Birth Stories

Guys...you may want to skip this one.

Any Mommy Out There posted a birthing story and challenged her readers to post their own in her comments. I just posted a comment about how great her story was and how much I enjoyed reading her blog, blah, blah, the usual (she's a great writer by the way).

and.she.emailed.me.wanting.me.to.tell.my.story.

I love telling my birth story, I love hearing other birth stories. Funny L&D Nurse (who has not posted in a long long time) collected birth stories from her readers and posted them. It's how I e-met (is that a word) Sitting in Silence. She had posted a birth story there and I responded and well the rest is history -- now I, and the rest of my real world neighborhood are trying to get her to move here. Birth stories were the reason I wanted to be a L&D nurse. I think it would be so awesome to be in the presence of a miracle like that on a daily basis. To encourage, help, love on a woman in her most vulnerable, yet most courageous strong moments. Alas, my clinical experience in the L&D department made me realize that L&D nurses are (for the most part) not like that. What they seemed to do was sit on the labor deck, complain and gossip, watch the monitors and go jump in the room when the laboring woman was about to 'blow'. Not how I envisioned my new mid-life career going. This turned out to be quite the long preamble to my birth stories...here you go.

Jake:

Three weeks before my due date I went in for another ultra-sound. Jake, and we knew he was Jake at that point, was measuring big. Thankfully we went because that ultrasound showed that my amniotic fluid was dangerously low and he was breech. The radiologist left the room and I looked at Jason and said, looks like a C-section today or tomorrow. He, in his - Oh my goodness my wife is getting hysterical and she's coming to conclusions with out the facts - voice tells me to calm down (by the way, I just made the statement, I wasn't crying, upset or anything that would indicate I was somehow freaking out). We head over to the OB and in the car he calls his office to put in his breakfast order for the next day's breakfast meeting -- after all we have THREE MORE WEEKS. I, calmly, tell him it made me nervous that he was planning on going to work the next day, as I didn't think he was going to make it. He rolled his eyes at me. We get to the OB office and he jokingly says to the nurse, "Oh my gosh, Tracey is freaking out, she thinks we're going to have this baby now" The nurse replies, "yeah, as soon as we heard about the breech and low amniotic fluid we booked an OR, you'll be having this baby tomorrow at 8am).

Jason turned ashen white and had to sit down, muttering something about three more weeks and he wasn't ready...who's freaking out now buddy.

I had horrible morningdaynight sickness the entire 8.25 months AND I couldn't eat for 12 hours prior to the surgery so I was not feeling very well. They gave me the spinal, laid me down flat on my back and I told anyone who would listen I was going to get sick. They hand Jason that ridiculous little kidney shaped bowl and the doctors and nurses all stepped back, I turned to the side and threw up. Good thing Jason was in scrubs, because nothing got in that bowl. I laid back down, told all who would listen I was feeling better and they proceeded. Jason, bless his heart, didn't complain, just took my hand and was there for me. They opened me up, pulled out Jake, bottom first but then his head got stuck. I could feel them tugging and pulling and discussing whether they should cut some more, then I heard a POP, kind of like when you put your finger on the inside of your mouth and flick it...that kind of popping noise, and he was out.

But he wasn't crying. He wasn't moving. And he was a very strange shade of blue.

No one said anything.

The pediatric crew scooped him up, took him and revived him. It seemed like an eternity but I think it was only a couple of minutes later we heard a cry. There was a collective sigh of relief. My doctors proceeded to sew me back up. The Peds guys let me take a quick peek at Jake and they whisked him away for some O2 therapy. Five hours later I was holding him in my arms, close to my heart and was in complete awe.

I think if you could bottle that feeling of when you first meet your baby you could make millions.

I'll post Isaac's story later -- I have to take the kiddos to school......How quickly they grow.