The Story of Baby Jude

*Yes, this is the whole story, so it's long.  Forewarning.

Well I won't even attempt to totally pick up where I left off from the last post!  I wish I could say that everything was peachy keen from that point on, but unfortunately I basically went from being sick as a dog to feeling crippled with SPD.  More or less my joints and ligaments just loosened really way too soon and in places like my pelvis in particular I really noticed.  By about 20-22 weeks my pelvis would just feel like it might break when I went to roll over in bed at night, put on my pants, walk up stairs, get in my car.  It was a long pregnancy, it just was, that might sound bad, but it's the truth.  I basically felt like I was unreasonable tired for a year.  At this point I'm a week post pardum and I feel like I have all this energy and so FREE!  AND I have this cute little squish newborn.  THIS is the good part for sure!

So onto the point of the post... :)  I was determined early on that I wanted to just go into labor naturally with this pregnancy, for one reason or another I've basically been induced with my other two.  But as this extremely mentally/physically exhausting pregnancy wore on I started to lose my resolve on that.  My doctor brought up inducing me early about 4 weeks from my due date at our regular appointment.  Charlie was 3 days before his due date and he was 9 lbs, and my doctor was worried about this baby being big combined with the pain I was experiencing already wouldn't be fun.  The baby was measuring big, not huge, but that's what they said about Charlie.  My biggest fear about inducing was my body not being ready, and ending up in a csection when I didn't make progress and the baby started suffering for it.  But just as with Charlie I was walking around at 4cm dialated and fairly efaced, and Charlie's delivery went smooth as smooth and was very fast. At first I said no, but then she told me the date they could start me.  March 28th.  It kinda felt like a sign.  Leland was born on 1/28, Charlie was born on 12/28, and this baby could be born on 3/28?  That is pretty cool.  So about two weeks from my due date I called her back and said, 'yes, let's do it!'

Well the weird thing about inductions is you just sorta wander into the hospital and 'sign up' to have a baby without having any labor pains.  Sort of doesn't seem 'right'.  On the upside, it seems like the luxury way to have a baby, haha, you don't have to do labor in the middle of the crazy night and lose a day to non-sleep, etc. The morning of the 28th I was to call labor and delivery at 6am.  They were busy.  So they told me to call a couple hours later... and so went our entire day of calling 'two hours later'.  John was off work of course (thinking we'd be having a baby that morning) and then thinking it could be in two hours for the whole day.  We all just sort of sat around and stared at each other.  By 6pm I was basically thinking our March 28th thing was out the window.  I called at 6 and they said, 'okay, be here by 7'. 

We rushed right in and got checked in and changed and my doctor came by.  Since I was positive for group b strep I was technically supposed to be on antibiotics for about 4 hours prior to delivery, she had looked up the notes from Charlie's delivery and noted that after she broke my water Charlie was born about an hour and a half later, so we were trying to decide if she should do that, or wait.  She said she'd just been at a convention where they were saying it's not necessary to slow down a fast labor for the courses of antibiotic, as the whole trouble with the group b strep applies more to really long labors, especially where the water is broken.  So we went ahead.  I actually didn't have the immediate reaction to my water being broken like I had with Charlie.  I felt some mild contractions, and that's it.  They started just a little pitocin and had the anesthesiologist on alert (I felt like I might rip open immediately after having my water broken with Charlie, woaaaahhhh baby it was bad.)  The nurse knew I wanted a delivery before midnight and she was on board and said she was going to make it happen, but not to tell other women that, haha, or everyone would start expecting miracles!  After that we just waited and waited.  We watched the last half of Pride and Prejudice and all of Princess Bride. I made slower, but steady progress than the last time, and we eeked toward midnight.  It started to feel nervous that after all this we wouldn't make it anyway... I mean we'd get over it, but it would've felt like such a near miss!  At 11:20 the nurse checked me and said I was clear to push, I was surprised because I was feeling a little pressure, but not too much.  Both of my previous deliveries, even with an epidural there was no question that it was time to push just from how I felt! The nurse went to call my doctor, but I didn't see how we could make it in time - I mean she had to still drive here, etc.  Fortunately, my Doctor was in the hospital!  She got to my room about 11:30, she got ready and about 11:40pm she and the nurse said, 'we can do this, let's get the baby here before midnight!'  I said, 'You guys, that's a lot of pressure on me!!'  We got in position and pushed three times through my first contraction and my doctor said, 'he's basically here, one more'.  We pushed three times through my second contraction and there he was!  11:49 PM.  Guys, I may suck at pregnancy, but evidently I rock at pushing.  I also evidently give my babies what my nurse referred to as 'csection head' meaning they don't cone.  :P 

Jude was supposed to come straight to me, but when he was born he had sort of a shock response and held his breath.  We all kept waiting for him to breath, but he didn't and was pretty purple, so I didn't get to hold him for a second as they passed him off to be checked out.  He finally breathed in and did perfectly fine from there, getting good apgar scores and everything.  I was sort of in disbelief.  It was sort of a weird out of body feeling.  First off John and I looked at him and said, 'he's small!'  We didn't expect that!  And I think part of me was expecting Charlie.2, and Jude looked very different!

Jude ended up being 7lbs 12 oz, and 20.5 inches long.  Now I realize that's normal for most, but it was small to us! 

I had to stay in the hospital about a day and a half, l am one who likes to high tail it as quickly as possible, but it was okay this time.  They had just lifted the ban on kids under 14, so Charlie was even able to come up and see us.  He had a very timid response, he seemed to be a little shocked himself that this mythical 'baby brother' he'd heard so much about was here, and what was mom doing in this place.  But he was really sweet with the baby and wanted to stick around.  Grandpa had to entice him out of there with 'egg hamburgers' (egg mcmuffins).  Jude was a super sleepy baby, so actually I could have got excellent sleep, but we ended up every few hours bugging him, trying to get him to wake up already and eat a little something cuz he didn't seem to bother himself.  We got okayed to leave later in the afternoon on the 30th and take Jude home!