Jackson's Birth Story

This post is a long time coming.  It's surprising how little free time you have when you have a brand new baby.  Finally, here's the story leading up to Jackson's birth.  This is a pretty long one, and is probably more for me so I can have all of this written down somewhere, so I won't be offended if you don't read the whole thing and just look at the cute pictures of Jackson :)

Saturday, January 15 - We moved into the house in Payson, however the couple whose house it is wasn't leaving until Jan. 30, so our stuff was pretty much still all in boxes.  

Tuesday, January 17 - I had my 38 week appointment and learned that my Braxton Hicks contractions were finally accomplishing something!  My doctor said I was about 1cm dilated and 80% effaced, and that if I got to about 3cm by my next appointment I could be induced a little early.  So, I started praying for more contractions :) 

The belly at 38 weeks

Monday, January 23 - I had my 39 week appointment, and hadn't really progressed any :(  No early induction.  So, this week we started working on unpacking and getting a little more settled in the house.

Wednesday, January 25/Thursday, January 26 - I thought I started leaking fluid Wednesday afternoon, and then started having a lot more Braxton Hicks contractions that evening.  So Thursday morning I decided to go into the hospital to have them check.  Before Shawn left for work that morning, he told Jackson that he either needed to come out or stay in, but no more of this in between stuff.  When I got to the hospital, I was really bummed to find out that it wasn't fluid, and was sent home.  Apparently Jackson listened to his dad and decided to stay in, because I didn't have any more contractions for the next few days!

Saturday, January 28 - My mom flew in to town to help us get ready for Jackson's coming and get settled into our house!

Monday, January 30 - My 40 week appointment!  I found out that I was now 2+ cm dilated (about 2 1/2).  My doctor decided that rather than wait a full week to induce me that we could move the induction to that Wednesday, February 1.  Needless to say, I left the office elated to have an end in sight, and a much closer end than I had anticipated!  Mom and I spent the day getting last minute things to get ready for Jackson and things to help get the house organized.  We were shopping all day, and then spent that night after dinner working on organizing the kitchen.  We only finished about half of it before going to bed around 11pm and left the kitchen a total disaster, assuming we would finish it the next day.

Tuesday, January 31 - I woke up at 3:20 am and got up to use the bathroom when I felt a big gush of fluid.  This time, I was pretty sure my water had just broken.  So Shawn and I grabbed our hospital bags and headed up to Orem.  They tested the fluid and it came back negative again!  We were really surprised.  However, I had dilated to 3cm.  They kept me there to monitor me for another 45 minutes.  I started having some light contractions while I was at the hospital, and then right before they sent me home I had 2 really strong contractions.  We left just after 5am knowing that we would have Jackson by the next morning at the very latest.  On the 30 minute drive home, the contractions kept coming fairly regularly, and they were getting stronger.  Shawn decided to head to work, but told me to call him if the contractions kept coming and we needed to go back to the hospital.  I tried to lay down and get some sleep, but on and on they went.

Finally at 6:45am I decided to start timing my contractions.  They had gotten intense enough that I really couldn't talk through them.  I timed them for the next hour and a half and they were consistently 3-5 minutes apart, lasting 60-90 seconds each.  Time to go back to the hospital!  I was a little hesitant to go because I really did not want to get sent home for a third time, but Shawn talked me into it.

On the 30 minute drive back to the hospital, my contractions continued to get more intense and I started having back labor.  Totally not comfortable in the car!  Shawn left work and met my mom and I at the hospital a little after 9am.  Again, I got hooked up to monitors and checked out.  I was now dilated to a 3+ and my blood pressure was pretty high.  They monitored me for the next hour to see if I progressed and if my blood pressure stayed high, and the contractions kept getting more intense.  Our nurse was awesome, and was trying to find reasons to get me admitted because I was in so much pain.

At the end of the hour I was dilated to 4 cm, which apparently wasn't enough progression to get me admitted.  However, my blood pressure was still high so they decided to do some blood work to make sure everything was okay.  Another hour and a half later the blood work all came back normal, but my contractions had increased in intensity and time.  They decided to give me some morphine to help with the pain and watch a little longer.  The morphine totally DID NOT help with the pain, just made me really tired and unable to sleep.  Shawn and my mom were both awesome in helping manage my pain and work on breathing through the contractions.  When the nurse came back to check on me, I had dilated all the way to 6 cm!!  It was finally time to get admitted and get an epidural!

Once the epidural kicked in, contractions were no big deal :)  My mom and Shawn liked watching the monitor and saying things like, "Oh, that was a big one!"  My doctor came in and broke my water and I was given pitocin.  Things went pretty quick after that.  Over the next 2 hours I dilated about 2 cm every hour, and was ready to start pushing around 5 pm.  Unfortunately, my epidural had started wearing off and I was feeling a lot more than I was hoping.  The anesthesiologist came in and gave me a half dose to help me get through the rest of the delivery.

Jackson was so low that the doctors thought the delivery would go really quickly.  It didn't :(  After about an hour of pushing, Shawn could see the top of Jackson's head, and it had quite a bit of dark hair!  We still aren't quite sure where all of his hair came from.  However, I didn't have quite enough room for Jackson to fit through, and he kind of got stuck.  Also, my epidural was wearing off again and pushing was getting really painful.  We could either use a vacuum to help get Jackson's head out, but the chances of his shoulders getting stuck would be higher, or we could keep trying to have him naturally.  Shawn had a nurse bring a mirror over so I could actually see Jackson's head, and that gave me enough motivation to keep going.  After another 45 minutes of pushing with very little (if any) pain medication, Jackson's head came through and the rest of him followed quickly after that!

After 14 total hours of labor, including about 2 hours of pushing, Jackson Jeffrey Ward was born at 7:08pm! 

He weighed 7 lbs 14 oz, and was 20 inches long.

He started crying pretty soon after he was born, but then Shawn and I started talking to him and he quieted down really quickly :)

And then I got to hold him for the first time :)

Jackson had some health concerns and was taken to the nursery pretty soon after he was born, and that's where he stayed the whole time in the hospital.  His oxygen levels were low at first and he had a hard time slowing down his breathing.  Once in the nursery, they found out that Jackson's CRP level (white blood cell to red blood cell ratio) was high, so they gave him antibiotics in case he was fighting an infection.  That earned him at least 48 hours in the level II nursery, which is a step below the NICU.  They also found that Jackson was Coombs positive (I have A positive blood and he has B negative, so our blood types were incompatible), which then led to diagnosing him with jaundice.

Jackson hooked up to his monitors and IV in the nursery

The nurses wrapped Jackson's bed in the blanket in the background and let us take it home

Jackson's oxygen level and breathing normalized pretty quickly, but we had to wait for his CRP level to go down before we could leave.  They also had him under the lights to treat his jaundice as much as possible while we were there in hopes that we would not have to bring lights home for him. 

Jackson in his tanning bed

We got to go in to visit him as often as we wanted and to feed him every 3 hours.  We got to know the nurses in the level II nursery pretty well. 

Grandma Brown visiting Jackson in the nursery

Cuddling with mommy

Cuddling with daddy

I was discharged Thursday, so we boarded at the hospital so we could stay with Jackson until he was ready.  Jackson's CRP level was finally low enough that we could bring him home on Saturday, and the awesome nurses hooked us up with a lot of stuff!  His jaundice was also under control enough that we didn't have to put him under the lights at home!

Jackson finally off all of his monitors!

All ready to go home :)

Jackson may have had a bit of a rough start, but he is a trooper!  He is doing well now, and we are loving having him at home!

Welcome to our family Jackson!  We love you!