Jaymes' Birth Story

I woke up at 4:00 in the morning on August 12th with contractions. Since I had had contractions throughout the entire pregnancy, I didn't think much of it. The contractions weren't painful, so I just tried to go back to sleep. I realized they were coming pretty regularly, so I decided to time them, and they were 5 to 6 minutes apart. I still didn't think much of them, though, since that was pretty normal for me. I decided to get up anyway, and the contractions seemed to slow down, but when 8:00 came around I had an overwhelming feeling that I should call my doctor. I had an appt. set up for 3:30 that afternoon anyway, and I was just sure this was a false alarm, but I couldn't stop that overwhelming feeling that I should call my doctor. He told me to come in as soon as I could that morning. Monte's mom was planning on getting Isabella for a couple days anyway, so I called her and asked her to meet us at the clinic, which is only an hour away from where she lives. I went in for my appt. while Monte and Isabella waited in the parking lot for his mom to arrive. I told my doctor that I was sure this was a false alarm, and he said that he would bet I was at least a week away from delivery yet . . . then he checked me. His exact words were, "Oh my! You're having this baby today, call your husband, and head over to the hospital."

Monte's mom arrived just in time, and took off with Isabella. Monte and I arrived at the hospital around 10:00. The nurse showed us to our room, then told us that our nurse for the day was Sandy, and she would be there shortly. Sandy is a friend of Monte's family, she's awesome, and she was also my nurse when I was in labor with Isabella. I had been praying that she would be my nurse again, but she doesn't work very often, she's on call to only work on very busy days. Turns out it was a very busy day that day!



Once I got hooked up to the monitors I was surprised to see that my contractions were 2 to 4 minutes apart, because I still wasn't really feeling them. My doctor came at noon, and broke my water, then stuck around for a while because of how insanely fast I progressed with Isabella, he thought it could go the same way again. With Isabella, I got an epidural, but it didn't kick in until after she was born. My doctor told me this time, if I was going to get an epidural to do it now. I wasn't planning on it, but then I got scared, thinking back to the pain, and I totally chickened out and got it! It. was. amazing!! The contractions were just starting to get really painful when I got the epidural, I believe I kept saying over and over again, "This is the greatest thing ever invented!" Things continued to progress that afternoon pretty slowly, then around 5:00 my epidural completely quit working. Apparently it happens about 1 in 10 times. So for the last couple, most painful, hours of labor I didn't have anything. In the end, I'm glad because it gave me lots of chances to offer it up for specific people, circumstances, etc.



Once I got to 9 cm, I asked if my doctor was coming, and the nurses said (my nurse, Sandy, had gone home by then) they were going to wait a little while yet. I BEGGED them to call my doctor, because I just knew it was going to be soon. Sure enough, once I got to a 10, and had the overwhelming urge to push, my doctor was not there! That was awful, not being able to push when I HAD to so badly! The minute he walked through door I started pushing, and I believe I exclaimed, "Thank God you're here!!" And in three quick pushes sweet little Jaymes arrived at 7:00 sharp! They laid him on my chest for quite a while, and I was in shock because it was a totally different experience than having Isabella - so calm! As I type this I'm overwhelmed with emotion, thinking of how wonderful the experience was!



I tore very bad, into the muscle, it took the doctor what seemed like a VERY long time to sew me up, and for some reason his numbing injections didn't work on me, so I felt everything. That was probably the worst part of the whole experience for me. My recovery in that department has been very slow and very frustrating for me. I ended up going in to the Dr. this past Saturday because the pain was so bad I could hardly move. The P. A. I saw thought it might be infected, and said it just wasn't healing very good, and had a really long way to go. I then had another appt. with my doctor on Monday of this week, and he didn't think it was infected, but also said it wasn't healing very fast. He said the pain has been so bad because the tears were so deep that the nerves were just starting to "wake up" and form again around two weeks post partum. I'm hoping to get over this soon, because it is really slowing me down. Other than that, it really was a great experience, my entire time in the hospital was a really good experience, a million times better than Isabella's birth!