Jackson's Birth Story: From a Scheduled Induction to an Unexpected C-Section

Y’all…. How is Jackson already a month old?! Time is flying by, even more so now than when I was pregnant, which felt like it lasted a total of 2 months. All I know is that we are just so in love with our little man!

It has been a while since I have been on here, as you may have already noticed, and this post has been a long time coming. But I have been soaking up ALL of the baby cuddles for as long as I possibly can (and also adjusting to my new “sleep” schedule lol). I am surprisingly getting a decent amount of sleep and we are adjusting well to our new normal around here.

For those of you who may have missed my updates of my pregnancy on Instagram, I figured I would write a post about our whole birth story and a few highlights that led up to it in the last weeks of pregnancy. Although our story didn’t go at all like I expected and was quite the whirlwind of events, I really did have a positive experience and had the most amazing nurses and doctors taking care of me! I feel like the only stories you hear about Inductions and C-sections are negative so I am here to share a positive one. I had a few scary moments that led up to it but the C-section was sort of a light at the end of the tunnel! It was definitely an interesting experience having a baby during COVID!

Being a new mom, one of the scariest things is going into the whole delivery process and not knowing what to expect, in my opinion at least. I like to have control of things because that’s just the type A person that I am, and not knowing when things were going to happen or how it was going to go down scared me a little bit. That is the one of the reasons why I was pretty content with scheduling our induction!

The weeks leading up to the Induction

I never thought in a million years that I was ever going to have to get induced so I was a little surprised when my doctor brought it up! The only thing they ever show in movies is peoples water breaking and them rushing to the hospital, so naturally that’s exactly what I was expecting lol. Once I hit 37 weeks I was anxiously counting down the minutes until the horrible contractions (you know, the ones everyone always talks about) were going to start.

My Doctor had scheduled me another ultrasound for my 38 week appointment because she wanted to check the size of the baby, clearly my belly was HUUGE. When I went in they measured him at 7lbs 5oz and babies supposedly gain an average of half a pound every week in the last couple of weeks, which was going to make him a big boy if I went full term.

She gave me my options and told me that I was more than welcome to wait to go into labor naturally but she didn’t think it was going to happen by my due date especially because I wasn’t dilated at all at that point. Due to his larger size she said it may be smart to start the cervical ripening process and schedule an induction so that I don’t go too far over our due date.

My doctor was leaving for vacation the following week and wouldn’t be returning until the 18th which is the day we scheduled our induction at the hospital. Our due date was the 16th, which scared me a little because I definitely wanted her to be the one to deliver him! I went in for my 39 week appointment and another doctor checked to see if the dilation had progressed anymore, which it hadn’t.

So I ended up going into the office on October 15th and 16th for a round of cervical ripening. Which honestly sounded terrifying and I had nooo idea what to expect! Each day I went in they would put me in a room where I would sit for the next couple of hours. It started with them monitoring the babies heart rate for 30 minutes to make sure he was doing okay before they gave me the medicine. Once they got the okay to do that the nurse gave me a dose of Cytotec to take and they monitored his heart rate and my contractions for the next hour and then sent me home, and I repeated the same thing the next day.

The cervical ripening is supposed to soften the cervix and hopefully help to dilate you more and start contractions. For a lot of people, cervical ripening helps to put them into labor after a dose or even a few. Neither dose dilated me more and only made me feel crampy.

So all we could do was wait and see if anything happened before our scheduled induction that Sunday! Since our doctor wasn’t back from vacation until then I was secretly hoping that nothing would happen, and luckily our little man hung on until Sunday!

The Induction

On Sunday, October 18th we arrived at the hospital for our 7:30am appointment, sleep deprived, anxious, but so excited to finally meet our little man. Neither of us really knew what to expect or what was in store but just the fact that we were already at the hospital and knew that we were in good hands helped to ease our minds so much.

They brought me up to triage to start monitoring me before assigning me to a delivery room, but sadly my husband wasn’t allowed to come with me due to the COVID protocols that were in place. Little did I know the whirlwind of events that was about to take place and how long we were actually going to be apart.

The process started similar to my cervical ripenings, where they monitored the baby and my contractions for 30+ minutes before doing anything else. My doctor showed up after the monitoring was completed to check my cervix and I was still only 1-2 cm dilated. So our next step was to start mechanical dilation with a balloon before they gave me the pitocin.

The doctor started to insert the balloon dilator into my cervix, which was the most painful thing I think I have ever gone through, and then she filled them with water. By the time she was finished I was so lightheaded and in shock that I was already ready for it all the be over and was not looking forward to what else was to come.

I was sitting there in shock, silently watching all of the doctors and nurses fill this tiny room, not knowing what was going on. I was getting more worried by the second as they were all looking at the monitor screens. I finally heard my doctor say “His heart rate has been low for 7 out of the 8 minutes, I am going to go in and cut the balloons out. If this doesn’t work we will need to prepare a room.” At this point I was freaking out, wondering where my husband was, when I finally saw him appear behind everyone.

He had been in the waiting room for about an hour. He was the first one there and out of all the other dads that were there waiting after him, he was the last to get called up. With everything going on they brought him up so that he could be informed of everything that was going on.

Needless to say, I was so happy to see him! As the doctor removed the balloons she explained to me that the babies heart rate had dropped significantly for 7 minutes. If this happens for 8 minutes they immediately go to an emergency C-section, which terrified me! Luckily taking the balloons out released enough pressure and made his heart rate jump back up. But because this happened I was at a much higher risk for a c-section. So they wheeled me to my delivery room where I was immediately given the epidural, just in case they had to do a c-section.

Getting the epidural administered definitely wasn’t enjoyable but after everything I had already gone through it was nothing. More than anything it just felt super weird! But the anesthesia hit me in 10 minutes and it was amazing to say the least!

After the epidural was in they monitored the baby for another 30 minutes to make sure he didn’t have a poor reaction to it before we started the pitocin.

At around 11am the doctor broke my water and started the pitocin. By noon I was already 5 cm dilated, and by 5pm I was 9 cm and his head was almost all the way down. But of coarse he was face up so each time the doctor would check me she would also try to rotate him with her hand but he didn’t want to move! Every so often he was also having drops in his heart rate, but we were reassured that he was fine and the doctor was thinking he was likely on his cord.

The plan was that at 7pm I was going to start pushing. So the doctor came in around then to check his position before we started. I was fully dilated but his head still wasn’t fully down, he was sideways, he was having sporadic drops in his heart rate, and the way my pelvic bone is shaped was going to make it very hard to get him out. Instead of having me try to push for an hour, my doctor spared me and decided to opt for the c-section right away since it was likely to happen anyways. So they started prepping the OR.

The C-Section

By 7:45 pm I was being wheeled back to the OR. Nate was all scrubbed up and had to wait outside until they had the room prepped.

When I got in there they gave me more anesthesia and started to prep the area. Almost my entire body from my arms down was numb and my arms were shaking like crazy, which I guess is completely normal when you are in active labor and it just means that your body is working really hard. It worried me at first but mostly it was just super annoying because it was something that I couldn’t control lol. During all of the prep I spiked a fever so they had to give me some medication for that and put me on antibiotics for the next 48 hours, laaaame.

Within 15 minutes my husband was in the room and they started the procedure. There was a huge clear screen in front of me that they covered with a blue sheet during the surgery, and btw I totally felt like I was in a movie throughout the whole process under all the bright lights lol. My husband held my hand the whole time and I think it took maybe a total of 10 minutes if not less! All I felt the whole time was just a lot of pressure and some tugging but it was all pain free!

At 8:10pm Jackson was born weighing in at 7lbs 1oz and 21″ long. The moment we heard him cry and they put him up to the screen for us to see him was hands down one of the best moments of my life. No words can describe the feelings that swept over me.

Once they cut his cord they took him over to the table to be weighed, measured, and looked at by the pediatricians/NICU nurses. That’s when Nate got to go over and see him! When they were finished they wrapped him in a blanket and rolled him over to me so I could see his precious little face! The hardest part of it all was not being able to hold him right away and having to wait until the surgery was over, which felt like forever. It probably took another 35 minutes for them to stitch me back up before we could go back to the delivery room. While they finished up the pediatrician ended up taking Jackson to the NICU just to make sure he was okay since I had spiked a fever during the procedure.

Soon after we got back to our room they wheeled him in and I was able to hold him and breastfeed him, and we just stared at him in awe! We were in the delivery room for another 2-3 hours after until they sent us to the room where we would stay the rest of the time!

The Recovery

I just want to start off by saying that my hope for sharing this story is to reassure anyone that may be worried about getting a C-section or the possibility of it. The human body is amazing and can go through so much more than we realize, so just remember that you can do it, and although it sounds scary it really wasn’t!

Honestly, I didn’t realize how major of a surgery it was but my end goal was to have a healthy baby and I was willing to do whatever it took to make that happen. I was actually relieved when the doctor opted for the C-section because I was slightly terrified after everything else we had already gone through and didn’t want to risk anything. With all of the drops in heart rate that he was having and the chances of him being caught in his cord, it wasn’t worth even attempting a natural birth and I was totally fine with that! The best advice I can give anyone is to make sure you find a doctor that you trust and they will take care of you! My doctor is amazing and we will definitely have her deliver all of our future children.

My incision came out great and they put a purple glue on top of it to protect the stitches. The glue is still there today and will be removed by my doctor at my 6 week postpartum checkup that is coming up soon! But as far as recovery goes, it has been very different than what I expected since I ended up doing the C-section.

You don’t realize how much you use your abdominal muscles until you have to do simple tasks such as pee or cough. But my pain level was low and all they had me taking for it was Tylenol and Motrin. I was up and moving the following morning once my catheter was out. The hardest part was definitely getting in and out of bed, but once I was up it wasn’t bad at all! By the third day they had me walking laps around the hospital floor after every meal and just getting the small amount of exercise made the biggest difference. The pain got so much better with each day that passed and the nurses were so impressed with how well I was doing. Since I had to be on antibiotics for 48 hours, the nurses were constantly coming in and out of the room to change out the bags, to give me the meds, and to take mine and Jackson’s vitals. So not much sleep was had during our stay, especially in-between all of the cluster feeding lol.

The pediatrician would check in on the baby each day and would take him with them to get all of the tests done. Jackson has a little bit of a lower heart rate that normal so while we were there he got an EKG just to double check his heart and thankfully everything looked normal! Unfortunately, his bilirubin levels were on the higher side so they were monitoring the jaundice every day.

I was recovering so well that the nurse cleared me to go home earlier than the usual 4 day stay which was exciting! Since Jackson’s levels were still a little high we were given the choice to either stay another night just so they could check his levels again the next day or we could go home that morning and have our pediatrician check his levels the next day. The pediatrician was comfortable with him going home and cleared us, so we decided to go home that day!

At his appointment the next morning they drew his blood and called us with the results around 7pm that night because they had come back higher than before. Definitely not the call we were hoping for and having to go back to the hospital that night was scary. But they tested him again when we got there around 9pm and his levels were stable which was such a relief to hear! For the next week or so we spent a lottt of time feeding and sitting in the sunlight to try to get all the bilirubin out and it was gone before we knew it!

After staying in the hospital for 3 nights we were sooo ready to be back in our own bed! By the third night I couldn’t sleep at all or even get comfortable in the hospital bed anymore because my back was so messed up! My in-laws were so nice to help set us up a bed downstairs that we could use while my incision healed for the first couple weeks. Everything is upstairs in our house so it made the most sense to sleep and set ourselves up downstairs since I was supposed to limit my stair use.

I am looking forward to my appointment that is coming up and am hoping that my doctor clears me to exercise again because I am ready to get back to it! Anyways, I apologize for the length of this post! I am sure not many people made it this far but if you did, just know that I appreciate you!

I linked a few postpartum items below that I have loved and wouldn’t want to live without, for anyone who may be interested! Most importantly, here are some cute baby pictures for y’all to enjoy 🙂