As Jayna is about to have another birthday, I have been thinking a lot about what happened about this time 4 years ago…. So I wanted to share it with all of you. Jayna’s original due date was 2/22/06 and then as my pregnancy went on, it was moved to 3/6/06. As we approached my due date, I asked to be induced because I am a ‘Planner’ and I wanted to be sure that our families would be able to see her when she was born. We scheduled my induction for Friday morning, and I was supposed to go in Thursday night to get everything started. My thought was that we would have her on Friday the 3rd and then everyone would be able to come up and see her all weekend long…. So today would have been her birthday!!! But things changed….
I was working for Countrywide Home Loans at the time. This was the first job that I had that offered short-term disability insurance and I didn’t know that I was supposed to sign up for it in order to get paid for maternity leave. So as we approached Jayna’s birth, we knew that I was not going to get paid while I was on maternity leave. Needless to say, we were extremely nervous about finances at that time. Since I worked from home, I had planned on only taking 3 weeks off and then getting back on the phones, so that we wouldn’t miss a paycheck. I had it all planned out....
Thursday, March 2, 2006:
The procedure was to call an hour before you’re supposed to be there and make sure that you still had a spot at the hospital. We lived about an hour away, so I called and they said that there was 'no room at the inn'!!! HAHAHA!!! No, they didn’t have room for us, so they moved it to Friday night, inducing on Saturday morning. So, I had some ice cream and sulked all night....
Friday, March 3, 2006:
Same routine… call an hour before you are supposed to arrive. I think we were supposed to be there at 5:00(ish), and when I called around 3:00 and they told me that they were still extremely busy, I thought I was going to have a nervous breakdown!! I was expecting to hear, ‘Yes, Mrs. Calk, we have plenty of room! Head on up here!!’ But instead, I was told to wait 2 hours and then come in. So we headed to Fort Worth (we were living in Denton at the time). We stopped to grab a bite to eat and met up with Bonham’s family. We went up to the hospital and I walked in with a big smile and they weren’t as happy to see me as I was to see them… they asked me to come back around 10:00p.m. So we all went to Half Price Books to kill time. We headed back up there around 10:00 and I had to wait for a room. It was about an hour later when I was finally admitted. My parents came up there and Bonham’s family was still there too. We were having a big PARTY!!! The nurse walked in and said, ‘We’re not having a baby tonight!’ We all knew that, but everyone was so excited (at least I like to think that they were all as excited as I remember). After we visited for a little while, everyone went home, except for my sister-in-law, Rachel. She stayed the night with me at the hospital and rubbed my feet, it was great pampering! Bonham went to my parent’s house to try to get a good night’s rest because we were going to have a baby the next day and he needed the rest!!! That night, the nurses hooked up to an I.V. so that we could do the induction the next day and they gave me cervidil to help prepare my cervix for labor the next day.
Saturday, March 4, 2006:
The nurse came in and removed the cervidil and started my pitocin drip. It really didn’t do much in the beginning. I was told that they would bump it up every hour until I was in active labor. But I only saw them every few hours and by mid-day, they came in and turned it down…. Wait a minute!!! That’s the wrong way!!! They said that there were too many people in labor right now for them to voluntarily put someone into labor. So we waited and they finally came in and turned the pitocin completely off and said that I could eat until midnight and then we would start this process again. I began Friday night about 20-30% effaced and not dilated at all. And by Saturday night, I was about 50-60% effaced and still not dilating. They did the cervidil again. It was painful when they tried to put it in and it wouldn’t stay in, so that was frustrating! Bonham stayed with me because they mentioned that on the 2nd night, in combination with everything that we had done today, my body might go into labor on its own…. FAT CHANCE! Rachel went to our house with Bonham’s family and my parents went home too.
Sunday, March 5, 2006:
I was told that we were going to be more aggressive today and they were!!! They came in every 30 minutes to an hour to up the drip and I started having pretty noticeable contractions, but they weren’t bad enough that I couldn’t visit with people as they came in. With it being Sunday, we knew that everyone had to get back to work on Monday, so it was time to get this done!!! I remember that there was a Law & Order: SVU marathon that day and I kept missing the end of every show because that is when the nurses would come in to check me, etc. By lunch time, the doctor on call came in and told me that they would probably send me home because I wasn’t ready. I was extremely upset. One reason that they agreed to induce me was because I was close to my due date and Jayna was measuring to be an 8 lb baby on the sonograms. I was a tight one about then…..
I was working for Countrywide Home Loans at the time. This was the first job that I had that offered short-term disability insurance and I didn’t know that I was supposed to sign up for it in order to get paid for maternity leave. So as we approached Jayna’s birth, we knew that I was not going to get paid while I was on maternity leave. Needless to say, we were extremely nervous about finances at that time. Since I worked from home, I had planned on only taking 3 weeks off and then getting back on the phones, so that we wouldn’t miss a paycheck. I had it all planned out....
Thursday, March 2, 2006:
The procedure was to call an hour before you’re supposed to be there and make sure that you still had a spot at the hospital. We lived about an hour away, so I called and they said that there was 'no room at the inn'!!! HAHAHA!!! No, they didn’t have room for us, so they moved it to Friday night, inducing on Saturday morning. So, I had some ice cream and sulked all night....
Friday, March 3, 2006:
Same routine… call an hour before you are supposed to arrive. I think we were supposed to be there at 5:00(ish), and when I called around 3:00 and they told me that they were still extremely busy, I thought I was going to have a nervous breakdown!! I was expecting to hear, ‘Yes, Mrs. Calk, we have plenty of room! Head on up here!!’ But instead, I was told to wait 2 hours and then come in. So we headed to Fort Worth (we were living in Denton at the time). We stopped to grab a bite to eat and met up with Bonham’s family. We went up to the hospital and I walked in with a big smile and they weren’t as happy to see me as I was to see them… they asked me to come back around 10:00p.m. So we all went to Half Price Books to kill time. We headed back up there around 10:00 and I had to wait for a room. It was about an hour later when I was finally admitted. My parents came up there and Bonham’s family was still there too. We were having a big PARTY!!! The nurse walked in and said, ‘We’re not having a baby tonight!’ We all knew that, but everyone was so excited (at least I like to think that they were all as excited as I remember). After we visited for a little while, everyone went home, except for my sister-in-law, Rachel. She stayed the night with me at the hospital and rubbed my feet, it was great pampering! Bonham went to my parent’s house to try to get a good night’s rest because we were going to have a baby the next day and he needed the rest!!! That night, the nurses hooked up to an I.V. so that we could do the induction the next day and they gave me cervidil to help prepare my cervix for labor the next day.
Saturday, March 4, 2006:
The nurse came in and removed the cervidil and started my pitocin drip. It really didn’t do much in the beginning. I was told that they would bump it up every hour until I was in active labor. But I only saw them every few hours and by mid-day, they came in and turned it down…. Wait a minute!!! That’s the wrong way!!! They said that there were too many people in labor right now for them to voluntarily put someone into labor. So we waited and they finally came in and turned the pitocin completely off and said that I could eat until midnight and then we would start this process again. I began Friday night about 20-30% effaced and not dilated at all. And by Saturday night, I was about 50-60% effaced and still not dilating. They did the cervidil again. It was painful when they tried to put it in and it wouldn’t stay in, so that was frustrating! Bonham stayed with me because they mentioned that on the 2nd night, in combination with everything that we had done today, my body might go into labor on its own…. FAT CHANCE! Rachel went to our house with Bonham’s family and my parents went home too.
Sunday, March 5, 2006:
I was told that we were going to be more aggressive today and they were!!! They came in every 30 minutes to an hour to up the drip and I started having pretty noticeable contractions, but they weren’t bad enough that I couldn’t visit with people as they came in. With it being Sunday, we knew that everyone had to get back to work on Monday, so it was time to get this done!!! I remember that there was a Law & Order: SVU marathon that day and I kept missing the end of every show because that is when the nurses would come in to check me, etc. By lunch time, the doctor on call came in and told me that they would probably send me home because I wasn’t ready. I was extremely upset. One reason that they agreed to induce me was because I was close to my due date and Jayna was measuring to be an 8 lb baby on the sonograms. I was a tight one about then…..
About an hour later, my mid-wife came in and broke my water and then the contractions came and didn’t stop. They didn’t turn my pitocin down and the pain was getting so bad that I couldn’t talk through a contraction, but I was still smiling in between! =) I like to smile.
They kept checking my every 2 hours… I went from a tight 1, to a solid 1, to a tight 2 (I think that is the same as a solid 1, they just wanted me to feel better)….. it was taking FOREVER!!!
Because of the timing of the contractions and their intensity, they agreed to give me an epidural. When I got the epidural, I was dilated to a tight two…. It had been several hours and they checked again and I was a solid 2. I just cried. I really felt like I was never going to have this baby! I knew that logically, she couldn’t stay in there forever, but a part of me (the crazy part) seriously thought I will never get this baby out!!!!
Because of the timing of the contractions and their intensity, they agreed to give me an epidural. When I got the epidural, I was dilated to a tight two…. It had been several hours and they checked again and I was a solid 2. I just cried. I really felt like I was never going to have this baby! I knew that logically, she couldn’t stay in there forever, but a part of me (the crazy part) seriously thought I will never get this baby out!!!!
After a little while, the nurses asked that everyone leave the room and let me rest. So we dimmed the lights and I tried to rest. It was getting late and everyone from Abilene needed to head back home soon. Jayna hadn’t been easy to find on the monitors the whole time that we were there and she had moved, so the nurse came in to ‘find’ her. She was supposed to check me in about 15 minutes, but she decided to check me early. She looked up and said, ‘You’re at a TEN!!!’ it was the most exciting moment and the timing was so perfect. Bonham walked in and we told him. He almost didn’t believe us! We got a few things in order. Several family members were waiting in the lobby, so they got to come in and say hello. Everyone knew that it could take awhile once you started pushing. My cousin, Lacie called a list of people to let them know that we were getting closer to having Jayna. And about as soon as she got down the list, she had to call them back to say, ‘She’s here!’ Jayna was out in 3 pushes! This little girl who was so stubborn about coming out…. Just popped right out when it was time! She still has a great sense of humor! =)
She was born on March 5, 2006 at 8:43 p.m. She weighed 7 lb 14 oz and 20 1/4 inche long. She stayed awake for the first 4 hours of her life so that she could take it all in... she had a lot of people to meettoo!
She is about to be 4 years old and she still doesn’t require much sleep. She is a beautiful little girl, with a great personality. She keeps us on our toes and laughing constantly with her funny comments. She loves to be the center of attention, do her 'homework', and play in the dirt. She is a very good big sister and a great cuddler.
I love being Jayna's mom.... (and Barrett's too, but this post is about Jayna!) =)
I love being Jayna's mom.... (and Barrett's too, but this post is about Jayna!) =)
1 comment:
Awww!! I loved this post! Happy (almost) birthday, Miss Jayna!!! I love you guys! I remember how frustrated you were that weekend!
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