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So if you haven’t caught up, HERE is the birth story {part one}. That one ended with the epidural and relief around 7:50 AM.

They checked me at 8:45 and I still hadn’t made any further progress… Whoa.

At 10:00 am they checked me again and finally I had dilated to a 6, but baby was still at -1 station.

Thankfully we were able to get some rest in between checks and it seemed that moving me around every 30 minutes or so really helped so we kept doing that.

At noon my doctor came and checked me (the on call doc had been checking me before). I was dilated to a 9 with an anterior lip on my cervix! My cervix finally moved into the correct position and he informed us that it would probably be before 5 that we’d meet our boy! He came around again at 1:15 and I was fully dilated and ready to push, but the baby still needed to move down a little bit more for really effective pushing so we continued to wait hoping that I would eventually feel some sort of pressure to help with the pushing.

At 2:00 we started to “practice push” and I was starting to feel a little bit of pressure with each contraction. During our wait we had been praying for me to feel just a little bit with no pain so that I could really assist in pushing him out instead of blindly hoping I was doing it right. Sure enough with each contraction I could feel it build up and peak but with very little pain.

At 2:15 my doctor arrived with lots of other nurses and support staff. The room was buzzing with excitement. We were about to meet our boy – we just couldn’t believe it. I spent most of the next 30 minutes in my head with my eyes closed just waiting for the next wave to come so that I could push. I had so much encouragement and support surrounding me and even though it wasn’t natural or how I had hoped it would happen, it was beautiful and peaceful.

Dwayne was born at 2:45 pm. We delayed the cutting of the cord and he was moved to my belly just briefly before the nurses and doctors realized something was wrong. They took Dwayne over to the warmer and many more doctors swarmed into the room. We spent the next 5 minutes waiting, crying, begging the Lord to breathe life into his lungs. I never took my eyes off Mike and he never took his eyes off Dwayne. You could feel the tension in the room as people waited for him to respond and at 5 and a half minutes when Dwayne made the tiniest little squeak the tension lifted and Mike was finally able to tell me (with confidence) that he was ok and I was able to look at Dwayne for the first time and watch him turn pink.

It was the longest 5 minutes of our lives.

After a few more minutes and some assessments from the doctors, Dwayne was put on my chest and Mike and I were able to look into his eyes for the first time. He was perfect. All 9 lbs 1 oz of him.

After an hour of skin to skin our families were able to come in a meet him. Thankfully my OB had filled them in on his traumatic entrance so we didn’t have to relive it quite yet.

Eventually we got moved up to recovery and we settled in for a few more nights.

Dwayne: Mike’s middle name and the name of his uncle who passed away just before Mike was born.
Henry: Dr. Henry Lederle (above picture) is Mike’s mentor and our dear friend whom we consider family. Everyone calls him DH. It turns out that Henry is also a family name for both of us!

Dwayne Henry Jaderston

Our journey to parenthood didn’t go exactly as we would have planned, but every bump in the road, pain of pregnancy, and change of plans made this little man all the more worth it.

I can’t believe he’s already two weeks old. He threw us a bunch of curve balls during those first 2 weeks but we are so grateful to be home with a healthy, breathing little boy.

Happy Day!

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 It seems so surreal that I am sitting down to write this post. I have a birth story to tell while a little baby boy lays on my chest. Is this real life? I’ll warn you that it gets long and wordy… but I want to have the details of the day written down. Enjoy!

At our 41 week appointment we talked with our doctor about induction. I really didn’t want to be induced and he really didn’t want me to go past 42 weeks, which is fair because things can get a little dicey after 42 weeks. We had a biophysical sonogram done and baby scored an 8/8 so we scheduled our induction for Sunday evening, the night before 42 weeks.

And we waited.

I stopped working because I felt too uncomfortable driving so I spent a lot of time at home. Doing laundry. Organizing the baby room. Researching the 1,001 unproven ways to induce labor at home. And resting.

Sunday rolled around and there was still no sign of baby. I would occasionally have braxton hicks and sometimes I would time them, but that was no different than it had been for the 6 weeks prior.

So we repacked our hospital bags to make sure we had everything we could need. We spent a lot of time in prayer, asking God to calm our nerves and be present for the evening and day ahead. I was really nervous and so anxious to meet our boy.

Waiting at check in!

Silly photos to calm the nerves

We checked in at 7:30 pm and stopped at Panera on the way so Mike could get some coffee. We knew we had a long night ahead and that he would need his energy. We got all checked in, into our room, and our doula arrived. By 9:00 they were ready to start the Foley Bulb and Cytotec and contractions started pretty quickly after that. I had to stay in bed for an hour getting monitored and to allow the cytotec to dissolve but then we were real quick to start walking the halls. We needed gravity on our side and the bed was not doing the trick.

At 1:00 they came back to check me and remove the Foley bulb. My cervix was still really posterior and I had a very traumatic exam. At that point in my life it was one of the most painful things I’d ever experienced and I was super hesitant to let them check me again after that. BUT I was dilated to a 4 and the baby was at -1. Progress. Phew. They planned on starting pitocin at 5:00 if things hadn’t started progressing more by then.

We labored in the room by ourselves for awhile. The nurse would occasionally check back on us and I had to be on the monitor for at least 20 minutes of every hour. I spent some time on the peanut ball, pacing the room, and in the tub (which was by far my favorite). My doula would sneak me energy beans or small pieces of a protein bar (I wasn’t supposed to eat anything – oops – but worth the risk) and I drank lots of apple juice and gatorade to keep my adrenaline going. At 5:00 they came back for another exam and I was still only dilated to a 4 and the baby hadn’t moved down at all. It was very defeating knowing that we labored for 4 hours with no progress.. and also defeating knowing that pitocin would make the natural birth I wanted much much harder to endure. It also meant that I would need to stay on the monitors and be very close to the bed if not in the bed. Another thing that wasn’t ideal for the natural birth we wanted.

They started the pitocin at 5:20 at level 2. They were supposed to turn it up every 20 minutes but our nurse was so so gracious to me and wound up being “busy” until 6:30. Level 2 of pitocin definitely made the contractions worse but they were manageable. Mike stayed so close to my side and breathed through each contraction with me. He spoke encouraging words in my ear and never left my side.

At 6:30 they checked me again and still absolutely no more progress. I was losing steam and getting frustrated that my body wasn’t kicking in. This baby wasn’t ready to come out. The doctor decided to break my water to see if that would help the baby drop and also turned the pitocin up to a 4.

Everything gets very blurry at this point, but I did not handle the jump in pitocin well. I made it about 30 minutes and then started begging for relief. My doula and Mike knew that I didn’t want the epidural and they were really wonderful about saying no and encouraging me through just one more contraction. Just one more contraction. But I knew my body wasn’t doing what it was supposed to do and after a lot of desperate pleas with Mike we decided to call the anesthesiologist. The epidural went in at 7:30 and I started feeling relief around 7:50. Praise Jesus for medicine.

I had decided around 20 weeks that I wanted a natural birth. I spent many many hours researching and reading about my options. A doula practically fell into our laps and Mike agreed and supported me 100%. And then my body didn’t go into labor – the thing I was most afraid of. I anticipated it being really hard for me to accept not being able to do it on my own but it surprisingly wasn’t. I had a lot of peace about my decision (once relief finally kicked in) because I just knew that my body wasn’t going to kick in without the help of pitocin and I definitely couldn’t handle going up another level.

We rested after that. Everyone had naps and Mike and Suzanne, our doula, got some breakfast. About every 30 minutes they would change my position to encourage the baby to move down and then I could rest again.

This is already so long, so I’m gonna cut it and call it part one.
Check back soon for part two! I am living life with the sweetest newborn, so I can’t promise that it’ll be tomorrow.

Here’s a photo to hold you over

Dwayne Henry Jaderston at 1 week old

Happy Day!