Introducing Daniel Jack Lewis

Born May 16, 2011 at 11:30 a.m.

Weighed 7 lbs, 0.5 oz

Measured 19 inches long

The Labor Story

I had high hopes for Saturday May 14th - to do some final touches to the nursery, finally get the hospital bag packed, finish thank you's from shower gifts, etc.  Instead, I woke up at 7 that morning throwing up and having diarhhea and feeling like I had the flu.  I was worried that me being sick was posing some sort of risk to the baby, so I called the clinic and they told me it was one of two things: prelabor (apparently some women experience flu-like symptoms as pre-labor and it's the body's way of preparing itself for the child birth) or a flu bug that had been going around.  Since my due date wasn't until May 31st and since I had been in for a check up on Thurs May 12th and they told me I was not dilated at all and that the baby was still "way up there," I figured it must surely be a bug.  Nonetheless, I forced myself out of bed for long enough to pack our hospital bag just in case.

After pushing lots of fluids and sleeping tons, I felt completely fine by Sunday May 15th.  We got up and went to church, made brunch afterwards, and went to Cody's cousin's graduation party that afternoon.  I got a lot of questions from his family about how I was feeling and whether I felt like the baby was coming soon, and my reply was that I thought I still had a long ways to go. 

Went to bed around 11 p.m. on Sunday night and at 1 a.m., I woke up to myself wetting the bed - or at least that's what I thought was happening.  I was hesitant to tell Cody I just peed the bed, but didn't figure I could hide it and didn't want him rolling over into it :)  He asked if I thought it was my water breaking, but I wasn't feeling any sort of contractions and it really just felt like I wet my pants.  Ugh - I was so embarrassed.  He convinced me to call the clinic to report what happened and I was apologizing to them that this might be a false alarm and I may have just wet the bed, but they told me to come to the hospital anyway just to be sure.  So we threw our final items into the hospital bag, somewhat feeling like this could maybe be really happening, but somewhat feeling like the hospital would send us right back home after telling me I had bladder control issues. 

We got to the hospital right at 2 a.m. (the doors they told us to come in were locked, wtf?!?, so we took a fairly long walk around the outside of the hospital to the right set of doors.)  Thankfully I was in no pain and was able to walk around just fine.  When we got into our Triage room, the nurse told me to undress and put on the hospital gown.  As I was doing this, another gush of fluid came out all over the floor of the triage room.  Eek!!!  Quick, I told Cody, help me clean this up so they don't know I peed on their floor!  So we scrambled to dry the floor before the nurse came back in.  She checked me then, and sure enough it was my water breaking.  What a relief - it wasn't a faulty bladder after all!! At that point, I was at 2-3 cm.  She said the baby was very low, but my cervix was still behind his head (or something like that).  She hooked me up to a couple monitors and we heard the baby's heart beating steadily and then another monitor showed that I was actually having contractions.  The nurse told me I was in the middle of a contraction right then and asked if I could feel it.  Oh....that's what the nagging feeling of pressure was that I'd been having off and on for the past couple weeks.  Who knew that was what a contraction felt like?! 

Around 3 a.m. we got moved into the room I'd labor and deliver in.  It was about this time that I lost my mucus plug (I really despise that name of that, for the record).  From 3-5 a.m., we had to take care of some hospital paperwork, go through some questions with the nurse, and then just kind of waiting for this to progress.  At this point, my contractions are manageable and I still have the "I Am Woman, Hear Me Roar" mentality - I was going to tough this thing out:, one contraction at a time:

I had requested a room with a jacuzzi tub in it because I had prepared myself for doing this the good ole natural, unmedicated way and was told that soaking in the jacuzzi tubs can help you relax.  Got in around 5:00 a.m. and the tub felt good for about 10 minutes, I even had a People magazine that I was starting to read.  But not long after I got in the tub did the contractions start getting more intense and more frequent.  They were about 4 minutes apart at this point.  I couldn't focus on People, and needed Cody to help me breathe through each contraction.  I eventually wanted to be in a different position to work through the contractions, so after about 40 minutes of soaking, I ditched the tub:

Before and after the tub I used the birthing ball (which I really liked rocking back and forth on that, by the way) (note: "liked" is a relative term here!):

By 6 a.m., the contractions were coming so close and so intensely (Cody had been breathing with me and coaching me through them and helping me to try to visualize myself somewhere else: honeymoon, beach, etc.) that we called the nurse in to check me.  I was at 5-6 cm.  WHAT?!? That's it?  The pain of each contraction was literally taking my breath away and I was moaning and whimpering and nearly in tears by the time each contraction got to it's peak.  I was dreading each contraction when I felt it starting.  And I started questioning why I felt the need to be so tough.  By 6:20, I had made up my mind that I wanted the epidural, but of course you don't immediately receive it.  Waited for about 30 minutes for the anethesiologist - and the contractions during those 30 minutes were the most awful since I was so ready for the epidural at that point and didn't want to fight the contractions anymore. 

Within about 5-10 minutes, the epidural had taken effect and LIFE WAS BEAUTIFUL again:

From 7:30-10:00 I laid in the bed and relaxed, closed my eyes a little, sent some texts, forwarded work emails from my phone, etc.  I could feel pressure when a contraction was happening, but it wasn't painful at all.  I seriously did not regret for one second (and still don't) getting the epidural.  It was so much more enjoyable that way.  People had mentioned the enjoyable thing to me before, but I brushed it off thinking I'd enjoy it just the same if I did it naturally.  Ha - Wrong answer. 

At 10:00, the nurse checked me again and I was ready to push she said!  I looked at Cody wide-eyed - it was really happening - we were really about to meet our baby!  It seemed so surreal.  Like it was happening to me, but not really happening to me, if that makes any sense.  No - that doesn't really.  But I don't know how else to describe it.

By 10:30, I was starting to push.  My contractions were still about 4 minutes apart, so I had a nice break in between each push.  Cody had one leg and nurse Meri had the other leg.  Both were awesome coaches.  We were so so lucky that it happened to be my OB's day to be in the hospital, so he actually got to deliver the baby.  The chances of that happening weren't real good - so thankful it turned out in our favor!  At 11:30, I gave my final push and Daniel entered the world.  The picture at the top of this post is from right after they cleaned him off.  Here's a picture right after he was born and the nurse is handing him to me, an indescribable moment.  I don't even know how to try to begin explaining that rush of emotions.

 

Daniel is named in loving memory of Cody's father, Daniel Lynn Lewis, and his middle name, Jack, is in honor of my two grandpas: Gerald "Jack" Meyer and John "Jack" Mack.