THE BIRTH

I know it has been 15 days since Jackson Brian Treanor has blessed our lives so this info is coming out a little late, but life has truly changed...more about that later.

Jackson was ready to come before I was. While many mothers are begging for their babies to come a little early, I was begging him to wait for his due date. This was not to be the case. My doctor discovered that my amniotic fluid was low, indicating that my placenta was aging a little faster than normal and she would need to take Jack early. On the Friday before his birth Dr. Cannon looked at Dustin and I and said, "Do you want to have him tonight or tomorrow night?" We must have looked like a couple deer in headlights, it was not what we expected. We were in such shock that we asked the doctor what would work best for her. She kind of laughed and said her job was a 24 hour kind of job. It was decided that we would go for the latter and were to check in at the hospital on Saturday night. I didn't have a bag packed and we had nothing ready so we could use the extra time to get all of our stuff together.

That night at home we got things ready for the next day. In addition to getting our plethora of stuff together (changes of clothes, nightgowns, iPod, camera, video camera, birth ball, pillows, blanket, cooler and snack food, etc) Dustin went frisbee golfing in the morning and I went to Babies R Us for some last minute items. That afternoon Dustin, Eric and I went to see the new Batman. We didn't think we would be able to go the the movies for a while so thought this would be our last chance. It was such a good movie and I was so glad that we went.That night at 9 pm we headed for the hospital. We met our Doula, Rachel, at the admitting desk and headed for our birthing room.

The plan was to start with a drug called Cytotech, which is to ripen my cervix and hopefully put me into labor. I am to take three doses of it, 4 hours a part. If that doesn't work then they will start the Petosin. After my second does I was having small contractions that were about 2 minutes apart. After my third dose they thought that I was going to have to have the Petosin, but just before they were going to give it to me my contractions started coming harder and when the nurse checked me I was 100% effaced and dilated to a 3 cm. This was at about 12:30 pm and my labor started coming harder at that time with my contractions 2 min apart. After my water broke I started bleeding a lot more than they were comfortable with and almost took him c-section, but then the bleeding slowed. There was also a point when Jack's heart rate dropped and they considered taking him c-section again, but they put an oxygen mask on me and this brought his heart rate back up. He was pretty stubborn and was rotated the wrong direction and the most painful part of the whole labor was when Dr. Cannon had to go in and try to rotate him. Ouch! She rotated him about a 1/4 turn and he went the rest of the way himself. I labored from about 12:30 to 4:20 pm with Dustin and Rachel there the whole time helping me stay focused and encouraging me the whole time. At 4:20 they let me start pushing and what a relief. It felt so much better to push, is was what my body wanted to happen and it made the discomfort so much less. It is hard to explain how your body knows exactly what to do and if you can just go with it how much better it feels. We tried pushing in several different positions, but with my contractions only 1 min apart I was getting so tired. I pushed so hard and there was a time where it felt like we were going nowhere. I pushed and pushed, so much that a blew a blood vessel in each of my eyes. I cannot say how wonderful my support was during the labor. I was mostly focused on Dustin and Rachel, but I could hear my nurse Mardi and Dr. Cannon encouraging me to push and doing everything they could to help me out. I could not have asked for a better support system or a better birthing experience. Jackson was finally out at 5:49 pm and what a relief.

While he was out, he was under a lot of stress and was taken immediately away from me. I didn't even get to see him. I just kept waiting to hear his cries and they weren't coming. My doctor assured me that his color was good when he was born and Dustin was over with him, but he didn't cry for what seemed like the longest time. When he finally did cry it was such a relief. They did finally bring him over to me for a minute and then it was off to the NICU because his oxygen levels were low. Dustin went off to the NICU with Jackson while Dr. Cannon was finishing up in the delivery room.The anticipation of waiting for Dustin to come back with news of how Jack was doing was terrible, I just wanted to know that my baby was okay. Finally he came back to let me know Jack was doing well, but his oxygen levels were low and they wanted to keep in in the NICU for observation and oxygen. Dustin went back to the nursery to give Jack his first bath. Rachel stayed with me, which was great. She kept me company and answered my millions of new mom questions. Finally around 8 pm they wheeled me down to the NICU so I could see him. This was awesome to finally see him, but he was hooked up to all these wires monitoring him so I couldn't pick him up. The nurses thought he would get to come down to the room to nurse a little later. Around 9:30 pm he did get to come down to the room and had no trouble with nursing. Rachel stayed until he was done and Dustin and I were both sad to see her go when she finally did go. I cannot say how valuable it was to have her with us. For anyone considering natural childbirth I would never do it without a doula! Dustin too felt her presence was invaluable.We spent the next two nights in the hospital and the first day I had to go down to the NICU to do all Jackson's feedings, but by the second day he was off oxygen the whole day and they let us finally leave the hospital the third day. I had an awesome group of nurses both in labor and delivery as well as in post-partum. I had a great birthing experience and feel very lucky.