Ask The Pros
Pregnancy Photos
Pregnancy Calendar
Birth Plans
Birth Stories
Bookstore
Boy or Girl
Cesareans
Chat Room
Complications
Doulas
Educators
Episiotomy
FAQs
Feeding Baby
Fertility
Finding a Class
Health
Interactive
Labor
Message Board
Monitoring
Newborns
Postcards
Postpartum
Pregnancy
Reviews/Awards
Search
VBAC
Week by Week

Jensen Emily's Birth

My first delivery was nothing unusual, 10 hours labour, an epidural. The second one was the one that knocked my socks off. The biggest issue we had was trying to determine when my last menstrual period was. I hemmed and hawed about the dates and finally just picked when I thought I had last had one. Because of the inconsistencies surrounding that, we were never quite sure when my due date was. My ob/gyn decided that I would be looking at approximately the 3rd week of Feb/97. Well, a few weeks prior to that, he does a measurement, pronounces me at 42"cm and said that I would probably deliver in the early part of Feb. I'm darned happy at this point.

The end of February passes. I am not happy. I go to my last appointment and ask him in that oh-so-reasonable suffering pregnant woman voice, how long are we going to keep this up? He smiles, nods his head and says if I don't go into labour by NEXT week, we'll look at inducing. I cry all the way in the car, not easy to do when you're driving.

On March 4th at 3:40 A.M. I woke up to go to the bathroom and gusher! My water breaks and it's the fill your boots kind. I told my husband that it was time; he immediately springs out of bed, gets dressed, runs down the stairs and is waiting impatiently for me by the front door. I ask him sarcastically if we would like me to come along as well.

In the meantime, I leisurely saunter my way to the bathroom to get myself cleaned up; I get my housecoat on, go downstairs and have a glass of juice & a bowl of yogurt. I called my mom at 4:00 A.M. to tell her I would be going to the hospital today. She asked if my contractions had started & I said nothing had started yet. She warned me, saying that 2nd babies are typically a lot quicker than the first. I pooh-poohed this; besides, you don't want to get to the hospital too early, they'll send you home. I got off the phone about 4:05 A.M.. By 4:15 I had my first contraction. 7 minutes later I had another one and had this overwhelming urge for a bowel movement. I went to the bathroom and was incapacitated by another contraction approximately 4 minutes later. By 4:30, they were coming a little over a minute apart.

My husband got on the phone to get the lady who was supposed to stay in the house with our little girl; she called back by 4:40 and said she couldn't get her car started!! I told my husband to call 911 because the way things were going, I just wasn't going to make it if we were going to drive.

The ambulance came screaming up the place right around 5:00 A.M.. The E.M.T.'s seemed about as scared as I was; I think I just about crushed the bones in one poor fellow's hand...I was squeezing so hard. We had the entire neighborhood congregating in their front yards, trying to figure out what was going on. The E.M.T.'s were having a hard time getting the stretcher into the vehicle; they kept pushing it in, trying to lock it into place, taking it out and trying again. I think I mentioned something about not wanting to have a baby in the driveway.

We got to the hospital at 5:20 A.M. and a nurse ran up and said her name was....something, I'm not sure what, and asked me where my husband was. I said that he was taking my little girl to the babysitters and would be here shortly. She patted my hand and said "Dear, he's not going to make it on time". I distinctly remember not really caring.

They moved me to the birthing bed, stripped my clothes off, turned me on my side and told me to push immediately. 3 pushes later, Jensen Emily was born. The nurse was getting a real good chuckle because when my water broke, I called the hospital to let them know but that I wasn't coming in because nothing had started yet; she made a comment about how calm I was when I called to the panic that was caused in me getting there; I guess you can't always predict how this things will turn out!

From the first contraction to actual delivery was 1 1/2 hours. Sounds good in theory but you don't have any time to adjust to what your body is going through, either mentally or physically. Funny thing was, she was born so fast, that her ears were bent over (they've since moved back to normal position).

Carla (Delaney & Jensen's mom)