Tuesday, July 1, 2008
We checked into the hospital at 1 am and I was told to change into a gown and was checked to see if my water had broken like I guessed it did. That test proved positive so they started hooking me up to monitors. It was such a weird feeling to realize that the next time we went home we would be parents. I was calling my mom throughout the night giving her updates. Since none of us expected the baby to come so soon or so fast (and in the middle of the night) she was pretty unsure what to do. She decided she and my brother Garrett would start driving early in the morning but they were so excited that they gave up trying to sleep and started driving at 3:30 am.
When I got to the hospital I was pretty effaced (I wasn't told any exact measurements) and dilated to about a 2. I steadily continued to dilate and was at about a 5 between 3 and 4 am. Every time I started to relax and go to sleep my contractions seemed to get worse so by 3-3:30 am I asked for the epidural. Having the needle stuck into my spine by a guy wearing a do-rag scared the heck out of me but was completely worth it once the epidural took effect. It was really weird to lose feeling from my waist down. My left side went a lot more numb than my right. I couldn't move my left leg at all and at one point couldn't find where it was under the blanket. (Hard to explain). I was jealous of Derrick who got to sleep for about 2 hours. Every time I almost fell asleep some nurse would come in to measure something.
Around 4:30 am I was put on pitocin to speed things along since my water had broken so long ago. The baby's heartbeat started to slow down and worry the nurses but luckily would pick back up every time they did things to try to wake Zach up. By 5:30am I had dilated to a 10 and Zach was ready to come. My bed was missing a stirrup so a nurse went hunting for one to take from another bed and my doctor was called into the room.
Everyone got into position about 6 am and I started pushing. It was really hard work and got exhausting fast. I was very glad I didn't need to feel the contractions while I was focusing on pushing. Epidurals are wonderful. Derrick was great and right next to me the whole time helping me get into position between pushes. We had to stop for a couple minutes in the middle of pushing so I could get a quick 2nd dose of penicillin through the IV. After a few more pushes Zachary James Bowen was born at 6:21 am. We stayed at the hospital until around 4:30 pm July 2.
Visitors at the hospital: Grandma Jones, Garrett Jones, Melissa Sharp, Nate Sharp, Grandma Bowen, Tara Anderson, and Bishop Thorne.
5 comments:
Jenny, it sounds like everything went pretty well, I can't believe your a mom! Well congratulations to both of you and hopefully I can see that little cutie of yours if your out here for christmas :)
haha I'm so glad that you came swimming with me that day...otherwise you wouldn't have been able to use your swimsuit and that would be totally tragic. Heartcha! XOXO
Here I am working on my labor story and just had to stop to read yours. Looks like swimming is a good way to get things started! And I may be confused, but did you only push for 20 minutes?! If so, I am extremely jealous.
Hope you're getting a little bit of sleep. And I hope we can get our boys together to play sometime!
It sounds like you did great! I'll have to call you sometime soon and get the nitty gritties. Your little guy is adorable! I had to laugh at your name choice- it was on my list because I thought it sounded good with Baron- Ironic because Bowen and Baron sound similar! I had a good little laugh. I hope you're doing well!
Thanks for sharing the details! I loved it. He's beautiful. Henry has the same outfit. It's a cute one!
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