This is a video I took of Jackson yesterday while he was sleeping! He is so adorable and I wanted to share a bit of this time with you all, especially those who are so far away! Can you see why it’s hard for us to sleep? We can barely take our eyes off of him!

Here is the “in a nutshell” story of the labor and birth of our oh so handsome son, Jackson!

Jer and I went to the hospital at 5:30 PM on Tuesday, July 31 and stayed overnight for monitoring because my stomach was rock hard for about 4 hours and there was decreased movement with Jack. My high blood pressure didn’t help things either.

We were set for an induction on Thursday, August 2, but they decided to get us going on the morning of the 1st! I was super excited about this since I was already there and on a liquid diet, yuck. My contractions were about 9 min apart on their own, but after the Pitocin was administered on the morning of the 1st, they quickly increased. I was given an epidural pretty early, around 11:30 AM and shortly after our Dr. broke my water.

It was downhill from there…

My contractions quickly increased to 2-3 minutes apart and they cut back on the Pitocin throughout the day because I was dilating so well. Now I had a bit of control of the epidural meds. It was set up so that I could still feel the contractions, but could up the meds myself if I got uncomfortable. I tried not to hit that button, but had to a few times. By 8 PM that night I was at 9 ½ cm so they alerted our Dr. I hit that button a couple times and took a little cat nap because I was getting nervous and needed some time to myself. I had wanted things to move along quickly, but as soon as they did I was super nervous that I was about to become a mom and have a baby!

I started to push at about 10:40 PM with our nurse. My mom and Jer held my legs and Ruth rubbed my back and helped me up when it was time to push. I was so happy they were all there! I pushed through about 6 contractions and our nurse had me stop because Jackson’s head was right there! Even though I had the epidural I could still tell what pushing was and I pushed as hard as I could! I am glad I don’t have any photos of my face during this time. I’m sure I was beet red, double chinned and making ridiculous faces! I felt pretty nauseas during this time and did get sick a bit, which was not any fun. She put me on oxygen and had me wait for the Dr., which only took maybe 10 minutes.

Once the Dr. and the medical student, Rebecca arrived I pushed through one contraction and then on the second contraction, with one push, his head was out! When I pushed a second time Jackson was born! I cried instantly! I wanted to hold him right away, but I got sick again! So they took him to get cleaned up and then Jer held him, which made me cry even more.

When I finally held him I was in awe. There is a picture of me holding him, which I think is kinda funny. I have the goofiest look on my face, but it was really the happiest moment of my life!