How it all went down

Both the kids are down for naps, so I have decided to take a few minutes to write about Jace’s delivery. Because mountains of laundry and a desperate need for groceries just seems too easy to accomplish. And taking a nap myself would be the WEAK thing to do! I need a challenge. Where is my Everest? Plus, it’s been eight days since Jace joined our family. Obviously, I am a member of the why do today what you can do tomorrow club.

Anyway… Tuesday morning when I went to my doctor’s appointment I had already dilated to a three and was 25% effaced. So I was aware that labor had started (and the contractions that I had been having since Sunday was also a good clue).

On Tuesday night when we went to bed I was having contractions, but nothing that I couldn’t handle. I kept waking up during the night, would have a contraction, and then would talk myself into going back to sleep. By 6:00 in the morning the pain was getting pretty strong, and I decided the smart thing to do would be to get into the bathtub and shave my legs. Because…HE-LL-O…don’t want hairy legs during delivery. That might ruin the whole peaceful delivery experience and make it slightly embarrassing and uncomfortable! Nobody wants that! By the time I had the bathtub water running I had reached a new level of pain and I decided that now would be a good time to do the timing contraction thing.

Okay, here’s the thing when I had Brynlee my water broke. That made it easy enough. Water breaks. Mop the floor. Go to the hospital. Right? Easy as 1-2-3. None of that timing a contraction with a stopwatch. Screaming in pain as you read your “What to Expect When You are Expecting” book waiting until your contractions get exactly…5 minutes apart and last for 1 minute or more.

I know what you are thinking…”Kim, your husband is an Electrical Engineer aren’t numbers his thing? Timing contractions should be easy.” And you’re right. Hypothetically, it SHOULD be easy. However, I was scared to tell Spence when my contractions where getting close because I just knew his Engineering side would come out. I could picture myself screaming in agonizing pain on the couch as Spence worked his little heart out trying to write HTML for a computer program that would calculate my contractions down to the nearest hundredth of a second and would start singing children’s lullabies when it was time to go to the hospital.

By the time Spence and I timed the first contraction it was PAST time to be at the hospital. And then by the time Katie had arrived at our house to watch Brynlee, I was hardly having a break between the contractions. Like I said in my previous post, whoever made up the saying “it’s never too late” IS A BIG FAT DIRTY LIAR! LIAR! LIAR! LIAR! ‘Cause by the time we had make it to the hospital IT WAS TOO LATE.

In my quest to not time my contractions, I had dilated to an eight and there was no time for an epidural, spinal block, or even fifty-seven candy bars to relieve my pain. On a side note, I’ve decided that they need to offer rain checks on epidurals. If you opt not to use your epidural at delivery (or you are denied the opportunity) you should be able to cash in your epidural rain check anytime during the first year of your child’s life. If the colic gets to bad…no biggie….use your epidural rain check! Babies teething, and you can’t take it anymore. At least you have that epidural to fall back on.

But, they were right. There was no time for an epidural. Within 10 minutes I was at a 10 and it was time to push. And within 45 minutes of pushing, Jace Spencer had arrived. And believe me; he was worth every minute of it!