And then there were 3...Jay's Birth Story.

So, I have to kind of back track a little.  I went to work on Thursday, July 8th, and little did I know that it would be my last day working before Jay came.  I just came home that night completely exhausted and knew that I was over doing it.  I always had Fridays off, so I thought I would just rest up that whole next day and be good to go back to work on Saturday.  Boy was I wrong!  I was starting to really feel sore when I was walking and had no idea why.  And then I found the culprit...really, hemorrhoids??  By Friday evening, I could barely walk.  This is another thing that gives me a new respect for anyone that has had these because they are really really painful and even more annoying!  Apparently, it's really common to get them during pregnancy.  Ugh!!  I was so over it all!  

My due date was August 4th.  I really didn't want to quit working over 3 weeks in advance, but I just had to.  I cancelled my Saturday appointments and began  my maternity leave.  I was hoping that after I healed up a bit that I could get a lot done in the next weeks.  That Monday, we were set to get carpet in Jay's room.  Absolutely nothing had been done yet as far as a nursery goes except for hanging some of Jay's clothes in his closet.  The carpet got installed in the morning, and that afternoon we were finally able to set up the crib and the changing table and get them ready to go.  I also packed my hospital bag that day.  It's a never ending joke between us because I packed my things in one of those huge Aldi canvas bags...haha!  I was at the point where I just didn't care anymore!  That day I had been feeling a little abnormal.  Nothing was ever painful, just a little weird.  I remember sitting in Jay's room while Zach was finishing putting the crib together and joking with him "I wouldn't go very far tonight". 

That night I slept on a blanket.  I was so freaked out of my water breaking in bed.  As we laid there, I told Zach some of the things that I was feeling that day, and he made me call the hospital and talk to them about it.  Sue, from Memorial Hospital, if you're out there, I hope you are reading this because you could've saved me from a lot of pain!  I told her what had been going on and she said "Oh, you are fine honey.  Things like that can happen weeks in advance."  Ok, no biggy then.  I went to sleep! 

At 4 AM, I woke up to this very strange pop inside my stomach.  Still, I had absolutely no pain or any contractions at that time.  I got up because I could no longer sleep and went to our living room.  I just knew something was up, so I sat on a folding chair we had in the kitchen because I was still leary of my water breaking.  I got out the computer, and what do I do?  Get on facebook of course.  At about 4:30, I kind of shifted the way I was sitting, and I felt something going on.  I got up to use the bathroom, and the second my feet hit the floor, I could feel this enormous gush of water coming out.  Luckily there was a bathroom close by!  I sat on the toilet and waited for this water to stop coming out.  It just kept coming and coming.  Holy cow, it was time!!!  I shuffled my way back to our bedroom, and I'm pretty sure I punched my husband in the arm.  He woke up all groggy as I'm saying "my water just broke!!"  He jumped out of bed and didn't know what to do.  I told him to finish packing what was on my list because I just kept feeling like I had to go to the bathroom.  Up until this point, I still had zero pain, but the instant I sat on the toilet again I started having hard contractions.  In the mean time, Zach is asking me if he can take a quick shower.  What a turd!  At that point, I knew that we had to leave right that second.

Everyone always says that labor is nothing like what you see on tv and in the movies.  Well, mine was...to a T.  The whole screaming car ride and running red lights, yep, that was us!  My contractions were not even 2 minutes apart in the car ride there.  Zach asked me several times if I wanted him to call an ambulance.  I just told him to drive as fast as he could.  We got to Memorial Hospital in about 25 minutes.  It was about 5:30 AM at the time.  We went in through the ER, and I'm telling them that I have to go somewhere NOW, and they still had me go in a room to sign papers.  What the crap?!  I would love to see my signature on those papers someday. Haha!  So, they wheeled me very quickly up to the maternity ward.  I got in a room and got on my gown, only with the nurses help.  I think they could tell that I was not exaggerating my pain.  She checked me right away and yes, I was 8 cm dialated upon arriving at the hospital.  I was begging for pain medicine, and they were pretty much ignoring me.  I knew it was too late just from reading the books and watching the shows.  Of course, like any other woman will tell you, it was the worst pain I have ever been in.  I knew that there was nothing I could do about it though.  The screaming mad woman in labor that you see on tv, yep, that was me too....lol.  They called my doctor right away.  They must have told him to be quick because he showed up in sweat pants and crocs, haha!  I was ready to push as soon as he got there.  Zach was pretty quiet throughout all of this.  I think he was a little scared, as was I!  I have absolutely no idea how long I pushed.  Everything is pretty blurry about the whole thing.  All I know is at 7:32 AM, I heard the most precious little cry, and I had complete relief from everything.  Jay Alexander Ingles was welcomed into the world weighing 6 lbs. 11 oz. and measuring 18.5 inches long.  Zach was able to cut the cord, and within seconds, I had this little miracle laying on my chest staring right at me.  He knew that I was his mommy. 

This is one of the only pictures I have of us in the hospital.  We have absolutely no pictures of him as soon as he was born because everything happened so fast that we didn't even bring in a camera!

So cute!

Delivering the placenta was a piece of cake next to delivering a baby!  I also had to get several shots in order for them to give me stitches.  I didn't care because I was holding my baby.  But then they took Jay to the nursery right away because they knew that he was over 3 weeks early, and they said his breathing sounded a little funny.  His levels stayed pretty good unless someone handled him.  He had to have an IV because he wasn't eating properly.  He just couldn't get the whole sucking thing down!  Then he graduated to a feeding tube.  We would try as hard as we could everytime to get him to eat from a bottle.  Some times he did really good, and others he hardly ate anything.  They didn't even let us bring him in our room until Thursday, the day I was to be discharged.  Noone besides Zach or me even got to hold him until then.  We were going to stay at the hospital with him, but that evening they told us that they needed our room.  It was our 4th wedding anniversary, and we had to leave our newborn baby behind in the hospital.  Let me tell you, Zach and I bawled like babies the entire way home.  We called several times in the night and right away the next morning to check on him.  They said he was doing better but still not as good as they'd like.  We stayed with him all day at the hospital on Friday and got up early Saturday morning to go back.  I'm pretty sure it was on Saturday that they removed the feeding tube because he was really starting to improve on the bottle.  We anxiously waited around all day for his pediatritian to let us know if we could bring him home.  That evening, we got the great news that Jay could come home as soon as he was circumsized!!  We had to bring him back the very next morning to get checked out again, but the fact that he was coming home with us was all that we wanted!!

Jay started taking off on the bottle and never looked back!  You would have no idea that my chubby little man ever had such a problem with eating!  It was a wild ride, and I'm not in a rush to do it again, but every second of pain was so worth it.  Being a mommy is the best gift that God could ever give a woman.