The birth of our first baby boy couldn't have been more perfect, but how it unfolded was nothing like we had imagined! Jett made his way into the world on his due date, May 14th, and our world changed forever. Keep reading for the full (crazy) story!
It all started on Mother's Day, May 13th, which was also my dad's birthday. My dad passed away 8 years ago and during my pregnancy my Mom and I discussed how cool it would be if Jett was born on his birthday (one day before my due date). So when my water broke while eating a delicious breakfast sandwich Mr. Jones got me for Mother's Day, I was beyond excited! I found out later that it's rare to have your water break before having contractions, and at first I thought I might have just peed my pants (HA)! The water did not stop leaking after the initial break (at 11am), so we knew it was for real!
I called my OB's office around 11:15am and the doctor on call that day told me we didn't have to be in a rush to get to the hospital. She said we could shower and get something for lunch before coming in. This was good news because I seriously needed a shower and Skyler actually had food poisoning! We were quite a mess before leaving, him seriously sick and trying not to throw up in the shower and me standing over a towel with fluid leaking onto the floor waiting to shower (it's funny now but in the moment I was really worried about my hubby)! So we ended up getting to the hospital around 2:00pm and after I was admitted, I got an IV of fluids and we waited.
By 4:00pm, I was dilated 3-4cm and Pitocin was used to induce labor since I had still not had any contractions. Typically, after your water breaks you have 24 hours from that point to have the baby due to risk of infection, so I was excited to get things moving along. Every 30 minutes after the start of Pitocin, the nurse increased the dosage. Around 5:30pm, I started to feel the contractions and they were STRONG by 6:00pm!
After an hour and a half of contractions, I decided to get an epidural at 7:00pm (I was 4cm dilated at that point). The anesthesiologist had a cart with everything on it and wheeled it behind me before taking out all of the supplies. I'm SO THANKFUL for that because I didn't see the needle or anything and my husband later told me that it was huge. I would've been so scared if I had seen it! For some reason, the epidural took a little bit longer to kick in for me than it does for most people and that was really scary. A nurse even rushed in and put an oxygen mask on me and I was terrified! Luckily after what felt like half an hour (it was probably only a few minutes), the epidural kicked in.
After the epidural, I was given a "peanut ball" to put in between my legs and the nurse helped me flip sides every hour. The peanut ball basically looked like an exercise ball but in a peanut shape and it helps the baby descend and mom dilate. By 11:00pm, I was dilated to 6cm.
By 2:00am, I was dilated to 9.5cm and I was so excited! I thought I'd be meeting baby Jett within an hour or so (wishful thinking). At 3:00am, I started pushing. This was one thing that surprised me the most- I always thought there would be multiple nurses in the room at this stage, but for me there was only the night nurse and my husband. The night nurse was fairly new and although she was great, she wasn't the best coach. That made it tough for me but I was determined to meet my baby boy.
After 30 minutes of pushing and no progress, the nurse let me take a break and went and got the doctor on call. My OB was actually not on call that night, so the doctor that delivered Jett was a total stranger to us but we ended up loving her! She helped me push from 4:30am to just before 7:00am.
Jett was making progress, but his head was getting stuck on my pelvic bone. My epidural was also wearing off and I was in EXTREME pain. I also have horrible allergies and hadn't taken my allergy medicine the day before, so as time went on it was getting really hard for me to take deep breaths. My whole pregnancy I mentally prepared myself to be in pain and never thought I'd be the crazy ass who was heard screaming from every hospital room on the second floor. I couldn't cry because that prevented me from taking deep breaths to push to the best of my ability, so screaming was the best option- ha!
I found out later that Jett had turned during labor and was face up aka "sunny side up." For this reason, he was basically stuck and I was EXHAUSTED. By 7:00am, the doctor gave us the option to use a vacuum to help Jett get out. We agreed because the last thing I wanted was a C-Section. I had heard about vacuuming before, but didn't know too much about it. I thought the vacuum did all of the work and boy was I wrong! You still have to push just as you would without the vacuum.
Minutes after we agreed to the vacuum, there were 9 nurses in the room and the doctor looked like she had changed into a hazmat suit- it was TERRIFYING. Even with the vacuum assisting, it took almost another hour of pushing. The nurses kept saying "LAST PUSH!" and I was getting so frustrated because they said that at least 4 times- what a tease! Luckily the doctor was a great motivator and really helped me focus on meeting our baby, so I kept going.
FINALLY after almost 5 hours of pushing, Jett Rose Jones was born at 7:43am on May 14th, 2018! Right after he came out, all of the nurses were shocked at how big he was and so were we! 9 pounds of pure joy! Since he was vacuumed out, he immediately had to be checked and the doctor had to stitch me up (I ripped and had an episiotomy- yikes). Hearing his sweet little cry and that he was healthy was the best news ever after such a long night.
Holding him for the first time was absolutely magical and our big hungry boy latched perfectly right off the bat! The boy loves to eat! We couldn't be happier or more proud parents of our little (big) boy!
I hope you enjoyed reading Jett's birth story! I'll be sharing his nursery Friday, June 8th so stay tuned! Have a great weekend, y'all!
Xo,
Haley
SHOP THIS STORY:
I know I can’t be the only mom out there who is horrible at printing photos. Jett is almost three and all I have are a bunch of polaroids scattered about. Even though I’m bad at printing photos, I found a simple way to keep select works of art that I think it pretty genius. I also started to keep some of said polaroids in it as well as Christmas cards, Santa photos, etc. I’m telling you all about it in today’s post!