Jori Marie Owens
10:39 am
7 pounds 1 ounce
20.5 inches long
13.25 head circumference
Like I promised in the post about our goal of having a natural childbirth experience, here is our labor story. I'm posting it a little later than I expected to, but I've had better things to do - like cuddle with my baby and take naps.
At 5am on Wednesday the 22nd I woke up in full blown labor. There wasn't much build up of slower, low intensity contractions. They were the type of contractions that I couldn't walk through, move through, or respond to questions through [sorry Matt]. The first contraction woke me up & lasted about 45 seconds. 3 minutes later another one. I woke Matt up & said "I think maybe I'm in labor" so he instantly popped out of bed & started getting the apartment tidy & bags packed. For about an hour the contractions continued. Between contractions I was able to move around, eat some food, & pack up last minute things. As soon as I felt another contraction starting I had to stop everything and either lean on the bed, counter, table, etc or sit on the yoga ball and rock my hips back and forth.
With our plan being a natural birth, we wanted to labor at home as long as possible so that the time at the hospital would be limited. This would give less opportunity for medical intervention if things were taking too long [according to the medical professionals]. I expected that we would be home for most of the morning & make our way around lunch time. Silly me. We would have had a home birth if we had waited much longer! My midwife said "you will know when you need to go to the hospital. Just listen to your body & you will just feel like it's time".
At 6am I started feeling more intense contractions & knew it was time to go in. By the time we got loaded up & to the hospital it was after 7. We went to the triage room so they could make sure I was in active labor. Duh. I absolutely was. & was 5cm dilated. We sat in the tiny triage room for an hour & the contractions continued to increase in intensity. At this point I had started moaning through them & even shed a few tears. I had to really focus & repeat to myself "relax, relax, relax" through the pain or my whole body would tense up, which isn't helpful & would make them more painful.
By the time we got up to the labor room I was really working hard. The contractions were close together & lasting a minute or longer. It was about 9am when I got into the shower in our labor room & sat while the jet shower heads ran on my lower back. That was amazing & really helped me stay relaxed even through the most painful of contractions. Things really started picking up & I began to doubt myself. With it being our first baby, we were expecting to be working most of the day & having a baby around dinner time. Our midwife felt the same way & hadn't made her way to the hospital yet. I wondered how the heck I was going to make it through contractions of that magnitude & frequency for many more hours & decided I'd probably need an epidural or I'd be too exhausted to push when the time came. During this time of doubt, I remembered what I had read in my natural childbirth books about this "emotional signpost". It it is a typical sign that the body is in the transition phase [when the cervix dilates from 8-10 cm & pushing is within an hour] when the woman begins to doubt her ability to continue. I put that thought out of my mind though, because I couldn't believe I could actually be progressed so far.
After about a half hour in the shower I moved to the labor tub. It's a big square tub with water that fills up high enough to submerge baby bellies & is big enough to be on hands & knees - which was my position of choice. Labor was really intense now & it took a lot of focus & determination [and yelling] to not lose control during contractions. After about 10 minutes in the tub I felt the urge to push. When I told the nurse this she was pretty relaxed about it, told me not to push, & checked me. "oh... your cervix is gone!" After only 2 hours, I went from 5cm dilated to fully dilated & ready to push... not typical for a first time childbirth experience. The nurse became less relaxed & started paging & calling the midwife saying she needed to get into the hospital right away.
I got out of the tub & into the bed & people started coming into our room in prep for pushing & baby time. The only person missing was our midwife. This was the only time Matthew started to get nervous. As I was getting into bed I had a contraction & my water finally broke. Unfortunately, there was meconium present in the fluid, which means Jori had a bowel movement. This was terrifying because if she ingested any of it, it could have been harmful to her health. So the NICU was called in to be ready in case we had a baby who needed emergency attention. There were probably about 12 people in our room at this point, but the only person I wanted to see was Kristin, our midwife. When I heard them say that there was meconium present, I knew that wasn't good & it is the only time I was on the verge of losing control & panicking. Enter my amazing husband - he said everything I needed to hear to get my breathing back under control & prayed for our lady. We got back on track & had more contractions while we waiting for Kristin.
I was told to not push since Kristin wasn't there yet & that was the hardest part of the whole thing. I couldn't do what my body needed & wanted, but finally Kristin showed up & things got rolling. As she came in she said "wow! let's have a baby!!" Her plan was to come in around lunch time, check in on me, & expected to deliver later in the afternoon/dinner time. Surprise! :]
I told Kristin right away that I needed to push & she encouraged me to do so. With her amazing coaching, encouragement, & my loving husband giving me all the support & help he could, we started pushing. Wow. Talk about feeing the burn. After about 15 minutes & multiple pushes that slowly moved our lady down, she was born! I think because I was able to feel all the pain, I wasn't able to push for long periods of time & with high force, so she slowly worked her way out & prevented me from tearing. No stitches. Hallelujah. After 5.5 hours of labor, we had our girl & she was perfect.
Good news - the meconium scare... she was fine :] after she was born, she cried within seconds, meaning she hadn't ingested anything & I could hold her right away. Within 15 minutes of being born & cuddles with me she started nursing. The first hour of her life she was cuddled up on me before they had to take her away to be cleaned up, measured, weighed, & double checked over. After that, Matt was finally able to hold her & that was one of the most memorable, beautiful moments of my life. They were perfect together & he was so smitten with his tiny lady. It truly was a great day & an amazing experience.
At 5am on Wednesday the 22nd I woke up in full blown labor. There wasn't much build up of slower, low intensity contractions. They were the type of contractions that I couldn't walk through, move through, or respond to questions through [sorry Matt]. The first contraction woke me up & lasted about 45 seconds. 3 minutes later another one. I woke Matt up & said "I think maybe I'm in labor" so he instantly popped out of bed & started getting the apartment tidy & bags packed. For about an hour the contractions continued. Between contractions I was able to move around, eat some food, & pack up last minute things. As soon as I felt another contraction starting I had to stop everything and either lean on the bed, counter, table, etc or sit on the yoga ball and rock my hips back and forth.
With our plan being a natural birth, we wanted to labor at home as long as possible so that the time at the hospital would be limited. This would give less opportunity for medical intervention if things were taking too long [according to the medical professionals]. I expected that we would be home for most of the morning & make our way around lunch time. Silly me. We would have had a home birth if we had waited much longer! My midwife said "you will know when you need to go to the hospital. Just listen to your body & you will just feel like it's time".
At 6am I started feeling more intense contractions & knew it was time to go in. By the time we got loaded up & to the hospital it was after 7. We went to the triage room so they could make sure I was in active labor. Duh. I absolutely was. & was 5cm dilated. We sat in the tiny triage room for an hour & the contractions continued to increase in intensity. At this point I had started moaning through them & even shed a few tears. I had to really focus & repeat to myself "relax, relax, relax" through the pain or my whole body would tense up, which isn't helpful & would make them more painful.
By the time we got up to the labor room I was really working hard. The contractions were close together & lasting a minute or longer. It was about 9am when I got into the shower in our labor room & sat while the jet shower heads ran on my lower back. That was amazing & really helped me stay relaxed even through the most painful of contractions. Things really started picking up & I began to doubt myself. With it being our first baby, we were expecting to be working most of the day & having a baby around dinner time. Our midwife felt the same way & hadn't made her way to the hospital yet. I wondered how the heck I was going to make it through contractions of that magnitude & frequency for many more hours & decided I'd probably need an epidural or I'd be too exhausted to push when the time came. During this time of doubt, I remembered what I had read in my natural childbirth books about this "emotional signpost". It it is a typical sign that the body is in the transition phase [when the cervix dilates from 8-10 cm & pushing is within an hour] when the woman begins to doubt her ability to continue. I put that thought out of my mind though, because I couldn't believe I could actually be progressed so far.
After about a half hour in the shower I moved to the labor tub. It's a big square tub with water that fills up high enough to submerge baby bellies & is big enough to be on hands & knees - which was my position of choice. Labor was really intense now & it took a lot of focus & determination [and yelling] to not lose control during contractions. After about 10 minutes in the tub I felt the urge to push. When I told the nurse this she was pretty relaxed about it, told me not to push, & checked me. "oh... your cervix is gone!" After only 2 hours, I went from 5cm dilated to fully dilated & ready to push... not typical for a first time childbirth experience. The nurse became less relaxed & started paging & calling the midwife saying she needed to get into the hospital right away.
I got out of the tub & into the bed & people started coming into our room in prep for pushing & baby time. The only person missing was our midwife. This was the only time Matthew started to get nervous. As I was getting into bed I had a contraction & my water finally broke. Unfortunately, there was meconium present in the fluid, which means Jori had a bowel movement. This was terrifying because if she ingested any of it, it could have been harmful to her health. So the NICU was called in to be ready in case we had a baby who needed emergency attention. There were probably about 12 people in our room at this point, but the only person I wanted to see was Kristin, our midwife. When I heard them say that there was meconium present, I knew that wasn't good & it is the only time I was on the verge of losing control & panicking. Enter my amazing husband - he said everything I needed to hear to get my breathing back under control & prayed for our lady. We got back on track & had more contractions while we waiting for Kristin.
I was told to not push since Kristin wasn't there yet & that was the hardest part of the whole thing. I couldn't do what my body needed & wanted, but finally Kristin showed up & things got rolling. As she came in she said "wow! let's have a baby!!" Her plan was to come in around lunch time, check in on me, & expected to deliver later in the afternoon/dinner time. Surprise! :]
I told Kristin right away that I needed to push & she encouraged me to do so. With her amazing coaching, encouragement, & my loving husband giving me all the support & help he could, we started pushing. Wow. Talk about feeing the burn. After about 15 minutes & multiple pushes that slowly moved our lady down, she was born! I think because I was able to feel all the pain, I wasn't able to push for long periods of time & with high force, so she slowly worked her way out & prevented me from tearing. No stitches. Hallelujah. After 5.5 hours of labor, we had our girl & she was perfect.
Good news - the meconium scare... she was fine :] after she was born, she cried within seconds, meaning she hadn't ingested anything & I could hold her right away. Within 15 minutes of being born & cuddles with me she started nursing. The first hour of her life she was cuddled up on me before they had to take her away to be cleaned up, measured, weighed, & double checked over. After that, Matt was finally able to hold her & that was one of the most memorable, beautiful moments of my life. They were perfect together & he was so smitten with his tiny lady. It truly was a great day & an amazing experience.
our first family picture. poor Jori destroyed her face with her sharp baby nails before we were able to get a good picture. what a stinker.
cutest baby feet i've ever seen
our tiny lady hours after she was born
This story brought tears to my eyes for sure! I am so happy for the two of you and your blessing that you brought into the world. Jori is beautiful! May God bless you as you grow in your new life as a family together. :)
ReplyDeleteAh-Maz-ing! This is the second time I'm hearing this, but I still teared up! You and Matt are truly an inspiration to Justin and I. I'm no doctor, but I totally think you not tearing/lack of epidural or episiotomy (and therefore maximum compression for Jori on the way out) helped squeeze all the fluids from Jori's chest/mouth/nose and helped with her respiration. Plus, being able to engage your pelvic floor muscles probably helped you squeeze the crap outta Jori's sweet head which might have prevented tearing! Just another reason I want to by-pass the epi if possible. Looks like my options in OK are homebirth, birth center, or driving an hour to OK city hospital; the hospital in Norman, OK, doesn't allow CNMs to deliver at their facility. LAME!
ReplyDeleteOkay I teared up on this post, thank you for sharing your experience! Hope all is well with little Jori Marie!
ReplyDelete