About Us

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The purpose of our blog is to share our journey through life with family and friends while we leave our mark on this world. Our 20's have been very kind to us and as we enter the 30's we are hoping to continue to enjoy our time in this thing we call life. I should have called this blog "Traveling through Life".

Saturday, December 14, 2013

Jackson Gray's Birth Story

On December 2nd I woke up at 4:30 am with what I thought were contractions. I stayed in bed for a while to make sure it was real. They were about 10 minutes apart and after about an hour I figured they were real. Matt was getting ready to get up for work and I told him he better stick around for a while just in case. I had a doctor’s appointment scheduled for that morning anyway so I was anxious to see what she had to say.

Four hours later on the way to the doctor my contractions stopped completely. She checked me and said I was 5 cm and I probably had a false start to labor. Typically she would admit someone to the hospital at 5 cm but she wanted to stick to my wishes so she gave me three options.  Go walk around the hospital for a while and be under observation, go walk around a mall for a while and see if they start back up, or go home.

I did not want to be admitted to the hospital with no contractions but I was afraid to get too far so we decided to go walk the mall for a while. I was the laboring woman walking around a mall for 3 hours. During that time I had a couple small contractions but the exercise seemed to have the opposite effect on me than it does for normal labor. We decided to go home.

Once we were home I took a very long nap and woke up at 4:30 pm. As soon as I woke up the contractions started again. This time they were 5 minutes apart and more intense. I timed them for about 30 minutes and they were getting closer and more intense. I told Matt it was time to go to the hospital and we needed to leave NOW. On the car ride they were 2-3 minutes apart. I was amazed how quickly they were coming already.

We were admitted to the hospital at 6:05pm after they checked me in triage and determined I was 6-7cm. I was shocked to hear I was so close to the transition stage however it didn’t feel like transition at all. The contractions were intense at this point but they were very manageable and felt like early labor pains to me. My contractions picked up to 1-2 minutes apart and stayed that way until he was born.

After we were moved to a labor room the timing of everything became very hazy. The doctor showed up to check on us. I met the nurses who would be on that night and the first thing I said to them is, “You have my birth plan right?” and “Please do not offer me pain medication”. All of them said they wouldn’t think I would need it based off of how I was already handling the contractions. One of the nurses said she has done hundreds of natural labors and she would not offer me anything. Then they left us alone for a while and we got into our routine.

I started laboring on my side. Around 9:00pm the doctor came in and asked if I wanted to be checked. I am against frequent checks at the hospital but I really needed to know that what we were doing was working. He checked me and said I was 9.5 cm and I had a small anterior cervical lip on the right side. I knew cervical lips could be an issue but he didn’t make it seem like it was a problem. The cervical lip was probably caused from me laying on my left side.

I then switched to sitting up in the bed when the back labor started. They brought me squatting bars so I could pull myself off the bed to relieve the pressure. I had Matt massage my back with all of the force he had for each contraction. The massaging was really the only way I could get through it. Without him my pain management would have been a different story. I couldn’t have done it without him!

Then I got up to go to the bathroom and I realized it felt so much better to stand up. I stood and used the rag doll position to hang off of Matt. This relieved so much pressure that I knew I had to continue like this.

The doctor came back to check on us around 10:00pm and I said I wanted to be checked again. He said I was 10 cm, the baby was +1 station and the cervical lip was gone. I asked what we do from here. He said my water still needs to break and the baby needs to be station +3. He said he wanted to give it more time and see if my water breaks on its own and brings the baby down.

Around 12:00 am he came back and said he would like to break my water. I felt safe with him breaking it at this point and I needed something to change. They told me to lie in the bed and I was wondering where all of the water was going to go. Breaking the water was not painful but it was the weirdest feeling having 3 liters of warm liquid all around you in bed. I just kept saying “This is so weird”. The nurses did a great job of cleaning it all up. We were then left to keep laboring for a while.

Around 1:00 am the nurse checked us and asked if I felt the need to push or felt any pressure. I felt no different. She had me start pushing a little to see if it would bring the baby down. We were still standing at this point and I started squatting. I remember from our Bradley classes that this was a very effective pushing position and I was confident he would be here in no time. It is very hard to push when you don’t feel the urge but I did it for 2 hours. I started to fear that he wasn’t going to come down and that they were going to have to go in and get him but the baby’s heart rate stayed healthy during all of this. I really thought that at 10cm with broken waters that I would feel some pressure to push. The nurse recommended propping one foot up on a chair and squatting like that for a while. This was very uncomfortable to me so we didn’t try it long.

At 3:00am the doctor came back to see if he could check me. I said yes because after two hours of squatting I needed to know if it was working. He said the baby was still at +1 station. I was getting discouraged after all that work.  I felt I had the energy to keep standing for several more hours but it didn’t seem to be working for me. He asked me if I felt the urge to push and I said I have yet to feel the urge. He asked me to go ahead and try and see if anything happens. I gave it my best try at pushing while in the bed, something I did not want to do. All of a sudden the room lit up with noise and the doctor said the baby is coming down. I was shocked! He told me if I kept pushing in this position he would be here quickly. I was thinking if I would have tried this 3 hours ago it would have saved me a ton of energy! Each time I pushed I didn’t feel like I was doing very well but everyone said I was pushing very effectively and making great progress. After 45 minutes of pushing Jackson Gray Sondgeroth was born at 3:48am on December 3, 2013 weighing 8lbs 6 oz and 21 ¼ inches long.

They placed him right on my stomach and he peed all over me. He was very alert and absolutely perfect!  




3 comments:

Anonymous said...

He is beautiful. Can`t wait till I can hold him.. :-) G-ma

Anonymous said...

What a blessing he is! Thanks for giving us a great Christmas gift! Grandma and Grandpa Sondgeroth

Sara Nagel said...

Thank you so much Amanda for sharing your birth story! I am so proud of you (and Matt). You are the strongest woman I know. He is absolutely adorable!