Jude Thomas Parker // Born January 25th, 2021

On January 24th (the day before Jude arrived and 2 days before his due date) my mom and I went to the grocery store while Allan watched the big Packer game that would determine if they went to the Super Bowl or not. I bought a ton of my favorite frozen tamales at Trader Joe’s… the cashier said something about it and I told her I was stocking up for my maternity leave, she then asked when I was due to which I responded “Tuesday.” She was shocked and said, “Wait, Tuesday, as in two days from now??” “Yep.” Little did we know he would actually come the very next day! We went to a couple of stores, and then I wasn’t feeling 100% so we cut the shopping day short. I got my tamales, I was good to go. When we got home from shopping and watched the end of a disappointing football game. Allan was very saddened that the Packers lost…

That night I woke up around 1:00 AM with a really uncomfortable feeling… honestly, it felt kinda like maybe I had to use the bathroom. I got out of bed and tried to use the toilet, but I couldn’t. Meanwhile, Allan was downstairs working. He was working long nights, trying to get to a point to be able to leave his co-workers in good shape, knowing that the baby would arrive soon. The pain for me was quickly getting worse, so I started bouncing on my birthing ball and texted Allan “I think I’m in Labor.” Minutes later he rushes upstairs, and starts timing the contractions. They were only about 1.5 minutes apart. I was a bit confused because I was in pretty constant pain, but it would get worse every minute and a half. So in my mind, I wasn’t sure if they were contractions or not. Allan suggested we wake my mom up. She suggested we call the doctor, so we did and the doctor told me that we need to get to the hospital. This was it. The moment we had been preparing for…. I was trying to remember everything I needed to pack last-minute… I also remember thinking “what should I wear” I had everything ready, what we would be wearing coming home from the hospital, etc. but I guess I didn’t know it would be 2:00 AM when I went to the hospital, and in my head, there was still a chance they would send me home. I thought that this all happened too quickly. I didn’t think I would wake up and my contractions would be so close together. The doctor had told me that once they get closer than 5 minutes apart, I should call/go in. So anyway, I gathered all my stuff, changed into some pajamas that didn’t look so pajama-y (haha), and started making my way to the car. As soon as I got to the top of the stairs, I had a really painful contraction and dropped to the ground. That’s when my Mom said, “Yep, you’re having this baby soon”. Things started to get real, I started thinking “what am I forgetting?!”.

We arrived at the hospital around 2:00 AM, by the time they got me hooked up to the monitors my contractions were very close together, like 30 seconds apart, but I was only 3cm dilated. The nurse kept looking at the screen that showed my contractions and then would ask “are you sure you don’t want the epidural?” I held off for a while, but finally, around 4 AM I decided to go ahead and get an epidural. I was still only 4cm dilated at the point. I was really nervous about the huge needle, but I just didn’t look at it and it wasn’t bad at all. After that, labor was SO much better. I couldn’t really feel the contractions at all and Allan and I were able to get some much-needed rest. Part of me does wonder if the epidural made me not dilate though, because I was still at 4cm about 4 hours later. My midwife whom I had met a couple of times throughout my pregnancy was only on-call until 10 AM, so she said she would check on me before she left, and when she did I still wasn’t dilated enough. So she left and a male doctor who I have never met before, as well as a female trainee, introduced themselves. One of the things that I loved about my doctor’s office is that I got to meet the 5 female delivery practitioners before giving birth, I liked them all and would have been happy with any of them delivering my baby… but of course, I got the dude that sometimes helps out when all 5 doctors are busy, that I had never met before, plus a doctor in training. Oh, well. They were great too. The nurse eventually gave me pitocin which helped me dilate quicker. The Doctor said if I started to feel like I need to poop or if my water broke, that’s probably when it’s time to push. I started to feel that way around 3 PMish, I told the nurse and she suggested I push a few times before we called the doctor in. She had Allan grab one leg and she grabbed the other and every time I felt a contraction she told me to push. It actually felt better to push. Another nurse came in to ask Allan what he wanted for dinner and the nurse helping me said to order me a meal too because the baby would be here soon and I’d be able to eat! While I was pushing I thought my water broke. She called the doctor(s) in and they felt around. They thought that maybe there was a small hole, but the whole thing didn’t break, so the training doctor attempted to break it….. I started pushing again and apparently pushed the whole water sack out… They were amazed and said that rarely, rarely happens. I don’t really know what that means, but I want to remember that it happened, haha. During labor, I am so thankful for the nurse I had. She kept telling me how great I was doing, saying that I was an awesome pusher (lol), she grabbed my hand and put it on Jude’s head as he was coming out and told me just a couple more pushes. Allan was trying to keep his cool, but he was so emotional through the birthing process. Tears were running down his face, it was super endearing. Jude made his arrival at 4:35 PM. I was in labor for about 15.5 hours and it took less than an hour to push. When Jude came out he didn’t cry, so they rushed him over to a cart and hooked him up to oxygen, then wheeled him away… I didn’t get to see my baby, hold him, have skin-to-skin time. It was very scary, but I had complete faith that everything would be just fine. During that time I delivered the placenta, they checked to see if I needed to be stitched up, but I didn’t. I only had minor tears, nothing big enough to stitch up. I was texting our parents and my best girlfriends updates. Jude had so many people praying for him and declaring “It’s Your (God’s) breath in Jude’s Lungs”. Allan was able to go check in on Jude, he took pictures of him and brought them back to me along with an update that Jude was breathing, but not super well, and they took an x-ray which showed “streaking” on the lungs that could be fluid in his lungs. They suggested we be transferred to a different hospital with a NICU so that they could keep an eye on Jude. I feel like I really kept my cool until that point. Once they said he had to go to the NICU, that’s when the tears started streaming. Once again, the nurse was amazing. She comforted me and told me to get it all out and that she knows it’s scary but everything would be just fine. Finally, I got to see my baby boy; the most precious human being I’ve ever seen. We got to hold him for a little while, and then two ambulances came for us… Jude and I couldn’t ride in the same one, because apparently there wasn’t enough room. Allan went home quick (because our house is 2 minutes from the hospital) to let Winnie out, grab a couple of things, and then met us at the other hospital where Jude and I were. I was in a room and Jude was in the NICU, so as soon as Allan got there he and I went up to check on Jude. They gave him formula, which I was very upset about…. I was there. I could feed him. Why would they do that?! The NICU nurse said that I wouldn’t be producing enough milk at that time. I was annoyed, but I was just happy that he was OK. They told me I could pump in my room and they would give to him whatever I pumped ….I pumped 10ml of colostrum which is unheard of. Two different nurses said that usually moms only pump 2-4ml. I felt like “take that, nurse who said I wouldn’t produce enough to feed my child”. (Nothing against formula-fed babies at all, I just felt strongly that I wanted to breastfeed my son from the start.) The next day we went up again as soon as they would let us. To our surprise, he was off oxygen already!! The nurse came by and told us that he had been off it since 3:00 AM and that if he stayed off it until 3:00 PM he could join us in our room. We were SO excited! We checked on him again at 12:00 pm, and I finally got to breastfeed him. He was awesome, he latched right away. The lactation specialist came over to give me lots of helpful tips, and she said that he was doing awesome and eating as he should be. We checked in with the nurse to confirm him coming to our room at 3:00 was still happening and said that it might be later than 3:00 PM, but she would call me at 3:00 and I could come to feed him. Ugh, that was disappointing, but ok, at least I could still hold him and feed him in the NICU. 3:00 rolled around and I had not received a phone call…. so I called the NICU and the nurse said “Oh, I already fed him.” I. was. furious. As you can tell, my experience with this hospital was not good. Mostly because of that one NICU nurse. Among other reasons… but that’s not important. So anyway, they then told us they would bring him to us at 6:00 pm… then 6:00 pm comes and they say they want to give him a bath and whatnot… but finally, he got to our room about 7:00 pm. Allan finally held him for the first time. And dang did he look good holding our little babe. I swear I fell in love with him even more in that moment.

We were so relieved to finally have our boy with us, though, that first night in our room as a family of three was a tad nerve-wracking. Jude woke up a lot and cried a lot, and when he was sound asleep, Allan and I kept waking up every few minutes to make sure he was okay and breathing. So yeah…. we did not get much sleep that night. But in the morning, we were so excited because it was discharge day!! We got all packed up, dressed, and ready to go! We thought we would be able to leave right after breakfast, but of course, it wasn’t until like 4:00 PM. (We won’t get into that!) We headed home on a snowy January evening, picked up Chick-Fil-A on the way, and man, did it feel good to be home with our sweet baby boy!