Here I come - ready or not!!

Judah Spencer James Morris

January 27th, 2007

6:03 pm

5lbs 14oz

His first picture - taken moments after birth by his proud daddy

Such a sad picture - all those wires and tubes! This was Saturday night, most of the wires were taken off Sunday morning.

Daddy and Judah's first cuddle

Mummy and Judah's first cuddle

Judah bubbling

He's got the cutest head of hair!

Daddy holding Judah

Daddy changing Judah's first diaper

His birth story

Saturday, January 27th, 2007 (I was 35 weeks along) I woke up at 8 am because something was leaking down my leg. I thought nothing of it and got up to use the bathroom. The leaking was slow but constant, and it didn’t stop, and I couldn’t hold it in. Thinking it could be that my water had broke I got online to Google it and ask a couple of online friends what they thought. From my description of it I was told it sounded like it and that I should call the hospital. Knowing the hospital would just tell me to go in I decided I should probably find someone who would be able to drive me to the hospital – Paul was an hour and a half away working, and he wasn’t answering his phone! I ended up calling Tammy, one of the ladies from the church here that I have known for three weeks! She got to the apartment quickly and brought me to the hospital. At this point Paul knew I was going in to be checked out.

The doctor examined me and told me that my water had broken and I wouldn’t be leaving the hospital without delivering!! I was excited – but not able to get a hold of Paul!! I kept calling him, and others from the church tried calling him. He was finally able to call me back and when he told the Sgt what was going on he was told he could come back here – two of the guys at work were told to drive him back – the driver being a professional race car driver!

While all this was going on Tammy was still with me, and another lady, Ashley, joined us, and a little after that another new friend – Jamie- joined us too! My body wasn’t doing contractions, and the doctors were trying to find my medical charts in order to figure out what to do about cutting out the cerclage, so I had everyone play a game with me.

Paul got to the hospital about 1:00pm, and our friends left soon after that. At this point I wasn’t quite 1 cm dilated, and there were still no contractions.

At 2:45 the doctors came in to cut out my stitch, it came out without any problems, and once it was cut I was measured at 3cm dilated.

At 3:15 they decided to give me Pitocin in an IV to encourage the contractions. The contractions started soon after that. Ouch! I had opted to try this without any pain medication, and there was definitely a lot of pain throughout all the contractions! My nurse had told me that when she’d had her babies (twenty years ago) she hadn’t had anything, so I asked her if she would be encouraging and supportive of me – that I needed positive people to help me get through it.

At 5:40 the nurse came in and asked me how I was feeling. I told her – through clenched teeth and with great effort – that it hurt. She said to tell her like I was mad, with a lot of emotion how I felt. At that moment the baby dropped, and I seriously yelled at my nurse and told her “I FEEL LIKE I AM GOING TO POOP!” I think she actually laughed out loud at me over that comment.

The nurse called the doctors into the room – there were so many people in there! In the end I had four doctors, two med students, three nurses and two or three student nurses. (And that was just for me, Judah had four or five different doctors/nurses that came in right after he was born!)

At 5:45 I was told to start pushing. To think… I had thought contractions hurt!! My contractions didn’t last long – only 30 seconds – but they were making me push even when there weren’t contractions as the baby’s heartbeat was slow and they were concerned. I surprised myself as I yelled and screamed throughout most of the pushing (my throat hurt for the next eight hours!) I kept telling them it was too hot in there and asking them to just give me a break and that I couldn’t do it anymore. The doctor told me that they were going to get forceps to pull the baby out if I wouldn’t push. Later on my nurse told me that I yelled a loud “No, no! I’ll do it. I’ll push.” Minutes later Judah came out – it was 6:03. I had only pushed for 18 minutes!! I was so sure I had been pushing and screaming forever! I got a five second glance at my baby before they took him to NICU.

I ended up with second degree tearing, which they stitched closed. They kept telling me that they were using a numbing “stick” – I presumed they meant a Popsicle stick type thing. I didn’t pay much attention to them, but when they told me that they were using it for the last time (about the seventh time they’d used it!) I decided to look and see what they were doing. When I saw the needle (aka “the numbing stick”) I screamed. One of the doctors asked me what was wrong. I told her I’d just seen the needle. She looked shocked and told me that they’d been using it over and over again. I told her she’d always told me it was a stick, that seeing it was a needle startled me. She laughed at me and told me that was the highlight of her day.

At 9:00pm they took me down to the NICU and I got to really look at Judah for the first time. I wasn’t allowed to hold him though, and he was covered in wires and tubes, so there wasn’t much to touch, or really even see. We didn’t stay with him long – it was so hard seeing our little boy with all these things poking into him and to not be able to hold him. I was taken to my recovery room shortly after 9. I was pretty miserable and cried a lot, just missing the baby. At 12am Paul fell asleep, but I wasn’t able to. So at 1:30am I woke him up and asked if he would take me down to NICU to see Judah. He kindly took me down (and then left me there, he hadn’t had much sleep the last 48 hours because of his work schedule!) I stayed with Judah for the next two hours, just sitting beside him. The nurse let me help with washing him, but I still wasn’t allowed to hold him. I finally went back to my room and eventually fell asleep.

Sunday morning he was taken off the oxygen and we were able to hold him for the first time. He still had IVs and other tubes and wires attached to him, but at least we could be near him!