Jakob is here!

Jakob Noah arrived at 3:31 a.m. on February 12, one day past his due date, weighing 8 lbs 6 oz and measuring 22 inches. I was induced on my due date due to gestational diabetes even though the baby was not measuring extraordinarily large (but I guess ultrasound estimates can always be wrong) and I was not at all dilated or effaced.

I wasn’t too thrilled about getting induced but still ready to finally meet him. They started the induction with gel around 10 a.m. I got some mild contractions that stopped soon after. They applied the gel again at 4 p.m., same effect. I figured it would take forever, even though they kept reassuring me that with a second child it could suddenly be very fast. At 9 p.m. I sent my husband home for the night and got ready for bed. I was in bed by 10 and of course that’s when the contractions picked up. They were about 2.5 mins apart. At 12:30 a.m. my water broke and I called my husband to come back even though I was still 0 cm dilated. At 1:15 a.m. I asked for an epidural because it was really painful by then. With my first pregnancy the epidural had been wonderful but this time not so much. After the anesthesiologist placed it I could still feel everything - it had failed. So she tried again, this time only numbing the right side of my body. She ended up torturing my back for 1.5 hours, all the while I was having intense contractions and dilating from 3 to 9 cm. Once I realized the second epidural had failed, too, I begged for a different kind of pain meds but it was too late. I was fully dilated and the baby’s heart rate was dropping. So yeah, the left side of my body ended up experiencing a non-medicated birth, which wasn’t exactly the plan. But at least it was really fast and he was out after just a few pushes.

He has been a great baby so far and we are so happy he is finally here. As for the gestational diabetes, they are monitoring his glucose levels but he has passed every time. 😊