CJ's birth story

marajay6 · November 2014

Charles Jay (CJ) was born at 1:39 am on Saturday November 8. He weighed 9 lbs 10 oz and is 22.75 inches.

Friday 11/7 was my EDD. I had my 40 week appt that day. The doctor checked my cervix and I was 3 cm dilated, cervix was very thin and favorable for labor. At that appointment I had my membranes stripped. That was around 11 am.

Afterwards I returned to work. I had some bleeding from the sweep and it kept getting heavier. I also felt a bit crampy. I left work at 4 pm. When I got home, I was debating with myself: take a nap to be rested in case I go into labor or go for a walk around the neighborhood to enjoy the nice day and hopefully get things started. Before I could decide what to do labor started.

The first painful contractions started at 5 pm. At first I didn't think they were contractions. I pain was very low and strong enough for me to not notice my belly tightening. I started timing the waves of pain. They were 8-9 minutes apart (and occasionally 15 minutes apart).

From 5 pm until almost 8 pm I labored at home. This consisted of pacing around the house, frequenting the toilet (most contractions gave me the urge to pee), bouncing on my yoga ball, and lots of time on my hands and knees (or a modification). Around 7:30 I had a double contraction - it felt like one began before the current one ended. With that contraction I hit my pain threshold and decided I needed to go to the hospital for an epidural. I told my husband to load the car then we will call the doctor. My contractions hadn't been consistently 5 minutes apart for a whole hour so he thought it was too early. He didn't want to tell me that - he figured the doctor would when we called. It didn't take long to get the doctor on the phone. She told me to come right in.

The ride to the hospital is less than 15 minutes. DH kept me chatting the whole way to try and distract me from the pain. It worked fairly well. We got to the hospital and into triage pretty quickly. My husband worked on the paperwork while the nurse asked me loads of questions and checked my vitals. My doctor was in the room to check me before the nurse was done. Turns out my doctor was the OB working in l&d that night. She checked me and determined I was 7 cm dilated. I quickly got moved to a room while my doctor ordered the epidural.

Before getting the epidural, they had to give me a bag of IV fluids. It took 2 tries - I had a contraction on the first attempt and didn't keep my hand relaxed enough. Once the IV was placed, they got the fluids started. It didn't take long for the anesthesiologist to show up and give me the epidural. The placement of it didn't hurt much and the pain relief kicked in quickly.

Shortly before 11, I was checked again. The doctor said I was 8 cm and she broke my water. She said it looked like it was close to breaking on its own. The nurse then told Dh and I to both get some rest. We tried, but the excitement makes it near impossible. Right after midnight I was checked again and it was time to start pushing.

I pushed for a hour and a half. I couldn't feel my body telling me to push, so the nurse watched my contractions on the monitor and coached me. I was on my back, Dh holding one leg and the nurse holding the other. At some point DH started feeling faint - he doesn't do well with blood, so someone else came in to hold my leg and let Dh take a step away.

I did feel some pressure as he was crowning. After his head came out the rest of his body seemed to slide out. He was wiggling on the way out and it felt weird. The doctor put him on my stomach and everyone reacted. It seemed surreal to finally see him. Birth truly is a magical experience. The doctor and nurses started commenting right away about how big he was. I didn't think much of it until they started guessing 9.5 and 10 pounds. After a few minutes, he was taken over to get weighed, cleaned up, and the other stuff they do. Turns out he was 9 lbs 10 oz. The doctor stitched me up and it took a long time. I have a tear that is somewhere between a 2nd and 3rd degree plus two smaller tears. After that I finally got to hold and breastfeed my baby. I was a little frustrated with how long it took before I could hold him, but in the grand scheme of things it's not too big of a deal. I have had plenty of time to hold him since.

Overall I am satisfied with my birth experience. I was on the fence about getting an epidural. I wanted to see the how much pain I was in first.

The size of CJ was quite a surprise. Neither Dh nor I were large babies and I didn't have any growth scans during pregnancy. I am glad that we were niave about it - it saved from the worry that he wouldn't fit or from a doctor suggesting a c-section due to size.

Now time for some pictures. The nurses were crazy with compliments on how cute he is. I couldn't agree more.