Jesse=Seven

Today is our son Jesse's 7th birthday! We made his (and the rest of the kids') day last night by buying our Christmas tree and decorating it. We enjoyed hot chocolate during the process, Matt took plenty of photos, all the while enjoying Christmas music on the stereo. Matt looked at the clock at one point and we were all shocked that it was almost 11:30!! So we all scurried off to bed, and today the kids & I finished decorating the tree. We had to get the boxes all put away because we're having friends over for dinner to celebrate Jesse's big day. :)

Since this seems to be the month of re-posting our family's birth stories, here's another for you. Jesse was by far our largest baby, and you can read the story to find out why...

Jesse’s Birth Story
November 30, 2002
6:25 p.m.
9 lb. 12.6 oz, 20 inches long
Total labor: 11 ½ hours

At about 23 weeks gestation, I started having pre-term contractions, so Matt & I promptly put me on bedrest. My doctors agreed with us. :) It was quite a challenge, with three kids in the house, one of whom was a busy toddler at the time. But people from church and Youth for Christ helped with childcare and food, and I was able to be on total bedrest for a couple of months. I did a lot of reading, spent time reading the Psalms, and crocheted a cuddly baby blanket for Jesse (that he carries around when he's sleepy). :) It was a challenging time, as well as a special time of thinking of and praying for this new little one we were soon to meet.

While on bedrest, I did a lot of reading about premature babies, and we learned that size really is a factor in how well a baby does when born early. So Matt decided to "plump up the baby", by feeding me whole milk and extra eggs every day. The "plumping up" worked, though Jesse was born full-term, after all! When all the nurses saw how big Jesse was, they asked if I had gestational diabetes when I was pregnant. I just told them that my husband wanted to plump up the baby when we thought he was coming early, and it worked!! (In the process, he also "plumped up the momma", as well! I gained 54 pounds, all told, but did eventually lose all the weight!)

We decided that at 36 weeks the baby would be allright if born then, so I was going to be off total bedrest by then. I had the mistaken impression that the baby was just going to be born immediately after I got off bedrest. When I began making my appearance in public again, people acted like I was overdue. I felt like I was overdue. I'd always been one of those pregnant women who loves being pregnant and wasn't in a big rush to get the whole thing over with. So this was a new thing for me to be feeling like that. The night before I actually went into labor, I was so down in the dumps, I felt like I was going to be pregnant forever!

But, lo and behold, the next day (two days before the due date) I awoke at 7:00 a.m. having contractions about 10-15 minutes apart. I thought that I'd give birth by mid-afternoon at the latest. I sat in an easy chair all morning... the contractions were pretty strong, but I could tell we didn't need to go to the hospital yet. Around 11, Matt suggested that I take a nap, so I did. I slept about half an hour, and then came back downstairs, feeling frustrated that this was taking so long. (I'd thought with all those preterm contractions, that he'd be born in a flash!) So I said maybe we should decorate the Christmas tree we'd bought the night before. Matt had made some turkey soup, so I ate some of that. After that, things started to pick up a bit.

Around 2:00, I noticed that I wasn't talking between contractions anymore and I wanted to go lie down on the couch in the other room where it was quieter. Around 3:00, I felt the contractions get much stronger, still about 8 minutes apart, but from the way I was feeling, I thought it must be transition. When Matt came in the room a while later, I asked him to give me my Bradley student workbook, and I looked at the chart that shows how you feel during each stage of labor. I told him I was pretty sure I was in transition, so he fired off an email and a few phone calls. I called the OB unit and said I was coming.

It was pretty hard to move at this point, because when I got up the contractions were much closer together. We all bundled up and went out. Our friends Sid & Kate were going to meet us there to be with the kids and Kate was going to be with Marissa in the room if Marissa decided to witness the actual birth. As we pulled into the parking ramp and found a spot to park, Sid & Kate pulled up next to us. I got out and immediately felt nauseous. I threw up in the trash can next to the hospital entrance. Poor Sid & Kate were trying to keep the kids from coming over, and they looked more concerned than the kids did!

After a couple minutes of throwing up in the trash can while people went in and out of the hospital entrance, I was ready to go. I felt horrible. We must have been quite a sight! Me feeling sick and Matt hobbling along with his bad knee (having torn his ACL two weeks earlier), pushing me in a wheelchair, the kids tagging along with a worried-looking Sid & Kate.

Once we got settled into the room, I felt much better. The contractions were still quite strong, and I was at 8 centimeters, but I wasn't trying to move around anymore so it was a lot better. The nurses read our birth plan and were very accommodating with that. The kids & Kate came in and out of the room, and both of my doctors were in town and came to the hospital. Things were like that, pretty quiet and relaxed for almost two hours, with our George Winston CD December (really relaxing piano music!) playing in the background.

For a few contractions, I began praying silently to get through them. After a bit, I thought--Hey, I don't have to pray to get THROUGH these... why not just pray that it will go faster? So I asked God to make the labor go faster. You know how they sometimes say, "watch out what you ask for"? Well, it was kind of like that!!

My doctor Lisa (who I met when she was a student in one of my Bradley classes I taught) came in to say she was going upstairs to check on another patient. Since she was the family practice doctor on call, she had been called to look in on this woman who had had a heart attack. I was thinking, but wasn't able to speak the words, that I didn't think it was going to be long before the baby came. As soon as Lisa left the room, I had a contraction with lots of pressure down low, and sploosh! I felt the water break all over my bed. I said to Matt, "Water broke", and he checked to see that it was clear.

When I had the very next contraction, I felt my body pushing and I groaned deeply. I'm pretty reserved and don't normally make noises during labor, but this was uncontrollable. Matt said something like he was here for me, and I was thinking, "yeah, but you don't want to deliver this baby!". I think he figured what was happening, so he poked his head out the door and said, "I think it's time," and the other doctor and the nurses rushed in. Jesse's head was crowning when they came in. I was lying on my back since this had all begun while I was lying on my left side and I didn't have time to even think about getting more upright (plus the bed was cranked flat).

The birth was quite good, except for the end, when the doctor literally yanked on Jesse's head. I think we've figured out why now. His head was bruised from being squished (it was so big!), so it was entirely blue (except for his eyelids, which were bright pink), and I think the doctor thought he was going to need to be resuscitated. She had her knee up on the end of my bed and was yanking on his head... it looks terrible on the video. His shoulders got stuck for a little bit, and since I was trying to be on my side, that didn't help. So they turned me on my back to get the shoulders out.

The worst part for me was that nobody was telling me what was going on, so I didn't know what part I was working on getting out. I asked, "What's going on?" But nobody answered me. I think Matt was pretty worried because everyone else was acting concerned. But that part only lasted for a minute at the most, because the whole thing was really fast.

The second stage was the most intense thing I have ever experienced! Jesse was actually coming out against my will... I could not control it at all, and it kind of freaked me out! With all the rest of the kids, I didn't have that happen once I was completely dilated... I was pushing when I didn't feel the need to with David, Jessica & Joshua. With Marissa, I felt that overwhelming feeling that my body was pushing without me, but only after I had made a conscious decision to stand up to see if I'd feel like pushing that way. This was so different, because I had only been checked the one time, so nobody knew I was completely dilated until the baby was coming out!

It turns out that Marissa happened to choose the moment of birth to go see me, so Kate ran after her and the two of them saw Jesse's birth! Marissa really liked being there (she's seen so many births on video & TV and wanted to be there), but I think it kind of freaked Kate out. She doesn't have any children yet, and she'd never seen a birth, even on video, before. I had meant to show her some births on video, but somehow the time got away from us before I was actually in labor. I wanted to wait until the cord had stopped pulsating before it was cut, to make sure Jesse got all his blood. We waited until the placenta was delivered, which felt so relaxed and unhurried. Our son David came in shortly thereafter and cut the cord. He was pretty excited about that. And Joshua got to meet Jesse then, too.

Jesse is named after our paternal grandfathers. Matt's grandfather was named Jesse and mine was named Russell. We hadn't really settled on a girl's name, though we'd thought of Jesse Russell quite a while before he was born, which was handy--since he turned out to be a boy! Jesse's name is also special since our first daughter was named Jessica, and we'd called her "Jessie". When she died, we never expected that we'd ever use the name Jesse. But after a number of years, the name kept popping into our minds, so we decided to use it.

We were so excited to have Jesse with us in our room and not be whisked off to the NICU like Joshua had been (having been born early)! All night long, I could hardly sleep and kept opening my eyes to see Jesse all bundled up in his little crib. I kept looking at Matt and saying, "He's SO cute!!".

Since Jesse was so big, they tested his blood sugar, and it was too low, so they said he needed formula to get it back up where it should be. He was nursing great, but they said that I didn't have enough colostrum yet to do the trick. They said if his blood sugar didn't get up soon, he would end up in the NICU with an IV. Of course, we didn't want that, so he had a few meals of formula through the night.

It was quite a shock the next day when they told us they thought he needed to go to the NICU because he was breathing too rapidly. The first few days, we were kind of in denial about him needing to be there, and once I accepted it, then things were better. I had been so sure that if we kept this baby inside until he was full-term, that we wouldn't have to go through another NICU experience, but I realized that isn't necessarily the case. The people in the NICU were wonderful; we just wanted to have our son healthy & be able to take him home right away. I was glad to be able to stay in a hospitality room in the hospital so I could be with Jesse. Then I stayed in a room in the NICU with him for a couple of nights before he went home. We were SO glad to take him home, after 8 days in the NICU!!

I watched Jesse be circumcised, the day we brought him home. It was pretty interesting. After it was all done, our pediatrician said he had had some dads watch, but he thought I was the first mom. He said, "Congratulations!". This doctor has been practicing for a long time, so I was surprised when he said I was the first mom to watch... but then again, everyone seemed to think I was going to faint or something. I had wanted to watch Joshua's circumcision but allowed myself to be talked out of it, so I was determined this time to watch!

Our doctor did a great job making sure the lidocaine had taken effect before he started the circumcision. I was quite pleased. The nurse who was helping told me afterwards that she wished Dr. N could do all the circumcisions, because he does such a good job. Jesse didn't cry until he was getting cleaned up afterwards. :)

Well, I'm not sure how many people have made it to the end of this birth story, but I hope you enjoyed it! I've got some shopping & cooking to do before our friends get here in 3 hours...