The Birth of Cedrik Jordan

On Thursday morning, the day after Jordan got home from being in Blackfoot for 4 days, around 1 am, I woke up for the usual bathroom break and noticed that I was feeling a little crampy. I didn't think too much of it, as I had been having random pains (not really pains, but discomfort) for a couple of weeks. I then woke up every hour until morning and noticed that the pains weren't going away. It took a lot to not wake Jordan up and let him know what was going on, but I decided that if I was in labor, that he was going to need his sleep for the next night and if I wasn't in labor I didn't want to get excited over nothing. When we woke up he timed three of them and they were happening about every 8 to 10 minutes.

I took Beabs for a walk and got ready for the day. I did a little bit of laundry and just kind of hung out. To be honest, we didn't really think I was in labor until about 6pm that night. My Godfather, Larry, was randomly in town to visit his brother and he stopped by for about an hour to visit. After, I laid down to rest and time some more contractions while Jordan went out for an hour to work. The contractions were steady at 8 minutes apart.

Larry took us to Outback and I had an amazing steak and Jordan's chicken looked pretty good too! During each contraction at dinner I was pressing my lower back into my fist against the booth. Larry had no idea that anything was going on. When we were walking out of the restaurant it started getting very uncomfortable and I was walking quite a bit slower. We had to stop by Jordan's co-worker's house to drop something off to him and while he was inside I had to get out of the truck and stand up because the pain was getting steadily worse.

We got home and got set up to watch a movie. It was at this point that we realized I was really in labor and that our little boy was going to be joining us soon. I had planned on making some brownies for the midwives as an early labor project, but by the time we got home the contractions were about 6 minutes apart and there was no way that making brownies was going to take my mind off of that. We watched a dumb movie, Dear John and Jordan just tried to help me relax. I took a shower hoping that would help my hip pain, and it did for a minute.

When my contractions were at about 5 minutes apart, we called the midwife, Jerusha, and she said to call back when they were 2 1/2-3 minutes apart and that we'd need to come in then.

About an hour later my contractions were at 4 minutes and weren't going anywhere. They stayed that way for about an hour and Jordan suggested that if I wanted this baby to come out tonight I was going to have to start moving because I wasn't progessing any more. So, I started doing side lunges down the hall. SIDE LUNGES DOWN THE HALL. Also, I must point out that because my hips were hurting so badly, Jordan couldn't do the double hip squeeze or the sacral pushing because it put me into more pain. (I think my hips hurt so badly because of the hip displasia that I had as a baby. I can't squat like a normal person and they give me trouble some times.) During each contraction I would hold onto the wall and he put a heat pack on my lower back. That seemed to help. Finally, after an HOUR of these side lunges, we were at 3 minutes. I told him to call Jerusha because I was done being at home.

She told us to come in and as soon as we were in the truck, I for some reason felt a lot more comfortable making noises. I realized that this was going to be my pain coping technique. We made it to the midwives in 10 minutes--no traffic at 2:30am and once we got there I cried for a minute just being happy that we were there and had a little more support and also knowing that he was going to be coming out soon. I was 6cm and was totally elated that all this pain wasn't for nothing. There was one other woman there, and I would hear her randomly throughout the night through her contractions, but for some reason hearing her scream didn't scare me like I thought it would.

I got into the tub and tried to find a good position but like I said, I couldn't put pressure on my back during contracitons otherwise it hurt too much and being on all fours pulled my back too much. I lasted for almost an hour in the tub and they had me lie on my side on the bed for about another hour. After each contraction I would pass out for a minute. We tried the birthing stool and did a few "trial" pushes. I wasn't quite ready so they put me back on the bed. Jordan sat there with me and held my hand as that was about all he could do. Then...I needed to throw up. So I did and that was probably the best contraction of them all as I didn't think about the pain one bit. Jordan had the gross task of holding the bucket but he didn't flinch. I did some pushes on the bed and then it was time. Well, we thought it was close to being time because they could see his head in the birth canal. Jordan said he thought once he saw his head and how much I was moving him with each contraction he was going to be out in about 20 minutes. Well...he was wrong. Total pushing time was 2 hrs (about 30 minutes when all the breaks are taken out). Everyone in the room fell asleep for a few minutes after each contraction. We didn't know our bodies were able to pass out that quickly and then be so alert a few minutes later.

Finally his head was out and he was blue. They pulled him out quickly and got him over to the bed to clear his lungs. His heart was beating but he wasn't taking any breaths. He was breathing in about a minute and all was well.

We are so blessed to have such a great little guy and can't quite figure out what we did to deserve him!