A Birth Story. (Part Two)

Continuing the story of baby Jack and how he came into this world. Part one here.

We left off with the grumpy nurse, but unfortunately, that is not where she leaves my story. She took us back to a triage room, hooked me up to a monitor and, within ten minutes, told me I was going home. Even though my contractions were only 3 minutes apart at this point, they were only lasting about 40 seconds, and she said I was only dilated to a 2-the same I had been at my doctor's appointment.

The doctor had to see me before I could be sent home, though, and he was in a c-section, so she left me in the triage room, hooked up to the monitors. For two hours. Where I still had contractions every. three. minutes.

Now seems like a good time to address the issue of contractions. Everything I read said, "You can't really explain what they feel like!" Which I found incredibly frustrating, because I feel like if so many women experience this, someone should be able to explain them. And then I spent the day having contractions, so here I am to explain them to you.

It feels like you are slowly dying from the inside out. And that is all I can say. Because now I realize that the reason no one can explain them is because there is literally nothing else to compare them to.

I spent those two hours alternating squeezing Christopher's hand and whining and saying "I cannot do this" and trying to make it through clips of my favorite episodes of The Office.  Then this magical moment happened where I heard my doctor's voice coming down the hall, and I literally began crying out of sheer happiness before he even came in the room. Long (and gruesome) story short, he told the nurse she was wrong and that I was ready to be admitted and have an epidural.

Now, I know that there is a lot of back and forth about whether or not epidurals are safe/worth it/the right decision, so I will now lay out the pros and cons of getting an epidural and also the specific steps of my birth plan.

PROS: Literally everything. 
CONS: Nothing. 
BIRTH PLAN: Get an epidural. As soon as possible. 

I can only imagine the emails I will from you guys about this, but bring it on. I'm so happy with that decision. I will also say that even if I had spent my entire pregnancy thinking that I wanted to have a natural birth with no medicine, the pain I was in while I waited on the doctor would have been more than enough to change my mind. 

The two sweetest nurses came by to get me ready to be admitted, and Chris asked them if I could eat something since I hadn't eaten all day. They went and asked and came back and said "We have a good news/bad news situation. You can eat, but if you do, you can't get an epidural." And that is the story of how my 2 day diet came to be. 

I got admitted at about 6:00PM, and the guy who was going to give me the epidural was in the room waiting for me-cue tears of sheer happiness round two. I made sure to NOT look at the little cart he was pushing around...I knew what those needles looked like, and I did not need to see the one that was about the be shoved in my back.

My nurse who would be with me the rest of the night (her name was Marci and she was the best ever) came and stood in front of me with her arms out. She explained that sometimes when people get an epidural, the pain surprises them so they jump off the bed. Casual. I prepared myself to feel a bunch of pain and not jump off the bed...anddddd I didn't feel a single thing. I thought he was still taping off the area once it was done.

We've already established that I was pretty clueless about this whole having a baby thing, but one of the many things I was wrong about was that I thought it took at least an hour for the epidural to kick in-wrong. I was hooked up to a monitor and the guy asked me "Is it working yet?" I said, "I have no idea." The nurse gestured to the screen and told me I was in the middle of a monster contraction.

I. Felt. Nothing.

And thus began one of the most amazing nights of my entire life.

To be continued (again)...

Baby Jack: A Birth Story. (Part One)

And this is the story of how baby Jack came into this world.

Tuesday, January 12th. I had been having contractions on and off since Christmas, and I just knew that at this appointment, only two days away from my due date, the doctor was going to tell me I was super close to having a baby. Instead, she said that wasn't the case and scheduled me for an induction on the 21st. I cried and told Chris I did not think I could physically be pregnant for nine more days, so we went to Chick-Fil-A. We ended up having the best night ever…we got pizza and watched The Martian and just hung out. When we went to bed that night, we said that if that had been our last night just the two of us, it would have been a great one.

After my appointment on Tuesday, I wrote this in my planner, like mayyyyybe it would make it true.

Wednesday, January 13th. Chris made us a big breakfast and we were having a lazy morning watching Netflix. I was having contractions, but at this point, I didn’t trust them at all. I downloaded an app that tracks them, and they were coming between 8-25 minutes apart. The problem was that they started hurting way more than before. We were in the middle of an episode of The West Wing and I decided to take a bath to see if I could get my body to relax if it wasn’t the real thing, which I was positive it wasn’t. Chris was not so sure, but I chalked that up to it being the first day he’d been with me where I had a lot of contractions. I was sure my body was still lying to me.

I could tell that he thought something was happening because while I was in the bath, he took the dog out and refilled his food and water, which was something on our list of what to do right before we left for the hospital. I kept the app open on my phone and just pressed the button when I had contractions, not really paying attention to the timing.

When I got out and went to lay down, Chris picked my phone up…and saw that my contractions were 4 and a half minutes apart. He told me I needed to get dressed because we should probably go to the hospital. The problem was that they were only lasting about 40 seconds each, and I was sure that I was going to get sent home from the hospital, which I had made a goal to NOT happen. Now, I’m pretty happy with who I am as a person, but even I have to admit that I am incredibly stubborn once I have something in my mind. At that point, I had in my mind that I was not in labor, and going to the hospital would only get me sent home with a bill. Let us also take a moment to remember that I am married to a man who will be a doctor in May. And still, I'm so stubborn. 

The following conversation took place between contractions.

Chris: Hey, why don’t we just go to the hospital? Just for kicks.

Me: I don’t think we need to.

Chris: Why don’t you get dressed, just in case?

Contraction.

Me: Okay, but it’s not time to go yet.

I wander around the house, trying to decide what to put on and if I want a snack.

Chris: Chelsea, why don’t you get dressed?

Me: Because I don’t want to go to the hospital yet.

Contraction

Chris: Okay, so why don’t we do this: You get dressed, and we’ll go to Chick-Fil-A, and while we’re there, we’ll decide if we should maybe go to the hospital. And we’ll take our stuff just in case.

At this point, Chris has gotten all of our stuff together, packed all of the last minute things from our list, and I am literally just standing there in a towel telling him my contractions are fake.

Chris: GET DRESSED.

Me: You know what’s funny? All this time I’ve had to plan, I haven’t thought at all about what I wanted to wear to the hospital.

Chris: You haven’t—what? Okay, no. Just get—

Contraction.

Chris: You are going to get dressed before your next contraction, or you are going to the hospital in my boxers and a t-shirt. Your choice.

So I got dressed, hugged Gatsby, told him we’d be home soon, and had about three more contractions while grabbing random things I thought I might need at the hospital before Chris made me go stand outside so we could actually leave.

On the way to Chick-Fil-A, I told him that I felt stupid because I was pretty sure they were going to send me home. He said not to worry about it, and then said something that struck fear into my heart.

“It’s better to get there too early and get sent home than it is to get there too late to get an epidural.”

We pulled into the drive-thru at that moment, because I wanted to eat a meal before checking in, and the mother of all contractions hit. While Chris was paying for the food I checked the app and saw they were coming at THREE AND A HALF MINUTES APART. I managed to eat exactly one chicken nugget and two French fries before starting to sob that I had waited too long and now wasn’t going to be able to get an epidural and that was going to be the end of my life.

We got to the hospital, where we had preregistered so we wouldn’t have to wait. I guess when I imagined not waiting, my imagination did not include a grumpy nurse at the front desk.

Me: Hi, we preregistered. Gives her information.

Grumpy nurse: Why are you here?

Me: Has contraction.

Chris: She’s in labor.

Grumpy nurse: You don’t look like you’re in labor. You look like you could go jogging right now.

Me and Chris: …….

Grumpy nurse: Well...come on back, I guess. But I don't think you're in labor.

To be continued!