Jackson is here - what a whirlwind! My sweet one is sleeping right here next to me - it's hard to write anything because all I want to do is stare at him. I'm in love.
So here are the events leading up to his incredibly quick delivery. Warning: this is long...
Tuesday - October 16th
Michael and I went to the doctor in the morning - I was pretty nervous since I was getting my membranes stripped. I had heard it was terrible painful so I wasn't looking forward to it at all; although, I was very interested to see if I was dilated at all. So far I had absolutely no contractions and I really didn't feel any different. My doctor was surprised to find that I was 2 centimeters dilated and "very soft" so stripping the membranes wasn't the least bit painful. YEY! She said for me to make an appointment for next week even though she was convinced she wouldn't see me since I was going to have the baby before then. Michael and I had to pick our mouths up off the floor at that point. Hence began a day filled with baby prepping - clean clean cleaning, hanging up the rest of his clothes, grocery shopping, early voting, and finally rest (I was 37 weeks pregnant after all).
Wednesday - October 17th
Alright - so I'm so excited now that I think that I'm on the verge of having a baby at any time. Antsy doesn't even coming close to explaining how I was feeling. What to do to help make baby come...walk. That is what everyone said... so that is what I did. Michael and I went to the park and briskly walked 3 miles - which I have now termed 'brisking'. Still no contractions. But on the upside we figured out how to get Reagan to not be sick in the car - wear her out with a 3 mile walk. :)
What else could I do to help... Gardening! I had to plant the winter cabbage, rosemary, and blueberry bushes before cold weather came anyways. So I gardened for about an hour. Still no contractions.
Finally... a pedicure. If nothing else I'll have great looking toes and a relaxing time. I told the little Asian woman to push all the pressure points she could - although I don't think she understood me. haha They all came over to touch my belly and kept saying "ohhhh baby!" Well no contractions or anything - oh well.
After church I did have a horrible back ache... but after taking a Tylenol and sleeping it was gone.
Thursday - October 18th
Mom came down to hang out with me and we, of course, walked and walked. I read that some people went on the swings to help progress their labor. One lady actually got off the swing and her water broke. So here was me hoping... and nothing. All I got was all the blood rushing to my feet. Mom and I found a really fun teeter-totter thing at the playground so we played on that for a while. It was great because it was suspended in the air and it gave you a great thigh workout. After our time at the park we went to Publix to grab some stuff for dinner and the checkout lady said she took caster oil and she had her baby soon after that. I had read about it but I thought ewww no. My Aunt Jill also said she took it and it worked - so now that was two people. humm. But I was too nervous to take it so I didn't buy it. So all and all nothing happened. No feeling different or anything. Maybe a slight lower back pain but really it was no big deal.
Friday - October 19th
I had the feeling of nesting before but I think Mom and Michael got it worse. They spent the entire morning deep cleaning the house. So funny. After lunch we went to the park and walked again then we went to Target to look around and in an act of craziness or brilliance I got castor oil. So around 5:30 I took 1 Tablespoon. After reading some horror stories of people who took 4 to 6 Tablespoons (crazies) I decided that one out be perfect for me. If it didn't go anything at least I might be cleaned out. We finally went to bed around 12:30 - I still didn't need to go to the bathroom. Boo.
Saturday - October 20th
Around 2:30 I needed to go - thankfully my body had been cleaning itself out for the past week or so - so one go and I was done.
I woke up again around 3 to pee - when I sat down it was a huge drop of water. I was very surprised... was that my water breaking? I honestly had no idea - I remembered it didn't have any smell and it's clear. Check and check. Okay... so am I sure? I had what felt like a very strong period cramp right after that - this had to be something. Okay, so if it was labor I would have another one in 20 or so minutes. The videos we watched said that if you go into labor at night try to rest as much as you can so I thought I would try and go back to bed. But as soon as I made it back to the bed I had another strong cramp - which I now know were contractions. What should I do now? Answer: Google it! I grabbed my phone and went back to the bathroom and Googled - does labor feel like period cramps and did my water break? I started timing my contractions and they were coming at a little over a minute. At this point - I was still not entirely convinced so I told Michael I was going to lay down in the living room because I didn't want to get him out of bed ever time I stood up. Of course, he didn't go back to bed he followed me into the living room. The contractions kept coming and felt way worse when I tried to lay down. Michael told me to go wake up mom. I woke her up and in the 5 minute conversation I had 4 contractions. So I went back to the living room and started pacing. Mom walked out of the bedroom completely dressed with her purse and everything. To which I said "Mom why are you fully dressed?" to which she responded "We are not going back to bed."
She started timing my contractions, which really started to hurt at this point, and told Michael to make coffee and start packing the car.
4:05, 4:06, 4:07, 4:08
Time to call the doctor - they said she would call me back once she got the page. Now I was freaking out a little - they starting coming so fast and I kept feeling the need to pee. I was ready to go so I ran out to the car and yelled from the garage that it was time to go. We had to go...NOW!
Michael sped toward the hospital - we were only 5 minutes down the road and I felt the need to push. Okay - now I'm freaking out because I'm literally holding him in. Michael and mom are both saying "Don't push, don't push!" and I was saying "I have to push, I have to push". Thankfully the hospital is only 15 minutes away and it was 4:30 in the morning so no one was on the road. Although Michael did have to run a few lights.
We pulled into the emergency entrance and they put me in a wheelchair. Michael pushed while the guy lead us through door after door and when we made it to labor and delivery they must have heard us coming because they pointed us right into a room. As I was wheeling past I tried talking to the nurse "I'm Candace Lumpkin, I pre-registered, I think my water broke, my contractions are one minute apart, and I NEED TO PUSH!!"
I got into my hospital gown at the speed of light and I was on the table where the nurse was telling me to not push. Good grief, I really needed to push! They checked me and I was 10 centimeters dilated - to which they said you really are ready to push. DUH!! They told me to try and wait for Laura, my midwife - my mom looked at the nurse and asked her if she could deliver this baby. She smiled and said yes I've delivered tons of babies. Thank goodness. Although we didn't need her to - Laura showed up a few minutes after that.
As soon as she came in she just told me to do what feels natural. So I started pushing - which is totally weird it didn't hurt. It felt so right to push. I feel like my 'working out' drive really helped me in pushing. It's like the burn starts and you just need to do 5 more - push through. I would push with everything I had in me and then rest in between contractions. I just shut my eyes and focused on breathing. It felt like minutes and they were saying they saw his head! At this point the pushing started hurting because that is when Laura started to help stretch down there so he could fit though. Even though she helped I started to tear. OUCH! It burned like crazy but I told myself that I would push every time she told me to because I figured he must be right there for how much it burned. A couple pushes later he was on by belly - they had to tell me to open my eyes and there he was. I couldn't believe it! I just pushed that baby out of my body - it's so weird to actually see the baby that has been growing, kicking, and living in me for so long. Amazing!
As far as labor and delivery goes I was surprised that the pain level wasn't as bad as I was expecting. They asked me how my pain level was and at most I said I was at a 7. By far the worst part was getting stitched back up. That was excruciating. The whole time, up until this point, I didn't scream, yell, or make any pain noises. I did scream when she numbed me to put in the stitches. It was completely awful.
So the final part of my delivery story. It was all to easy - I mean for me - queen of passing out. I could leave the room before that happened. That would be against against the laws of the universe. The nurse came in to help me go to the bathroom - right after they took 7 viles of blood. Not good. I passed out right there on the toilet. I woke up to 3 new nurses and my mom holding me up. I tried to keep myself awake which is so impossible when you are in la la land. My mind tried to focus on the nurses face but I failed and passed out again. So twice so far - awesome. When they brought me back they moved me back to my bed and on the way there I passed out again! 3 TIMES! Good grief! In the end I had to go pee in a bed pan. haha At this point I didn't care in the least.
I am so blessed to have such a quick and I feel bad to say easy... but an easy delivery. It was all so fast I didn't have time to think about anything and my body just went to work. It's amazing what the human body can do.
God answered every single prayer I had. We have a beautiful heathy baby boy, I didn't have to have any pain medication, and I didn't have to have a IV port! Thank you Jesus for answering my every prayer.
So here is Jackson's 1st day of life in some pictures.
