Joel's birth story (or what I remember anyway)

A picture of us during labor.

Warning the next 3 pictures are a little gross, but show the knots in Joel's cord...

Knot pic #1

Knot pic #2

Knot pic #3

Joel in all his glory.

Me and the wonderful labor & delivery nurse who spent the entire day with me.

Joel and Dr. Steinke ...he has delivered all 5 of my children

Me, Joel, and Josh the first time I'm holding him.

My mom, I couldn't have done labor without her. She was amazing, helpful, calm, and reassuring ( or those of you who don't know my mom is a labor & delivery nurse in southern CA)

My mother-in-law adoring her first grandson. I couldn't have done labor without her either, she even gave me a foot massage that day.

I wanted to write the details of my labor and delivery, I intended to write this post soon after he was born but time flies, and here I am 7 weeks later finally sitting down to do this. I write this mostly so I will remember the details, they quickly fade and I will forget...I want to remember. I was a scheduled induction, my dr told me to be at the hospital at 6:30 a.m. so we could get things rolling. The time line went something like this, this is what Josh kept track for me...

6:20 a.m. Arrived at St. Agnes

7:49 a.m. Dr. Steinke broke my water

8:21 a.m. Started the pitocin

8:30 a.m. Having some contractions, but they are irregular

10:33 a.m. Contractions getting stronger and more regular

10:40 a.m. I received my epidural

2:16 p.m. Dr. Steinke checks me, I'm 2-3

2:54 p.m. I'm 3-4, 70% effaced

3:03 p.m. I'm a good 4, internal monitor is placed so they keep a better eye on the baby.

3:30 p.m. Pitocin is shut off because baby is showing some signs of stress.

4:30 p.m. I'm still 4, 80% effaced, -1 station

4:53 p.m. Dr. Steinke checks me again, I'm 5-6 and 90% effaced, -1 station

The notes that Josh kept stop there, Joel wasn't born until 7:40 p.m. I really believed this labor would go much faster than it did, I mean Joel is my 5th baby and all (I thought when you have this many babies they just fall out), but stopping the pitocin really slowed everything down, but necessary because his heart rate was dropping. Eventually they started the pitocin again and Joel seemed to tolerate it. Before they checked me the last time I got sick to my stomach and threw up a few times. Once I threw up, I felt pressure (Not really any pain because the epidural I got was crazy strong). As I got closer to complete, Joel's heart rate started to show he was in distress , so when I started to push there was a few scary moments. My doctor seemed worried about what was happening which scared me (nad I could hear the internal monitor beeping and as I pushed the beeps got much slower) and my mom and mother-in-law were asked to stand outside. I looked and Josh and he remained calm and my rock, I wanted to cry and freak out, I thought maybe the baby was dying, but I knew if I cried I wouldn't be able to push, so I put my all in 3 good pushes and out came Joel. Once he was delivered we discovered he had an amazingly long umbilical cord (my dr guessed it was about 5 feet long, he says average cords are 2-3 feet long), it was wrapped around his neck and had 2 true knots in it. My doctor told me Joel was very lucky to be alive, he thinks if I had waited for my due date Joel would have wrapped that cord around himself and been stillbron. Dr. Steinke told us Joel's name should be lucky. I'm so grateful things turned out well. I was hesitant to write this, maybe a little afraid to say how lucky we were, but I do believe God works and does miracles, and this is one! I went to see my doctor this week and he reminded me of how "lucky" we are, he said he has thought about Joel several times since delivering him. He said he thinks I had about 3 days and Joel would've been stillborn. I'm not going to be reluctant to share what God has done!