Jackson's Birth Story

Stealing an idea from other blogs, I would like to share Jack's birth story. I feel the need to document it, and I also feel that it's my right as the person who had to go through the labor and delivery to make everyone else listen to this once a year. Apologies in advance for how long this will be.

Jack was due on September 19, 2005. I was tentatively scheduled to do an all-staff presentation at work (BBBS) on the 21st, so my boss kept joking with me that my baby couldn't arrive until after I had finished. I arrived to work on the 21st and did the presentation, during which I started having mild contractions. Nothing too major, so I stayed at work and even went out to dinner with Bob, Bernice and Chuck to celebrate Bob's birthday. At 2am I woke up with strong contractions and started timing them, sleeping in between. Around 5am I woke Chuck up - we called the hospital and confirmed that we should come in. Chuck then called my mom, who had been carrying luggage around with her for weeks prior to this, to tell her that we were ready to go to the hospital. She sped over to Gaga's house and I'm pretty sure Gaga had to make a running leap into the moving car so they didn't lose any time doing silly things like using the brakes.

We went to the hospital around 6am and were held in triage, then told to walk the halls to make sure things were moving. We had to walk for an hour - a walk that was simultaneously boring, surreal and painful. We finally were put into a room. The next few hours were pretty much of a blur. At some point I had an epidural, which was not nearly as bad as I thought it would be. At another point the epidural wore off on my right side, so I felt labor naturally on that side, which was every bit as bad as I thought it would be. I remember watching Tommy Boy on the TV in our room and making Chuck sneak me Popsicles. My mom, BJ, Bernice and Bob all arrived that afternoon and hung out at the hospital.

In the early evening I was ready to push, but Jack was pretty stubborn and wouldn't progress. Finally they brought the doctor (Dr. Agee) into the room and he talked to me about having a c-section. I burst into tears - too tired, hungry and emotional to think rationally. Across the hall our families were watching the doctor and nurses hurrying in and out of the room, and finally my "in labor" light was turned off. They thought something awful had happened. The nurse came into the hall, pointed at my mom and told her to come in. My mom walked in to find me crying and the bassinet empty. After a minute of confusion, she figured out that I was going into surgery.

Jackson was born at 8:06pm. We hadn't found out the sex of the baby during the pregnancy, but had been so convinced that it was a boy that when Dr. Agee announced "it's a boy!" to the room, I thought "yeah, duh." Then I realized that we hadn't really known that for sure and that this really was news.

I'm not gonna lie - I was NOT a happy camper immediately after surgery. I was in a lot of pain, but once I had my magic morphine drip I felt much better and was ready to enjoy spending time with our new little baby. The next few days in the hospital were amazing. I didn't really want to leave! They brought me food, we had visitors, talked and watched TV, and Chuck got to sleep in a real bed in the room with me. And we got to do it all with a new little member of our family. He was so sweet and cute we could hardly stand it. We made all the nurses agree that he was the cutest baby in the hospital before they could enter the room.

Anyway, that's the story, as best as I can remember it.

We love you Jackson Manning Van Nostrand.