Things I Love: Jonas: a birth story

Throughout my pregnancy, I had been spouting about how I was going to have a natural, vaginal delivery and it would be smooth and perfect and much better than my previous experience. Truthfully, I don't think I really thought I could do it. I think I thought that someone would stop me or something would happen and I'd be whisked away back into the operating room where he would be born. But that didn't happen.

On Friday morning, I had an appointment with my doctor. She excitedly told me that the state of my cervix was quite favorable, using words like perfect, soft, stretchy, awesome... I was 2 cm dilated and 90% effaced, nice progress from the previous appointment. She swept my membranes and sent me on my way, telling me she would be surprised if I lasted through the weekend.

Adrian had taken work off to come with me to my appointment, so we decided to go to the beach and have what we joked was our date out as a threesome, not knowing that in less than 24 hours, we would be a foursome. After lunch and walking along the beach for a while, we ran errands and then headed to my Nana's house while Adrian went to the San Diego office for a little while.

At this point, I'd been feeling quite crampy and having random contractions, but nothing that would be considered regular. By 6:30 that evening I was having contractions that were anywhere from 6-10 minutes apart, although lacking intensity. Adrian was still meeting with people at his office so I sent him a text saying that to err on the safe side, we should stay in San Diego that night...save ourselves the potential 2 hour drive to the hospital. He promptly showed his bosses the text and hightailed it home, then we headed to my parents' house. I still wasn't convinced that we'd be having a baby soon, I was certain that we'd be heading back home in the morning!

We ate dinner with my parents and my contractions were becoming more regular, around 6 minutes but varying in intensity and length. At about 10:30 I told Adrian he might want to go to sleep because I had a feeling we might be making a hospital trip (of course he didn't listen because he's stubborn!) and I fell asleep at around 11pm. Go figure, at 1:30am I woke up with painful contractions that were 4 minutes apart, lasting about 45 seconds each time. I sat watching Animal Hoarders until I finally got Adrian (who was causing trouble outside with my dad) and told him that it was really happening. Uncharacteristically, he freaked out a bit, asking frantic questions and repeating "we're really going to the hospital, this is actually happening..." As we were getting in the car, I finally told him that he needed to pull it together because I couldn't handle him freaking out!

By the time we arrived at the hospital around 4:15am, my contractions were considerably stronger and coming at 2-3 minute intervals. I was dilated to 6cm, thank goodness, and they whisked me away into a delivery room. Totally TMI, but weirdly enough, with Jonas' labor I felt like I had to pee every 5 minutes, whereas with Gabriel it was the number 2 that wouldn't leave me alone. I swear I walked back and forth from the restroom about 50,000 times, which meant repeatedly unhooking cords and plugs so I could move around. Finally, the wonderful nurse brought me a yoga ball to sit on, since true to form, I forgot mine at home. I put pillows in front of me to lay my head on while sitting on the ball with Adrian rubbing my back. I've never felt so in control of my body than I did in those hours leading up to delivery. It was a sense of calm and purpose that washed over my entire being, in my head and my heart and my limbs. Adrian is convinced I was so "in the zone" that I was falling asleep in between contractions, but I remember very vividly being awake. I labored that way until about 6:30 when I told Adrian that if I hadn't progressed at all since the previous check, by god I was getting an epidural and nobody was going to stop me. He told me I was crazy, which I agreed with, but man, it was intense. Phew, I was at 9 cm.

15 minutes later I was feeling major pressure and ready to push. It was an out-of-body experience, to say the least. There were parts of the next 45 minutes where I was certain I couldn't keep pushing. I take my hat off to women who push for hours and hours because I was so utterly drained by the time Jonas came and thought it impossible at points to even muster up an ounce more of energy. My water refused to break, even after contractions taking me to 10 cm and pushing for about 15 minutes (that's a story for anther day, pretty hilarious actually), so the midwife had to break it. Another 40 minutes of pushing and several expletives shouted to nobody and finally, finally we met our baby boy. He was, is, perfect.

I've literally never felt pain like I felt that morning, but I am so grateful to have had the experience. I swore to Adrian right after it was finished that if we have another, they can slice me open for all I care because I was never going through that again. Now that my memory has dulled, I'm starting to think I might do it the exact same way. Funny how quickly we forget the pain...

Adrian cut the umbilical cord and then Jonas was put on my chest immediately, where he stayed for the next hour or so. The look on Adrian's face when he held Jonas for the first time was priceless. I'm so glad I captured it because I never, ever want to forget it.

My parents stayed at the hospital during labor and came in as soon as I was all stitched up (ouch!) and comfortable (not so much!). They are happy, happy grandparents...

Gabriel met his brother for the first time and wanted to give him Cheezits. He still wasn't ready to hold him but at least he's being a good sharer! Once he saw everyone holding the baby he decided that he might like his brother and decided to hold him. Every morning since we've been home, Gabriel comes into our room and says "Is Jonas still here? Where is my baby brother?" Then he climbs in bed and snuggles with us. In those quiet moments, everything is right in the world.

There's this thing that happens when you have a second baby where you don't think your heart can expand any more than it already did to make room for your first. You think it might explode into little bits and pieces of memories all over the floor. But then you get this second precious, precious gift and all you can think about is how he was made for this family. How his piece fits into the missing jigsaw space so perfectly and creates balance that you never knew you needed. That he was predesigned a million years ago to be right in this spot. With you.

Now that Jonas is home, we are developing a great routine. Gabriel has much more energy than he did pre-Jonas (or at least it feels like it!) and I've been getting major cabin fever so we make it a point to get to the park at least once a day.

He is a dream baby during the day, doing what babies do - sleeping, eating and pooping. Last night we had our first 4-hour stretch of sleep which was ah-mazing. So amazing in fact, that when I woke up I was engorged and tried to get him to eat, but he was too into sleeping so I just laid there, wide awake.