Jeremiah’s Birth and Saturday, October 20th

We spent the morning doing our normal Saturday routine of dishes, vacuuming, laundry, etc.  Then decided since it was such a beautiful day we would go out to the garage and let Z man play around out front while we organized and cleaned out the garage.  It was one of those annual chores we had wanted to get done and just hadn’t had a chance yet.  Around 2:30 we came in for a late snack lunch since we had a snack with Z at 10:30 when he ate.  Since October 13th at lunch time (2 weeks earlier) I had been having contractions at different intervals and pain levels.  Today was no different, although rather pain free which allowed us to get so much work done.  The contractions also make it very difficult to feel the baby move so almost every afternoon and after dinner in the evening I do a kick count (lay for an hour after eating and should feel the baby move at least 5 times).  Today after we had our snack I laid and could not feel anything, it usually only takes 10-15 minutes for me to get the 5 movements.  After about 20 minutes of nothing Austin laid with me (Z was napping) and he couldn’t feel any movement either.  I think I felt the baby move once in the hour, so we decided to go to the hospital to have the baby checked.  On the drive there (it took about an hour) I felt him move twice which made me feel a lot better, but still not what it should be so we continued on to have him checked. 

When we arrived at the hospital they put us in a triage room in labor and delivery, I love that when you walk into the ER as a pregnant woman they all freak out and literally forced me into a wheel chair and up to labor and delivery in under a minute.  I think they have probably had a few bad experiences which cause them to get the pregnant ladies upstairs immediately.  I was hooked up to do a non-stress test to monitor the baby and my contractions.  We quickly could see and hear Jeremiah’s heart rate in the 130’s, completely normal and were relieved.  But the nurse was very surprised when she saw the read outs on the contractions.  After an hour of monitoring the on call doctor came in and questioned me.  He was very surprised as well, I was having strong regular contractions every 3 minutes and had progressed along in labor but was happily talking to him and interacting normally.  After two weeks of feeling the contractions and different levels of pain, you tend to just ignore it and go about your life.  He said he had never seen a pregnant woman in my stage of labor who was smiling and having a normal conversation with him so that confused him, but based off what he was seeing, he felt he needed to admit me and that we would have the baby that night.  We were both relieved and almost surprised after the two weeks of thinking it could be any minute we kind of finally gave up and thought it would be when I was induced the next Wednesday.  Austin says I was extremely happy when he told us this.  I had been in pain and having contractions so much over the past two weeks I would never have gone to the hospital that night on my own.  I would have waited until my water broke which would have been within two hours of Jeremiah’s arrival and not enough time to get to the hospital and settled, especially without Z.  We were very blessed to have it work out as it did where we went in because I couldn’t feel Jeremiah moving.  As it was, we didn’t have much time to spare in getting Z settled, getting me all the medicines I needed to receive to help Jeremiah if he was Coombs +, and the epidural. 

Now that we were being admitted we had to figure out where to take Zachary so Austin could focus on Jeremiah and me.  This was the first night Z spent away from both of us and we were agonizing over not having him with us.  Unfortunately our friends who we had lined up to watch him decided to take a last minute trip out of town on Saturday morning and wouldn’t be back until Sunday afternoon.  We had all of our stuff packed in the car (I am always prepared, even though not a boy scout, the bags had been in the car for two weeks with notecards on the counter of last minute items to grab such as Zachary’s milk and cell phone chargers).  We called Marie (a friend from work who was pregnant with me the first time around) and asked if Austin could come put him down at her house.  They live kind of near the hospital, have a baby girl Zachary’s age and she is very responsible so I knew she would take great care of him, but worried about him being away from us for the first time especially since he had only been to their house once and didn’t see them often.  She instead came and got him from us so Austin wouldn’t have to leave me, which was fantastic because things moved along quickly.  They would also take him to church in the morning and bring him back around lunch time, perfect timing for us, we couldn’t stand to be away from Z long, but needed to get through labor  & delivery without him there.

We had time to get all the drugs needed and an epidural while watching some Georgia and Beaver football and trying to rest.  I had been walking miles each day and doing activities like organizing the garage so I was actually physically tired and needed to rest.  We were able to watch the first half of the football game resting and then in perfect timing just as half time started it was time for Jeremiah’s arrival.  The hospital had a new doctor in training on that night and she had been checking in with us as well as our labor and delivery nurse who was also a mid-wife.  They called for the main doctor to come in for the delivery at 12:15 am (I remember because I thought to myself, there is no way we will have him at 12:22 am like Andy and Sarah had Juliet the night before).  However, Jeremiah was coming and as he moved down he was getting the umbilical cord tightened around his neck, it was attached inside (which it shouldn’t be but was for Z too) and was too short to allow him to come out with it around his neck loosely.  His heart rate dropped and then they couldn’t get anything on his monitor, thankfully the L&D nurse took charge and called for NICU support and told me he had to get out now without waiting.  It was under three minutes from that point that he was out and they were cutting the cord off his neck.  He was white and purple, motionless and wasn’t crying which was scary.  The nurses swarmed him and started shoving things down his throat and attaching things to him.  I couldn’t see him but could hear all the work they were doing.  Here is Austin’s account of the next couple minutes…the nurses spent about a minute working to remove fluid from his lungs, shaking his limbs and doing whatever they do to get the babies to cry and take that first deep breath.  Soon after Jeremiah sounded that wonderful first cry and kept crying for the next few minutes.  He also changed color to pink so fast you could almost see it happening like a chameleon. All was well. 

He was born at 00:22, exactly the same time as Juliet, not sure when the heart rate dropped and then couldn’t be found but it was sometime in between 12:15 and 12:22.  

They monitored his saturation for a few minutes to verify he was getting enough oxygen and had recovered and then left him with the regular nurses and us.  It is amazing how they all interact and handle their roles so well in those type of situations.  There were 5 NICU nurses, 2 labor and delivery nurses (on stand by for Jeremiah), my labor and delivery nurse and a doctor in training all working together. 

It was now safe to move on to the more fun activities of weighing/measuring, etc.  Austin didn’t get to do the ceremonial cutting the cord and we still aren’t completely sure if he was 20” or 21” because by the time they got around to all the measuring and other stuff it was low priority.  The nurse said he was 7 lbs 13 oz and 20 inches, but Jeremiah’s doctor told us he was 7 lbs 14 oz and 21inches on delivery (and we have a picture of 7 lbs 13.8 oz on the scale, see below, and the read out of the hospital screen says 7lbs 14 oz, 50.8 cm’s which is 20 inches.  So we think he was 7 lbs 13.8 oz and 20 inches but quickly grew an inch by the next day when he wasn’t squirming into a ball so much and that is why his doctor has 21 on her records.   

 

In the warmer heating up. 

Bundled, tagged and resting peacefully.  He has two birthmarks, one on each hand.  We don’t know if they will stay or not, you can see the one on his right hand in this picture on the bottom of the pic, just a small brown mark.  He has very blue eyes, Austin thinks they will stay blue based on this, time will tell.  He has extremely long fingers and finger nails (definitely like his dad).  The nurses all commented on how long he was and how big his hands are.  We are thinking quarterback, he can easily hold the ball, see over the line and will obviously be athletic.  Austin thinks he looks like his mama (other than the hands).  It is hard to say, he definitely looks different than Zachary did as a newborn which surprised us.  He has dark brown hair for now, and appears to have more of the Italian olive skin tone from his mama.  

They took Jeremiah to the nursery for monitoring most of the night, I had lost more blood than normal from a complication with the cord and was already too low going in to the delivery so they would not let me sit up or move (which was good because I was very dizzy and odd feeling).  I kept making Austin walk to the nursery and look at him through the windows to make sure he was ok.  We finally were able to be moved to a “mother baby” room and had Jeremiah join us around 5:00 am.  Then it was non-stop staring at him to make sure he was ok until 6:30 when the kitchen opened and I could order food.  It is crazy that you can’t eat for so long and then there is no food available after delivery when you can eat.  And advice to others for the future, don’t tell your husband they can bring their food into the room to eat rather than staying away.  I thought it would be fine because I didn’t want to eat anyway and really wanted Austin with me, but once Austin walked in and I smelled the food I was sooo hungry.  Austin did get me some trail mix from the vending machine in the middle of the night that helped but I was really wishing I had at least eaten a regular lunch the day before. 

That ended our night and started Day 0 of Jeremiah’s life (I learned from Andy I was counting incorrectly, the baby is 0 days old the first day, makes sense).