Jackson's Birth Story

Jackson Riley Beach was born this morning, Jan 20th at 3:39am. He weighs 6lbs 15oz and is 20 inches long with a thick head of blonde hair! Picture links are below along with my birth story - I went completely natural.

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After 2 nights in a row of solid cramps, I started contracting 5 min apart consistently at 5:30am. This lasted until 12:30 when the contrax became closer together. By the time I made it to the doctor's office at 3:00 I was dilated to a 3 and was 90% effaced. They put me on the monitor and my contrax were only 1.5-2 min apart the entire hour. Apparently I'm one of those people that just has close contrax (which made the entire childbirth experience a lot harder b/c I didn't really get a good break). When they checked me at 4pm I was dilated to a 4 so I was given the option to either go directly to the hospital or go home and get comfortable for as long as possible and then go to the hospital. I chose the second. Scott and I were in great moods, cracking jokes and everything. It was great. I went home and got in the Jacuzzi (doctor's orders) until 6:30. I finally decided at 7:30 that it was time to go to the hospital. The contrax were more intense and I wanted to get my antibiotics in b/c I'm GBS+.

Got to the hospital and I was only dilated to a 4.5. THAT SUCKED! Apparently I was too relaxed in the tub and my contrax stopped doing anything. So, I walked and walked and walked. At 10pm I was at a 5 and the contrax were getting more intense. I started to lose my joking spirit, but was still hanging in there. By midnight, I was dilated to a 6 and the contrax were getting heavy. We decided to break my water and stick me back in the tub. At that point, I started to feel out of control and began questioning whether I could make it to a 10 without drugs. Scott and Marcia (my midwife) said that we would try to make it another 30 min and then decide. When they broke my water, I had some maconium (however you spell it) so Jax would have to be suctioned out when he was born. Well, I went from a 6 to an 8.5 pretty quickly. At the point of 8.5 I was losing it. My contrax were hitting one after another with no break and they hurt like holy heck! Unfortunately it took me awhile to get from 8.5-10 (mainly the 9.5-10 part). I eventually made it there, but I must say there was a lot of grunting and a few high pitched squeaks and tossing my cookies several times that went along with it.

So finally a 10, we are now out of the woods, right? WRONG!! Whoever said that transition is the worst part and the pushing is easy did not have the experience I just had! I was not prepared for what was involved in pushing at all! I had not slept in 2 nights and was exhausted, not to mention that I had been contracting regularly since 5:30am and it was now 1:45am. I was exhausted! So I pushed from 1:45-3:39am when he was finally born. I couldn't even lift my legs to grab them to push, so Scott got on one side and Marcia got on the other. I pushed on my back for awhile, then on the toilet, then went back to the back b/c I couldn't get down in a squatting position b/c I was in so much pain. Truthfully, I didn't think it was ever going to end. Eventually I got his head to crown, and Marcia was great at using different techniques to minimize my tearing. In the end, I got his head out but then had to stop. That's right ladies, they told me to stop pushing. Now, with all of that pressure I ask you how the heck is a person suppose to stop? They were trying to suction Jax out with his head out and his shoulders in. At this point the tears started flowing. Eventually Marcia began to give me instructions like big push, small push, wait, hold, small push, etc. This was almost impossible for me. I really did try, but the 2nd to last push I did she said to hold and I pushed which of course made me tear (2nd degree).

Once he was out, they put him on my belly for a sec but I realized that he was completely blue and not crying. I was a little wild eyed and about that time they whisked him to the warming station next to my bed. Scott didn't even get to cut the cord. The cord was wrapped around his neck so they had to take care of that. Eventfully he got 9 and 9 on his Apgars, so everything was good. Scott was running around with the camera and video and got to hold him once he was cleaned up. I was still delivering the placenta, watching my belly go down to this really strange shape, and then getting my stitches in (which they didn't get me completely deadened for when they started and had to try again (OUCH)! They also started me on pit to try and control the bleeding. At that point I had had really nothing but a small bowl of soup since the day before and was completely in la la land! I can't explain it, but I was out of it. Scott went with Jax to go get a bath and I was left in the room by myself completely exhausted...except for the nurses who kept coming in every so often to poke at my belly really hard. Once again, I say OUCH!!

Overall my recovery has been great. I didn't have to worry about the effects of medicine on Jax or myself so I can pretty much do what I want. I do feel amazingly well today considering, just tired still. Although, the bleeding is a pain and the stitches are painful. All in all, I have my beautiful little boy and Scott and I couldn't be happier.