Jake & Christy: July 2010

i feel so blessed to have a father-in-law who is such an amazing encourager! he will randomly send me quotes from books he is reading that he feels will encourage me and give me strength and confidence in the work jake and I are doing with Piper...

this one is from Pure Pleasure by Gary Thomas...

“…let me explain the spiritual violence we do to young mothers when we shame them for being overwhelmed with love for their babies in a way they may not feel in that particular moment for God. Neurologists now understand that when a woman nurses her newborn, her brain releases extra doses of oxytocin and prolactin, which are neurochemicals that trigger profound feelings of intimacy and a rush of emotional love. In fact, nursing also triggers the release of oxytocin in the infant. In the God-designed act of nursing, mother and child are all but melding into each other, overcome with intense feelings of adoration, intimacy, and closeness. Their brains ping with positive, pleasurable feedback. Scientists have found this chemical reaction to be so overpowering that mother rats chose their newborns over cocaine!

Our creator designed this interaction, and brilliantly so. In a season of life that calls this young woman to so much work – changing diapers, struggling through sleep-deprived nights, dealing with incessant crying, breathing in unpleasant smells – it’s a mark of God’s genius that he also provides for unusually intense emotional bonding.

I can imagine a young mother’s prayer: “How good and kind you are, my heavenly Father, that you provide such pleasing intimacy between a mother and her baby. What a joy that my child and I can share these moments as gifts from your hand! You’ve designed my brain to truly enjoy regular times of intimacy and to bond so very deeply with a child I might otherwise grow to resent.” (pp.62-63)

I hope this encourages someone else today...

Piper Ann’s Birth Story…
July 9, 2009…
2:55pm- I was resting on the couch about to watch Dr. Phil…I had a contraction…stronger then I had ever had…strong enough for me to make note of what time it was…but no more followed.
4:00pm- Jake gets home early from a work retreat thing. I have my next contraction almost as soon as he gets home…again…even stronger.
4:20pm- another one…this time I had to lean over the bed while Jake was telling me about his day. That contraction alarmed us both…Jake asked if this was “it”. How was I supposed to know?! I had never been though this! We were going to “the music man” at the civic center that night with jakes parents and were due at their house at 5:30pm…so we thought we should go walk at northpark mall to see if contractions continued…
4:30pm- had to stop for a pink lemonade snow cone on our way to northpark I had walked at northpark A LOT during this pregnancy and would almost always have Braxton Hicks contractions while walking there toward the end….these were NOT Braxton Hicks! Within 20 minutes of walking I had to stop during a contraction and sit down. Jake started timing them and they were VERY regular…every 2 minutes lasting 53 seconds (seriously almost every one of them was 53 seconds…weird huh??). Although I had all these plans to labor at home for hours and hours…I thought they were pretty close together and I guess like any first time mom…I was so anxious to get to the hospital and get things going! This was “it”! For sure!!!
5:15pm- we leave northpark, call Jake’s parents to tell them we wont be going to the civic center, because we were heading to triage…and that we would call them when we knew something else. We headed home to grab the bags.
5:30pm-in route to OU Medical center
6:00pm- with rush hour traffic, parking, and the LONG walk to triage, we finally make it! Contractions weren’t too bad while driving, but going down the sky walk at OU Medical center to triage was NOT fun…they were getting pretty painful and I had to use the side handle bar in the hall way just to make it! They told us while we were checking in to triage that it was a super busy night and they did not have a room yet and we would have to wait in the waiting room!! What!!!! I was not happy!! We head to the waiting room and I labored in there for 45 minutes. I just sat in the waiting room chairs trying to relax. Then, when a contraction came, I squeezed the chair and did “whoo-whoo” breathing that really helped. At this point I told Jake to call my mom and dad to alert them that things are happening!!
6:45pm-finally was taken into a triage room and I changed into a gown. The nurse came in and told me that Ann (MY midwife) was the midwife working that night!!! The nurse took my blood pressure but had to leave to find the strappy things to put on my belly to watch my contractions and the heart rate of the baby. I was sitting on the bed and Jake and I were talking about how in COMPLETE AWE we were that this was happening…when….my water broke! Right there on the bed of the triage room!! As Jake was getting up to go tell someone, my midwife Ann walks in the door…it was as if Piper knew Ann was about to walk in! As I’m freaking out with excitement, I tell Ann that my water just broke. She checks me…confirmed that my water has broken, told me that I was 5 cm dilated and 100% effaced!! She looked at me and asked one more time…”were doing this naturally…right?” “Yes!” I said…at this point I could have conquered the world! Although I was already in a lot of pain I was full of energy, excitement and SO ready to do this!!
8:15pm- we are in our birthing suite!! Suite #20. I wanted to get into the tub right away, but I knew family was on their way…
8:30pm-Both sets of grandparents and aunt heather made it to the hospital. They all came in the room to see us! I had quite a few contractions while family was there…I think it was hard for them to see me in pain, and it was starting to get hard to concentrate on the task at hand…so…
9:15pm- Jake and I sent everyone to the waiting room and I went right for the tub! The water felt pretty amazing…it didn’t necessarily take away the pain of the contraction, but it helps my body to relax completely in between contractions.
10:15pm- The pain was getting much worse…I was out of the tub trying all kinds of positions. Rocking in the rocking chair felt really nice…sitting on the birthing ball hurt like heck (didn’t stay there long!)…leaning over the bed felt nice, especially when Jake would do counter presser rubbing on my lower back for the back labor…but by 10:15 I was ready to be checked again. Ann (midwife style) doesn’t like to “check” very often, but it had been 3 hours since I was checked in triage and I was really curious. I was at 6 cm. Not a ton of progress in 3 hours…but it was progress!!
11:00pm- I was back in the tub….things are getting pretty serious…the pain is so intense and I was getting pretty tired…I asked Jake to turn the lights off in the bathroom. I spend over an hour in the tub, in the dark, in pain!
12:00midnight-ish- (…because midwives are awesome) I did not have to have an IV or have constant monitoring (with the strappy thingys ;). But once an hour the nurse would come in to monitor my contractions and the baby for about 10 or 15 minutes…the monitors are even water proof! So while I was being monitored in the tub…I started crying. I told the nurse that I was in so much pain and was so tired and was ready to be done with all this! I asked to be checked again, so the nurse checked me in the tub (btw, being “checked” is not the most pleasant experience…but being checked in the tub, felt so much better!). She told me I was 7-8 cm. Although heather, our nurse, was very supportive the whole time of me doing things naturally, while seeing me crying in the tub…she made sure to tell me…”if you change your mind, just let me know”…in a very sweet soft voice…
July 10, 2009…
1:00am- 9 hours into this journey, Jake and I were both pretty tired, so we decided to lie down and try to rest. I think Jake got a pretty good nap in at this point. I lay on the bed (propped up because laying flat on my back hurt really badly!) and didn’t necessarily sleep, but I went into somewhat of a trance. Before this point I was pretty vocal about my pain (yes, screaming “owe, owe, owe, OWE, OWE, OWE” each contraction). But now I started to be very quiet. Like I said I didn’t sleep, but I think my eyes were closed for an hour and a half…I started just counting in my head…when a contraction would come I would just count…1,2,3,4 etc…I knew it would REALLY start hurting around 30 seconds and start dying down at about 55 seconds. Counting, in my head in the quiet, dark room gave me a distraction…
2:30am- We both started to “wake up” a bit and I was ready to be checked again…7-8 cm….still. Ann told me it was time to start moving around again. Jake helped me with some labor positions. My favorite at this point was completely putting my weight on Jake and swaying back and forth….dancing if you will. Ann also wanted me to eat something at this point, so Heather, our nurse, brought me some Jell-O. I hardly remember this.
4:00am- I asked to be checked again after moving around a while…I was at 8-9cm!!! I was pretty excited to hear that at this point!! I remember asking Heather how much longer she thought it would be…and she told me that we should make a goal to start pushing at 6am! If only we knew I still had 14 hours to go!!!! After this, everything is pretty much a blur…good thing Jake twittered so I can look back and try to remember a few details.
7:00am- I am officially at 9 cm.
9:00am- Ann comes in, very disappointed that her shift is over. I was back in my trance on the bed, and I remember her walking in and telling Jake that, although I had no energy to react, I was very sad she would not be delivering our baby. Our new midwife, Leanna, came in very sweet and introduced herself, looked over our birth plan, checked me…still a 9, and told me to get into the tub again to see if that will help loosen me up to get to 10cm. Jake helps me into the tub again, we put towels on the side of the tub and I basically “slept” in between contractions in the tub. But during contractions it felt really good to thrust my hips back and forth, it made water get all over the place, but it felt good.
Between 11am and 1pm- Leanna came in and check me again. She was really concerned at how long I had been at 9 cm and really wanted to see how effective my contractions were being. So we all decided that putting an internal monitor in would help to see. To insert the internal monitor I had to lay completely flat on my back on the bed, and like I have already mention, that was extremely painful to do and would always bring on a very strong very painful contraction. So after I was done screaming through that contraction, Leanna gave me the horrible news… that contraction, as painful as it was was only about half the intensity it needed to be, to get to 10cm and to push the baby out. I have never been so discouraged…I almost felt like the past 20 hours of work meant nothing! She told us that her suggestion was to do a little pitocin just to get me over this hump and to have strong enough contractions to push the baby out. I looked at Jake and was shaking my head…all I heard was the word pitocin and I wanted to run away! Jake knew that it’s not what I wanted, so he asked Leanna if there was anything else we could do? Leanna took Jake all around the room and showed him some serious cervix opening exercise and told us that she would give us an hour to do some hard work and we would re-evaluate. Jake made me get up and I had the hardest 45 minutes of my life! We were doing side squats on the tub; sitting on the toilet, dancing, and birth ball positions…it was miserable. After 45 minutes, in complete humbleness and exhaustion, I couldn’t do it anymore. Jake called Leanna in and with no progress we decided to do an IV of pitocin. And because I was already in so much pain, and knew that with pitocin it would only get worse, I asked if there was any type of pain relief that could just be administered through the IV. Within 5 minutes of pit and nubain drip…I was pretty much knocked out. The nubain didn’t take away the pain of the contractions, I still remember feeling them, but it made me fall asleep so I just didn’t really care about them anymore. I slept for almost 3 hours, which was amazing! I needed that more then anything!
3:30pm- Started coming out of a drug induced nap….pushing!!! I was bearing down, pushing as I was telling Jake to call someone, because I was pushing!!!! Leanna and Lacey (our new nurse) came in. Leanna basically told me that I still had cervix in the way, but to go a head and start pushing and she basically was pulling that part of my cervix out of the way with her finger while I was pushing (lovely huh? ). Leanna had set up this whole area on the floor next to the bed, with those large cloth pad things for me to squat. Jake was on one side of the bed and me on the other, Jake and I locked hands and I would bend down into a complete squat while pushing…this felt amazing. It really is true that once you get to the pushing stage, that pushing takes away the pain of contractions. I pushed and pushed and pushed. For 3 hours in many different positions. But mostly squatting. Leanna eventually told me to lay on the bed, they leaned the bed all they way back and Jake and Lacey held my knees while I pushed…Leanna still in her floral cardigan (she never put anything else on, and even got a little blood on it!) was sitting on the edge of the bed….
6:40pm-After 3 hours, Piper Ann came out…and Jake caught her!!! It was amazing, as he put her on my chest he told me it was a little girl. I just remember crying…in relief that it was all over and in complete overwhelming love!