Welcome to the world little Jude Oliver Heller. Our new little man made his debut on April 4, @ 1:43PM (or 1:34PM we can’t remember exactly….#awfulparents) His entrance into the world didn’t start out exactly as expected.
Around 2AM I got up to use the bathroom and thought maybe my water broke. I know you’re thinking how can you think “maybe” your water broke….what could be “maybe” about something like that!?!? But the same thing happened when I had Davis- I was like did it break? Didn’t it break? Did I just pee myself? Who knows. I’ve heard your second labor can move much faster and I didn’t want to take any chances so we called my mom to come over and keep an eye on Davis while we went to the hospital.
As we checked in I was already thinking to myself this was a false alarm. Contractions hadn’t picked up, I wasn’t really feeling like my water broke and the doubt started to settle in. I gave myself so much damn anxiety thinking “Ugh I called my mom over at 2AM for nothing” “What is this little hospital trip going to cost us” literally I was working myself up to the point of nausea knowing this wasn’t “it” but that “it” would be happening any day now.
A Resident came in to check if my water had broken and sure enough, it had not. While we were waiting they checked my blood pressure a few times with an automated machine (that had been malfunctioning quite a bit) my blood pressure was trending a little high which I thought may be normal since I was working myself up so much. Until then my blood pressure had always been normal at my weekly check-ups. But because it was a bit high they wanted to order some additional tests to ensure I didn’t have pre-eclampsia.
About an hour later (close to 4AM now) the Resident came in stating she and the Doctor on call thought that I should get induced since my blood pressure was elevated and my labs were showing sings of pre pre-eclampsia. Essentially they wanted me to get induced because if they sent me home who knows if I would develop into pre-eclampsia and they didn’t want to risk anything.
So, Gabe and I were faced with a decision do we stay or do we go. I was very torn because with Davis my water broke and I was able to labor naturally and fairly quickly with an epidural. I had heard HORROR stories about women who were induced having labors that took 24 to 48 hours plus only to end in a C-section, which I so badly wanted to avoid. Side note, this little baby was breech until about 38 weeks so a C-Section was a very real possibility. I got him to flip heads down by using a frozen bag of veggies at the top of my belly and a heating pad at the bottom!
After much deliberation, we decide to stay and start the induction. We were already there, my mom was at our house, the doctors had strongly strongly advised that we stay and I was 39 weeks pregnant so we really were in any day now territory. The clock struck 4AM and it was time to get this show on the road!
Around 6AM they started with the Pitocin (after many failed attempts to get an IV in….I swear this is always the worst part of the whole thing-really!) They also inserted a cervical balloon which I was told may take 6 hours to get me to dilate to a 3. Six freakin hours! Luckily I got up to use the bathroom a little less than 3 hours in and it fell out-boom dilated to a 3!
At 11AM I decided the contractions had really kicked in and it was epidural time! Ahh that sweet sweet epidural. I swear that shit is magic. Once I was hooked up to that I told them to CRANK up the Pitocin but they said it was as high as it could go. Next it was time to get my water broken! The doctor came in to check how far dilated I was to see if we were ready for that step and while she was checking she accidentally broke my water!!! It was a very strange feeling and we were mid-sentence on what the procedure to have my waters broken would entail and I exclaimed “umm I think you just broke it!”
So now things were really moving along, contractions in full force, epidural was in so I was feeling OK. Around 12PM I was starting to feel intense pressure so I called in the nurse for a check. She called in the doctor and they said I was only about a 6-7CM dialated. I asked the nurse if I could get some more epidural because I was starting to feel pain down there. About 30 minutes later I asked again and before doing so they wanted to check me in case I had labored more and was too close to pushing.
Sure enough a doctor came in to check and I was at a +1! Meaning I was more than 10CM dilated and the baby was on the way. Once everyone was in place it was time to push. Don’t know how I’d forgotten but man pushing is HARD work. Luckily, the 2nd baby really is much easier. After about 5 minutes or 2 “rounds” of pushing baby boy made his big debut! After he was born they plopped him right on my chest! He weighed in at 7 pounds, 14.5 ounces and 20.5 inches in length! He was testing out those little lungs but as soon as he heard my voice he calmed down. It was pretty freaking incredible.
I won’t lie to you, the feeling of love I had for my baby was much stronger the 2nd time around. I loved Davis from the moment he was born but I was scared shitless by it all. With Jude, I knew everything was going to be OK. I knew sleepless nights were in my future but they’d be gone soon, I knew poop explosions were imminent but they outgrow those, I knew that their warm sweaty face so comfortable asleep on your chest doesn’t last forever. When Jude was born I was just excited to kiss on this little thing I created inside of me for 9 months and to not have to pee every 5 seconds.
The next two nights in the hospital were filled with lots of baby cuddles, gross hospital food & movies galore! The hospital stay with baby #2 feels a bit more luxurious since you don’t have a toddler running around you in circles. In fact our last night in the hospital we ordered take-out and rented Crazy Rich Asians, felt like a little date night!
I never thought I would be one of those people that had a nameless baby but alas I was! People said to me “you had 9 months to think about it, you really don’t have a name yet?” And the truth was we were between two names. One name we loved for sentimental reasons and another name we loved just because. We waited until we were getting kicked out to finally decide. As you can probably tell, we went with the sentimental name! Now, both our boys are named after their great grandmothers. Jude after his Great Grandma JUDY & Davis after his Great Grandma Barbara DAVIS.
If you made it this far, thanks for reading! If you didn’t make it this far, I don’t blame you! Before I had kids, I thought birth stories were weird, a little scary & kind of gross. In fairness, they are actually all three of those things. But now I see they are also beautiful, moving and incredibly powerful. Truly a day I will never forget. But in case I get a little fuzzy on the details I wanted to put pen to paper (or finger to keyboard) and write the story of the day my Jude Oliver entered the world.
Britt Heller 