Jordan's dramatic, terrifying, no, wonderful, birth story

Written by a sore, bruised, and exhausted mother.  Forgive my horrible story telling and multiple grammatical errors.

Well, I was promised a baby by early afternoon and my doctor delivered (pun intended). I mean, all I had to do was finish what I started. The nurses who saw me and the resident OB explained that "all doctors promise early deliveries" to make moms optimistic. No one expected me to have this baby before dinner. Mmmmhhhhmmmm. They must have not realized who my doctors were. They were always right.

I'll give you the short version of events from 9 am to 12 pm. Picotin - ouch, man. But I remained the girl oblivious to her contractions, weirdly enough until the epidural. My epidural with the boys took like 30 seconds. I didn't feel a thing. I expected similar results this time around. Nope. Nope. Oh my sweet baby Jesus was I wrong. That biotch missed the first time, sending a searing pain down my left leg. Apparently, I have a mild case of scoliosis. Once the epidural worked, my contractions came close together and I really felt them... of course. No epidural, I'm pain free. Epidural, and I'm in pain. The morning was still relatively boring.  We watched a lot of HGTV and made fun of the people who said things like "I only want to spend about 1.2 million on this house."  Screw you.

The nurse checked my progress around noon. She sent this text message to my OB: "complete and plus 3. Get here ASAP." And, no kidding, I swear my doctor made his way into the room about 5 minutes later.  I joked that he must have been down the street at Portillo's getting food. My nurse joked that she had to eat her words.  I was, in fact, having this baby by early afternoon.

Anyway, so I pushed. Labor went quickly. Baby moved quickly. And then her heart rate dropped. No big deal, it happens sometimes. She was still in a healthy range for her heart rate.

We took a break and let the picotin work a little more, since my contractions were getting milder.

Pushed some more. And her heart rate dropped some more. They think that her umbilical cord must have been getting compressed every time I pushed. I couldn't watch, and yet I couldn't look away from the monitors.  80.. 70... 50.... and then it dropped more...

My OB: "I don't like this. You've come too far...."  I knew what that meant. We have come too far to lose this baby now.  Cue the waterworks. Over to the OR we go. I think I started crying as they handed Tim blue scrubs and told him to grab the camera. They wheeled me out in a hurry, telling him that someone would take him there when they were ready for him. I think he kissed my forehead goodbye and told me not to worry. I asked the nurse how fast we could get this baby out.  Fast, she assured me. I was worried I wouldn't see my daughter alive.

Earlier, my nurse told me to stop watching her vitals (this is my baby lady, let me watch her heart rate).  She said to let them worry about it, and if something bad happened then a team of 15 people would come running into the room - and then I would have the right to worry. So when they wheeled me into the OR for the emergency c-section and I saw a team of about 15 people, my heart rate skyrocketed (enough for them to move the monitors out of the way so that I wouldn't watch them). I remember asking them if I would feel anything. My OB assured me all I would feel was pressure.  I had a new, nicer, anesthesiologist. The draped the blue sheet over me so I couldn't see, did a "test" to make sure I didn't feel pain, grabbed Tim from the hallway, and soon we were on our way to meeting our little girl. A few minutes later...

"Here comes baby!" Seriously, already?

"Its a girl! That's what they ordered!" Duh.

Then... "She has a ton of hair!" followed by me smiling and screaming, "she does?!" Just what I wanted. Then came her little whine, followed by her strong and steady cry. I bawled my eyes out when I heard her.  She was breathing. I have never head any of my children cry up until that point.

"Is she okay?"

"I think so.... she's pink!" My OB said.

She came to me, perfectly tiny, a miniature version of me and a big bundle of love. She was crying and clearly annoyed by the team of people who pulled her from her home. But then I said hi to her, and she instantly calmed down. She knew my voice. She knew me. They laid her on my chest and she practically army crawled to my breast and started nursing (and I have the pictures to prove it!). Later,  a nurse would tell me that my milk coming in early was a gift from my boys; milk arrives earlier in second and subsequent pregnancies.

We named her Jordan Breanne the minute we saw her.  I still wasn't sure about her name, but this had the most meaning to us.  Tim and I picked out three baby names years and years ago, when we first started dating: Conner, Parker, and Jordan.  Jordan was our name for a girl.  We both said we wanted a unisex name for a girl, and we both said "I like Jordan" at the same time.  So we have had this name on reserve for quite awhile. Breanne has even more meaning to us - it is made up of letters from Benjamin and Conner's names.  She was almost Jordan Cameron, but I couldn't give her two unisex names.  That would be cruel - no one would be able to look at her name and tell whether or not she was a girl or a boy. She was almost Charlotte Jordan - but the popularity of Charlotte made me back away from it.

My OB joked that he was getting a workout stitching me back up - my abdominal muscles were tight and I was in good shape. Great, I thought - because I'm planning on taking my baby to the Caribbean in about 7 months! Apparently, in my heart, I knew she was okay.

After skin to skin, they took her to the nursery with Tim close behind. I'm not even sure if we said goodbye to each other - we were too wrapped up in the fact that there was a team of people around our baby and she was being put into an isolette. I didn't see my baby girl for three hours after that.

February is a slow month for babies and births, we were explained. Except this year the nursery exploded and there were not enough rooms for the mothers. I kinda wonder what happened 9 months ago that everyone was having babies all of a sudden. So I lingered around in post-op until my nurse, after multiple phone calls, yelling at people that they couldn't separate mother and baby, etc., they finally got me a room. But then they didn't clean the room and we had to wait more.  I cried by myself in my hospital bed, waiting for my baby or for any news on her progress. Well, that's after they gave me some drugs to control the violent shaking I was experiencing as a side effect of I totally forgot what drug. Tim finally came to see me, big smile on his face and a camera loaded with pictures.  I missed her first bath.  I missed her being put into a regular bassinet.  I missed her grabbing her daddy's hand, her footprints being placed into her two Bibles, and three hours of her life. He told me she weight 5 pounds, 3 ounces.  I couldn't believe it.  I had so badly wanted her to be at least 5 pounds, and here she was - a tiny bundle, but she had surpassed our expectations. She only needed one supplement in the nursery to help her gain weight, and then they gave us the all clear to solely breastfeed (my heart did a little happy dance at this news). My nurse pulled us a solid and they brought me my Jordan Breanne in post-op until we could be wheeled into our room together.

I can't describe the relief I felt to hold my baby again. She gave us quite a scare, that little one.  My other OB checked on me the next day and he told me that he wasn't surprised - she gave us so many scares, it only made sense to give us one more. I know that I will be scared everyday for the rest of my life for her, and I will do everything I can to protect her.

We spent the next few days in the hospital, snuggling up with our baby girl and memorizing the traits of her face, her hands, her (giant) feet. She is a good baby - she doesn't cry much and is soothed easily (usually). It took miles and mountains to get to where we are now, but we have our baby girl, safe and sound. Our church had a round of applause the day we brought her home. Thank you, God. Thank you, Conner. Thank you, Benjamin.