Sweet Baby Jake

The Birth Story (Lots of labor and delivery lingo and numbers)

Doctor’s appointment at 2:30- find out that I am dilated 4 cm and 80 % effaced. Go home and think I may have baby in the next couple days…until I get first contraction. Contractions go from zero to three minutes apart by 5:30. Have the Hubs come home from work. Head to hospital around 6:30 (don’t remember exact time). Checked in dilated to 6. Get to room and have to wait a very LONG hour and a half for epidural, meanwhile contractions are 2 minutes apart.

Finally receive epi and have a bad reaction to it. My blood pressure drops, baby’s heart rate decelerates, and I am numb from the boobs down, light headed, and nauseated. They back off the epi and give me blood pressure meds to bring it back up. Left side of my body remains medicated, right side not so much. They break my waters at 9:30. Epi finally under control and my blood pressure levels by 10:30-ish. I have been completely dilated for some time and am now waiting for the baby’s head to drop down further. I happily take the opportunity to rest. Start pushing at 11:25 and baby was born at 11:29. I literally pushed twice…it was beyond surreal that it happened so quickly after having all the complications with the epidural and blood pressure. I am totally fuzzy in the timing, but know that it all happened VERY quickly. I am still in shock that he’s really really here.