ITS A BOY!

Here is Jack Nicholas Jorgensen's Birth Story:

On Tuesday, February 14, I went in for my 39 week appointment. I was fully prepared to be told that I was at the same progress as the previous three weeks – one centimeter with no baby in sight. Since Nick had to work, I went alone to see Dr. Jones. The baby’s heartbeat was a strong 138 and I was measuring on track.

I was dilated a little further (yay!) to a 2-3. Dr. Jones offered to set an induction for me, but I got scared and declined. Since Nick wasn’t there, I wasn’t sure what to do and I certainly didn’t want to put my body through more stress than it needed to be. Although I wanted to meet Baby K SO BAD, I didn’t want to spend undo time in the hospital or end up with a C-section. I made an appointment to come back on Monday.

When I returned to my office, I discovered that Nick had sent me beautiful roses for Valentine’s Day. That really brightened my day since I didn’t anticipate going into labor anytime soon! Of course, I have the best husband ever.

Despite the failure of my cervix to progress, I was having contractions frequently. I tried to get Baby K to come out on Sunday night even by going to a concert (TPain and Gym Class Heroes) with my friend Jenn. I was prepared to go to Buffalo Wild Wings on Thursday with coworkers to “move things along” because I ate at BWWs the day I went into labor with Jace. (Okay, so that isn’t necessarily a tried and true method since we eat at BWWs every week.)

Wednesday I was having contractions all day, but I was able to get past them by walking around. I even did Travis and Amber’s taxes Wednesday night. When I came home I was having a lot of contractions. I called my mom and told her to be on “alert” but that I was going to try to go to sleep and see if the contractions went away.

The contractions didn’t go away and Nick roughly timed them – he thought they were about five minutes or less, and I couldn’t ignore them, so we decided to head for the hospital. Grandma Annie came over right away to stay the night with Jace.

We arrived at the hospital around eleven. The nurses checked me and I was the same as the previous day – about 2cm and still not completely effaced. When they told me this, I started crying because I thought I would have progressed more with all of the contractions.

They hooked me and Baby K up to monitors and made us walk for a couple hours. The contractions never stopped and were mostly between one and three minutes apart. They checked me again twice, and while I progressed some, I never made it past a good 3-4 centimeters. At about three AM we waited, assuming Dr. Hamburger was going to send me home and tell me to labor there.

Well, since my contractions were regular, Dr. Hamburger had us stay. Then I was able to get pain medication (Nubain) and I rested. I think we also walked more during that time. Dr. Hamburger came in and checked me at close to 8:00am and we anticipated going home then. I told them that I didn’t feel like my contractions were really getting stronger, although they weren’t letting up. I was still only measuring 3-4.

Dr. Hamburger gave us two options – go home, labor at home, and likely come back in a few hours (hopefully not days!) or he could break my water. We waivered (we are so chicken) but then Dr. Hamburger “convinced” us to let him break the water. We didn’t need much convincing, really, just an expert opinion. We knew there was no turning back once my water was broke. There was no going home.

By 10:00am the contractions were getting much harder and I think I was dilated to a 4-5. Nick called and demanded my epidural. I was scared to get it too early, so I was trying to hold off. He put the kibosh to that because I think he was sick of getting his hand violently squeezed every 1-2 minutes. I can’t believe how bad the contractions could be when I was only halfway there!

Since I had been at the hospital for nearly twelve hours at that point, and it took over an hour to get the anesthesiologist and everything lined up, I had a “Mommy Meltdown” around epidural time. They had to keep two monitors on me (super annoying). Then they had had me on an IV. Then they inserted a monitor into Baby K’s head. Then came the epidural. Then I was getting a catheter. Amongst all of this, my water was leaking everywhere and my socks got soaked with about ten people in the room, all poking me and telling me which way was up. I ended up crying, but luckily that was the most stressful part of my labor. (I am pretty sure the wet socks were the straw that broke the camel’s back. :) )

Ah, and the students! Baby K, I will let you know right now, lots of young ladies and gentlemen got to assist with and view your birth! There were students from Western Iowa Tech, Morningside and the University of Nebraska (that I could remember, there might have been more or others). Of course, I want all of them to learn properly, but I didn’t realize that so many would be learning on us! The anesthesiologist was also in “training” (I am not sure what a doctor-in-training is called). She inserted the epidural into my back while Nick encouraged me and I could feel it only go in on the right-hand side. I knew that probably wasn’t ideal, but I was in no position to request a “redo”.

Despite me saying that the epidural wasn’t perfect, it sure did help! I think they got it in and working by 11:15. By 11:30 or so we were left semi-alone to labor. Nick was starving so he even ordered lunch for “us” (a chicken sandwich for him, pudding for me). I had been eating crackers here and there, feeling nauseous all night and morning, but I knew I might be in for a long haul.

Nick gave me a few bites of pudding and the nurses checked me around noon. If I wasn’t progressing they were told by Dr. Hamburger to start me on induction medication (pitocan, I assume).

Luckily I was dilated to a 5-6 so I didn’t need any meds. The nurses left us again at a quarter after noon or so. Nick and I had a little bit of time to discuss how we were so excited to meet our little guy or girl! I was starting to get fearful that the labor process would carry on until late into the night. We talked about who would watch Jace that evening and Nick instructed me to rest and save up my strength. My main nurse had put me on my side with one leg in the “leg tray” (I have no idea what those things are called that elevate your leg) and I tried to rest.

Like I said before, I was pretty sure my epidural was not working 100% properly. Obviously I am no expert, but right side was much more numb than my left. I also felt like I could feel a lot more of the pain and contractions than with Jace.

Because of all of this, I wasn’t sure if it was normal when I was feeling a ton of pressure and I started having to grab Nick’s hand every minute or two again. This literally happened minutes after the nurses left the room. They had told me to rest, save up my strength. I could be there for hours before I dilated to a ten and was able to start pushing.

Once again (probably tired of being squeezed and also unable to eat his sandwich) Nick called the nurses. He was better at all of this than I was! Even though they had practically just left, they checked me again and I was dilated to a ten and ready to deliver. “Oh My Gosh!” doesn’t even begin to explain how shocked I was. The pressure in my bottom really was Baby K’s head and he or she was ready to come out.

I certainly felt the urge to push, but I was scared. They paged Dr. Hamburger, who was at the clinic a couple blocks away. The thirteen students (I am exaggerating, but there were a lot of them!) quickly prepped the room and got my legs ready. I could still feel them and function pretty well – something I couldn’t do with Jace. I am not sure if that was beneficial or not, but I think it was.

Dr. Hamburger arrived at about 1:15 p.m. and told me to start pushing. Nick was a great encouragement! I think I made it through three contractions of pushing. Dr. Hamburger offered for Nick and/or I to look and see the baby emerging. We both declined, but I could feel everything going on. While it was painful, I was glad to have the epidural to at least dull the pain.

At 1:21 p.m. they yelled, “It’s a boy!!” We couldn’t have been happier if we won the lottery! Little Jack Nicholas Jorgensen came out and cried almost immediately. They only took him for a second and then put him on my chest. Daddy and I were SO THRILLED! I kept saying “Yay! A boy!” over and over, I was so excited. Nick was all smiles and we were so glad the work of the last day and a half paid off. I literally only pushed for six minutes.

The nurses had to take Jack back to the warmer relatively quickly and he had to get suctioned down the throat and nose because he still had quite a lot of fluid in his nose. Dr. Hamburger sewed me up and told me that he just had extra fluid because he came so fast that he didn’t have time to get that fluid squeezed from his lungs in the birth canal.

His APGAR score was an 8-9, which is great. The nurses got him cleaned up a bit and discussed how his head even looked perfectly round (like a C-section baby, so they said) because he spent so little time in the birth canal that he didn’t have time to have a molded skull.

Nick and I were immediately so happy. We are so excited to be parents again. Having two little boys will be so amazing. Nick will be going on lots of ATV rides, taking the boys to plow snow, fixing toys and bikes…playing with bugs and frogs and all the fun things boys do.

Jack is just perfect. He looks a lot like his brother and also looks like a cute little old man. We think his hair is a light brown or a sandy and right now his eyes are a dark blue. He was 7 pounds 11 ounces at birth and 22 inches long.

Jack Nicholas Jorgensen was named after my Granddad Jack, his Daddy Nicholas, and was born on his Great Grandma Virginia Jorgensen’s birthday. Granddad passed away in 2009, and Grandma last month, but they would be so proud to have a namesake and share a birthday.

Jack is a very special and amazing little guy. We love him so much couldn’t ask for a better family!