. . the jensen family . .: 2013

Audree’s birth story comes with a whirlwind of emotions. I would say it was one of the most unbelievable, scary, neat, crazy, but also funny experiences in my life. It was so intimate and had so many aspects that I wanted for her birth, but also completely unexpected and unplanned.

I was scheduled to be induced on March 7^th at 7:30am. For weeks leading up to that date, I really did not want to be induced. I did not want a long stay at the hospital and I wanted to be able to labor at home. This girl sure had a timing/mind of her own and I really should have been careful what I wished for.

Contractions started at 10:30pm on March 6^th. They were slightly uncomfortable, but they were manageable and I decided to head to bed to get some sleep. I was dozing off and got about an hour and a half of rest before I couldn’t really get comfortable in bed. So, at about midnight Jake and I decided it would be best to move downstairs to the recliner where I could get more comfortable and hopefully get more sleep. He joined me by sleeping on the couch.

For the next couple of hours I sat laboring and trying to relax while listening to my relaxation music/script from Hypnobirthing. I timed contractions, but they seemed to be very irregular and not lasting all that long. They would be anywhere from 1 ½ - 4 ½ minutes apart and lasting 25-45 seconds. I kept thinking in my mind that I’m not at the “5-1-1” (5 minutes apart, lasting 1 minute, for 1 hour) and that contractions needed to be longer, harder, and more uncomfortable than what I was experiencing in order to leave for the hospital. These contractions didn’t seem to be worse than what I had with Josh and so I thought I had more time. Plus, even though the contractions were painful, after the 30-45 seconds of contracting, I was relaxed again and again dozing off in between them.

After about 3 hours in the recliner, I decided to move to the birthing ball and rest my head on a pillow on the table. Jake was asleep on the couch (which he says he wishes he would have been awake helping me), but really I didn’t feel like the laboring was that bad and I was handling it just fine. That was until about 3:30am.

At this point I felt that the contractions were bad enough to merit waking Jake up. I was also spotting a little bit. As Jake was waking up, I decided to have a little snack and started toasting a piece of bread, because if I was going to be laboring for the next few hours at the hospital I sure didn’t want to be hungry. Jake was packing things up to head out to the hospital and I felt the need to hit the bathroom. At 3:41, as soon as I sat down my water broke and I felt her right there. My body was beginning to push and I had no control over it, nor did I have control over my howling/scream. Jake who was upstairs getting the monitor ready to give to my mom, heard the scream did a loud pound on my mom’s door and ran downstairs. Jake came in with my shoes and was determined to head out the hospital. He already had the car pulled around and packed up waiting for me, but I couldn’t even take a step out of the bathroom, let alone walk to the car. When my mom came down, she checked me and saw that the baby’s head was crowning. Jake at this point was still determined to get to the car, but in smart thinking my mom decided that she’d call 9-1-1. (This was at 3:44am) The responder told them to get me lying down on my left side. I have no idea how he did it, but Jake picked up me and moved me to the dining room floor and got me on my left side. At this point, still howling my body just took over. It began pushing when it needed to push and I really had no control over what was happening.

The only things I remember thinking at this point were “I can’t believe this is happening” and “I should have woken Jake up sooner”. So, over the next short minutes my mom and Jake were taking directions from the responder. In about 2-3 pushes (again pushes that I couldn’t force or control) her head was out. Because Jake was so worried about how blue she was, he kept telling me that I needed to push to get the rest out, but really my body didn’t want to so I couldn’t. At the next push from my body, the shoulders and the rest of her body followed. It was such a relief. She was born at 3:51am. You got that right, 10 minutes from the time my water broke and 7 minutes from the time my mom called 9-1-1 she was there. The EMT’s hadn’t even arrived yet.

She wasn’t crying at that point, but I heard little coughs and so I wasn’t too worried about her. Jake was trying to clean out her mouth. About a minute after delivery the paramedics showed up, clamped and cut the cord and began assessing the baby and me. Jake kept asking for suctioning because she had stuff in her mouth and nose. The paramedics kept asking me questions, such as “are you feeling okay?”, “are you dizzy?” to which I responded that I felt great. My vitals and everything were looking fine and really I felt fantastic. All I felt was a huge wave of relief and almost a relaxation feeling (probably the shock kicking in). No pain, nothing. It was nuts!

Over the next little while, they cleaned baby off and got her wrapped up to stay warm. As I later found out from my mom, the paramedics wanted to take her and do some work on her, but Jake insisted that I get to hold her and handed her to me.

Never in my life, did I think that I would be lying on my dining room floor holding my newborn baby girl. Holding her was as if the world had stopped, that everything that had just happened and was currently happening was on pause. Those few minutes, felt like forever and it was incredible. Thinking back on it now, I really have no words to describe how I felt. I had just had one of the most intimate experiences of my life. My husband delivered my child and my mom who I have such an incredible relationship with was there to see it, to witness it and help guide me through it. I will never forget that moment.

I only remember 4 paramedics being there, but my mom later let me know that there were in reality 6. She took pictures, because how could you not document such a crazy and incredible moment. The next few minutes or so consisted of getting baby and me in the ambulance to head to the hospital. Being my first ride in an ambulance, these are the small details I remember. The paramedic gave me an IV and asked me questions about my health history, name, date of birth, etc. etc. He called about 3 different people relaying the incident. All this happened while I held my baby and Jake was in the front seat. Once we got to the hospital, there were about 5 nurses to greet us at the door (I’m sure just to witness this crazy story) and they wheeled me through the hospital up to Labor/Delivery. Jake was running around signing papers as we were walking in, but luckily made it with me to my room. I had no idea where we were in the hospital or how to get back to the exit which made things kind of funny/interesting when Jake needed to leave.

I still needed to deliver the placenta and so my doctor was called in. Through the craziness of what felt like 10 people in my room at all times, she delivered that and stitched up my tear. Through that time, my baby girl was being assessed right next to me. The pediatrician said that she looked fantastic. 7lbs and 3.7oz and 20 ½ inches long she was perfectly healthy. Because she had a lower temperature than what they would have liked to see, I was also able to breastfeed her right then and there which was neat.

So after about 2 hours since delivery, the room was finally quiet. Everyone was assessed and squared away and Jake and I were finally able to have a moment with our newborn daughter. At this point, we could finally talk about naming her. Jake instantly said, “I really wanted to name her Makenzee” but then there was a pause. Just before then as I was holding her I knew that that wasn’t her name and was really drawn to the name Audree, as was Jake. It’s pretty neat how a name just fits. The same kind of thing happened with Joshua.

So, after all that, I again would have to say that it was one of the most unbelievable, scary, neat, crazy, but also funny experiences in my life. Unbelievable because who really has met someone that gave birth on their kitchen floor? Scary because Jake and I really didn’t know what to do, but with my mom and our natural instincts we just did what we had to do to make it work, almost like a survival mode. Neat because it was the birth of my daughter with the two people I’m closest to helping me through. Crazy because of how quickly everything happened. And funny, because in each time that I’m telling people the story I can’t help but laugh because of how ridiculous it all sounds.

Even though it didn’t turn out how I exactly would have wanted it to, I’m really glad that I stuck with a natural delivery. The pain wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought it would be and the recovery has been well worth it. The fact that I could walk around just hours after delivery felt great. This whole experience has been so much different than with Joshua and it’s been wonderful. With Josh I had an epidural and was groggy and out of it. I wasn’t able to see him for a few hours after delivery. Because he was in the NICU I was overwhelmed, stressed and overly emotional. I had a hard time establishing breastfeeding because of his circumstance and as it was my first child I think I was definitely over thinking it. Audree has been a complete 180. Even though taking care of newborn is tiring, I’ve been enjoying every minute of it. I have been able to nurse well so far and I don’t feel all that overwhelmed. I think things will get tricky once my mom is gone and I have Josh to take care of too, but all in all it has been going great. What an angel she is!