Jacob's birth story begins with our 38 week appointment, where I was sent to the hospital after a high blood pressure reading. I left to meet Josh to go to the hospital. We stopped at Wendy's on the way, since it was 12:30 and Josh needed to eat, and I figured that I should eat a little.

We got to the hospital and went up to the 3rd floor to check in. We went to triage, and got set up in Room B of triage, a room that is an open room with beds separated by curtains. They started testing me, I gave a urine sample, they took my blood, took my BP every 15 minutes and hooked up an IV. My BP was still high, and kept increasing. My labs also showed that I turned from hypertension to preeclampsia. I met the OB that was on call for the first time. He was very nice, and hoped that I would progress enough that day to have him deliver the baby. I then received BP medication through the IV. That didn't do much. They gave me Labetalol, which is what I've been taking since I was in the hospital for high blood pressure in July. They also gave me magnesium at 2:30. My BP had gone up into the 190s and at the highest read at 219/100. Once they started this, I would be on it until 24 hours after the baby was born. It also meant I was on bed rest. I would get a catheter, and would not be able to use the tub or other natural techniques we learned about in our classes. It really disappointed me, since I really wanted to do the whole thing without medication. Unfortunately, they were inducing me, so I had to adjust really quickly. I was told that the magnesium would make me feel "crappy" (highly technical terms). It wasn't long until I started feeling hot. Very hot. I felt very nauseous, and I felt like I was going to pass out. I struggled to keep my eyes open, but didn't want to close them, knowing that there would be more issues if I did pass out. I even threw up a little, and was glad that I didn't get more than a potato at Wendy's!

Once the next BP reading went off, my BP was back to normal (my note says 108/70, but Josh's note says 130/85-I went back to a normal/"safe" reading in about 15 minutes). It was a little scary for a while, but I got myself back to feeling "better" (I never really felt that great after, which isn't too surprising).
At 3:30, they moved us to our own room, which we were going to deliver in, LR2. It was a room that they typically put the magnesium patients in, since it has no windows and they keep the lights a little dimmer in so it is more calming. It was also next to the surgical rooms in case we needed a C-section. The only good thing was that it was a huge room. We were really spoiled with that. I then got a catheter put in (it hurt. They said it was more uncomfortable and embarrassing, but it hurt.)The Midwife that was there did a cervical check and placed a Cytotec to help ripen the cervix. I was 50% effaced and dilated 1cm, which was a huge progress from my appointment. The cervical check was very painful, and hurt when she put the meds in. Because I was on magnesium, I was checked every hour. They checked my reflexes, swelling, and urine. They checked my BP every 15 minutes. Every 4 hours I was going to be getting another dose of Cytotec and a blood draw for my magnesium levels.
At 7:30ish, my mom, brother and his girlfriend stopped to visit for a little. My mom stayed longer, planning on staying until the baby was here, but eventually went home because no progress was being made. We watched the first football game of the season in our room, and I was sleeping on and off during the game, since all we could do was rest until the baby decided to show up. At 11pm, I was given oxygen to make sure the baby was getting enough oxygen.

At 12:30am they did another cervical check. I had progressed to 2cm, but still 50% effaced. Since I was progressing and the baby's heart rate would occasionally dip on the Cytotec, they decided to start the Pitocin. After this, I was regularly checked, and no progress was made overnight. At 6am, there was no progress, so the morning crew would decide what to do. They morning crew made their decision to place another Cytotec. When they went to place the Cytotec at 8:15am, I made progress to 4cm and 70% effaced! They held off on Cytotec and we continued to wait.

Apparently, my water had broken, and as I thought about it, a half hour earlier I felt a huge movement that knocked my bladder and thought my bladder was knocked out because I felt like I was peeing. The nurse said that it was in there, but we never thought about the water breaking.
I began getting more contractions, and they were getting more painful. It was hard not being able to use the tub or other techniques, so I asked for Nubain, IV pain medication, at 10am. When I was examined, I was 6cm, 90% effaced and +1 station, and the OB did not think that Nubain was a good idea as I could only have it the one time due to my meds and that my labor could go on all day. She strongly recommended the epidural, and since I couldn't really labor naturally, I agreed. A half hour later, the anesthesiologist was placing the epidural. It was a quick and painless process. I did feel the numbing before it was placed, but that was it.
I was in much less pain, but was still very uncomfortable. At 11am, I was 8cm and +2 station. Our families were all there waiting for the baby to be born. I was feeling more uncomfortable and felt like I had to poop or push or something. There was a ton of pressure in my bottom and I wanted to do something about it. At 11:30 the OB checked again. I was 10cm and ready to push!

It felt like forever that they were getting everything ready and I was working hard at breathing while I waited. When the doctors were ready, I began to push. I pushed 5 sets of times before I felt our baby come out, followed by a huge gush of fluid (which was a huge relief). I heard Josh say "purple, just like me", which made me panic a little bit. The cord was around the neck once, and they fixed it, tapped baby a little and we heard the cry, which was such a beautiful noise (the first time). No one had said what baby was, so I asked "what is it!?" and Josh finally looked and said "it's a boy!"

They took him away and cleaned him up, got his stats and did all of the normal newborn things. Josh was jumping between taking pictures of him and holding my hand, because they were stitching me up. It took forever, and it was horrible. I tore really bad since he just slipped right out and I was so swollen. I kept feeling stitching, so they had to keep numbing me. The catheter had come out at some point during the delivery or stitching.

My brother had to go take a test and wanted to know how I was doing before he left, so Josh went out and told everyone that our son was here and that we were all getting cleaned up. We spent time just the 3 of us for a while and decided that we should name our new baby. Josh asked what I was thinking, and I said that I liked Jacob or Zachary, and he liked Jacob, so he was named Jacob Timothy (Timothy after both of our brothers). We announced his name to the family and we spent a little more time together trying to breastfeed (somewhat successfully) and pee (they had to put a catheter back in since I couldn't go in a bed pan and I was still on bed rest for another 24 hours). We were moved into our "real" room (way smaller than what we were spoiled with) over in the C-Section area (they're smaller than the vaginal delivery rooms, and I was a special case) and all of our family came in to welcome Jacob!

Jacob Timothy, 7lb 9.5oz, 20 in, 11:44AM September 6, 2013