I have enjoyed documenting all of our kids' birth stories - a visual and written reminder of those hours filled with excitement, anxiety, anticipation, and most of all prayer as we have brought each of our little ones into the world. Each story is also an amazing testament of God's grace, protection, peace, and faithfulness. Now as our Jude is 4 weeks old and little details of his birth story have popped into my mind over the past few weeks, I am needing to record his story before those details disappear from my memory.
I guess you could say that Jude's birth story began around 6 weeks gestation when I had some bleeding and went to see my midwife. She ordered an ultrasound which showed a baby smaller than 6 weeks. The ultrasound detected a heartbeat but it was slow. The doctor told me that I had a high risk of miscarriage and asked me to come back in two weeks for another ultrasound. Those were two very long weeks! I had a little more bleeding and prepared myself for the possibility of miscarrying. Our next ultrasound showed a baby measuring at exactly 8 weeks with a perfect heartrate - the first of many answered prayers during this pregnancy.
Jude's birth story continued at 20 weeks gestation when I was diagnosed with a placenta previa. We were guaranteed a scheduled c-section at 37 weeks along with the possibility of bedrest and lots of scary complications. We prayed A LOT and went back for repeat ultrasounds every 4 weeks to check the location of the placenta. Each time there was little to no change, but I also never experienced any of the possible complications. If the placenta was going to move, it should have moved by 32 weeks. It didn't. The doctor who had been most optimistic about it moving enough for me to have a vaginal birth lost his optimism at that appointment. He told us we would have one more ultrasound at 36 weeks and that we would have decisions to make after that. Well, at 36 weeks the placenta was out of the way! The least optimistic doctor we had seen told me that I was now just like every other obstetric patient. I was no longer "high risk." It took me a bit to process what she had said. For 16 weeks, we were planning on our baby arriving at least 3 weeks early barring no complications before that. Praise God!
Now, instead of our baby arriving in the beginning of May we were back to waiting for him to arrive on his own. I have never gone into labor on my own and have been induced for various reasons with all of the others. Jonah ended up with an emergency c-section due to the cord being around his neck causing serious issues with his heart rate during labor. But, then I had successful VBACs with Silas and Lydia. So, I was hoping I would go into labor with Jude. I had lots of contractions throughout the last few weeks of this pregnancy as well as some other signs that labor could be starting soon. At my 40 week appointment, I was 2 cm and 75% effaced. The midwife stripped my membranes hoping to jumpstart labor and scheduled my induction for a week later. After that appointment I went to my chiropractor for another adjustment and another acupuncture session to encourage labor. All of that didn't bring on labor but did bring on more and more signs that labor could start anytime. During the next week, I had a number of periods of contractions for 2+ hours but labor never started. So, we arrived at the hospital on Friday morning, May 30, at 6:30am to begin our induction.
It took about an hour and a half to get everything set up. Before starting the induction, the midwife checked me and said I was at 3cm and 80% effaced. She thought the baby would be in my arms soon! By about 8:15am, the pitocin got started. Right away contractions began and were consistently 2-3 minutes apart. Since I was attempting another VBAC and the baby's heart rate would be the first sign of uterine rupture (the big concern with vbacs), I needed to have continuous monitoring of the baby's heart rate and was limited to being only about 6 feet from the monitor. But, I still spent a lot of time standing, walking short distances, rocking on a ball, and tailor sitting doing all I could to encourage this baby to come. For 4 1/2 hours, the contractions were steady but never got much more intense. The pitocin was almost at its maximum level. I began to wonder if we would have a baby that day!
Then, shortly before 1:00pm, I lost 2 large blood clots. The midwife thought that it was ok but with the history of the placenta previa, she wanted to check to see if she could feel any placenta in the way. As she was checking me, she said I was still at 3 cm and my water broke. Thankfully, the midwife couldn't feel the placenta at all. After that, labor seriously picked up. The contractions didn't come much closer together but started getting very intense and hard to relax and breathe through.
Going into this delivery, I didn't know if I would get an epidural or not. I delivered Silas without any pain meds. The pitocin caused some crazy intense, one on top of another contractions and the last two hours of active labor into transition still go down as the worst 2 hours of my life. But, the pushing stage wasn't too bad and feeling in control of my body was good. I hoped to have another natural birth. Then came Lydia's delivery. With her my water broke but labor wouldn't start. So, I had to be induced again. After being awake for over 24 hours, I wasn't mentally ready for the intensity of labor. So, after a long time of debating during a very slowly progressing labor, I got the epidural. I was able to rest for about 45 minutes before the nurse came in and said she was calling the midwife to check me because she was pretty sure from monitoring the contractions that I had progressed from 5cm to complete in 45 minutes and was ready to start pushing. I ran into issues during pushing because a thick stubborn band of tissue inside the birth canal was making it impossible to get Lydia out. We tried pushing in every position imaginable in hopes of getting around it but nothing worked. So, an OB ended up joining my delivery to cut the scar tissue. Lydia was born just a few pushes later. Boy was I glad that I had that epidural! It would not have been fun feeling the cutting. Back to Jude's delivery...the midwives were not sure if I would have issues with the tissue again with this delivery. The OB had removed the thick tissue that was there before but no one knew if it would cause problems again this time. Once Jude's labor picked up and delivery was going to be happening soon, I decided I didn't want to have to experience that again but without an epidural, so I asked for one and my midwife, who told me earlier that she would not ask me if I wanted an epidural, said she was glad I did get the epidural because of my previous delivery.
The epidural was in and starting to work shortly after 1:30 pm. The relief from the intense contractions was nice but then I started having some serious pain across my pubic bone. The anesthesiologist said there wasn't much that the epidural could do to help that pain. The midwife came in after delivering another baby and said that she thought the reason for the pain was that the baby was coming fast. She was right! By not much after 2:00pm, I felt the urge to push. In less than an hour, I had progressed from 3 cm to 10 cm!
The midwife sat down on the end of the bed and calmly said, "Ok, let's have this baby!" They didn't break down the bed or turn all the bright lights on or all the other hoopla that usually accompanies deliveries. It was so calm and peaceful. By the first pushing contraction, Jude was already making his way out. The nurse and midwife made comments about his dark hair and said it wouldn't be long now. Within 4 pushing contractions (maybe 12-15 pushes), our baby was born at 2:27pm! Jude started crying even before he was fully out of me. Before I even realized that he was here, the midwife said, "Reach down and pull your baby up to your chest." He was mine!
I held him while the nurse did all of the newborn checks and cares. One of the things I loved about delivering at UNMC was that they don't take the baby from you unless it is absolutely necessary. Jude's apgar scores were great - 9/9. Once the umbilical cord stopped pulsating, Mike cut the cord.
I was able to nurse Jude right away. He was a rockstar! He nursed for about an hour while the midwife finished up. Thankfully I had very little tearing and needed only a few stitches.
Finally after all of that we were ready to find out our big our new baby was. The nurse weighed him - 8 lbs, 12 oz. Jude was our 2nd biggest baby (12 oz smaller than our 9 lb, 8 oz Silas).
I felt great after Jude's delivery! He was definitely my easiest delivery. I was up walking around right away, took a shower, gathered our belongings from our L&D room, and even got to push Jude in his bassinet over to our mother/baby room. Our midwife Kate was amazing! While having 2 babies at this practice of 5 midwives, I had only met Kate once and it was very brief. So, when we were scheduled for our induction with her I was a bit nervous just because I didn't know her at all. But, praise God for giving us the opportunity to deliver with her. She was such an encouragement to us. Aside from being induced, everything went just as I would have wanted it to.
Jude's pregnancy was an amazing testament to God's sovereignty, protection, faithfulness, and grace. It was 9 months of continually remembering that we are not in control, that life is not in our hands, and trusting that whether we experienced a miscarriage, bleeding from the placenta previa, bed rest, hospitalization, had a premie baby, had a early c-section, or whether Jude came as a healthy baby at 41 weeks gestation without complications for him or for me that God was working all things together for our good and for His glory. Praise God from who all blessings flow!
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