Here it's been one week..already seven whole days since little Jack made his appearance! What a whirlwind week it has been as we're settling into life as a family of four! Before too much time has gone by, I wanted to jot down some of the pieces of Jack's 'birth story', so that I won't forget it as the years go by.
On Monday, January 9th 2012, I had an appointment to have a stress test performed on the baby, along with an ultrasound to measure four different areas (how deep the amniotic fluid is/baby's 'practice' breathing/heart rhythms). The baby gets up to 8 points to score a perfect 100%, which of course, determines the baby's health status. On the 9th I was 41 days and 1 day pregnant, thus the reasoning for these tests, to confirm everything still looks healthy. The stress test was performed, and baby Jack looked terrific. It took longer to perform it, as he always sleeps in the am (and would be up and moving in the pm). It took plenty of coffee and orange juice to get him moving enough to put the doctor at ease. Then later in the afternoon I headed back to the clinic to have an ultrasound - the technician confirmed that baby Jack received a 100% grade and looked great. I prepared myself on being pregnant for one more week. Around 4:50pm, I received a voicemail from my doctor to let me know a small amount of macodium might be in the amniotic fluid. She said she would feel more comfortable inducing me on Wednesday of that week rather than wait an addition week. So it was set: I was going to be induced on Wednesday, January 11th.
That night we prepared Quinn's overnight bag, made a couple meals for when we got home, and started stressing about baby boy names! Yes...at one week overdue we still didn't have a name set in stone. We hopped on the Internet, browsed through our baby name book and kept our fingers crossed that we would find a name we could both agree on in the next day.
Super excited to meet our baby on Wednesday am!
On Wednesday we got to the hospital at 9am, and by 9:30-10, the doctor had arrived to try and break my water. After numerous attempts, she said that we would just start on pitocin in an hour or so. She left, and while the nurse was filling out paperwork and getting things set up, I felt my water break on its own - whoohoo! What. a. relief.
Unlike my labor with Quinn, this time I was able to walk the fourth floor of the hospital for an hour to get things 'moving'. At 11:30am I was back in bed and the pitocin was started at noon. ...by one they were growing intense and closer together. Around 2:45 they were becoming unbearable and almost no break in between. I told Steve to get the nurse asap, that I thought it was strange I wasn't having any breaks between contractions. As the nurse came in, I felt the urge to push. The nurse checked me and said the baby was coming and that she had to get the doctor asap (the doctor was at her office in the clinic - across the street from the hospital). Thank goodness the doctor arrived when she did because after about ten minutes of pushing our sweet baby boy made his very quick entrance into the world at 3:24pm!
Our sweet little Jack Steven Johannes was 7 lbs. 6 oz. and 21" long
