I don’t know about you, but I love a good birth story!
For the past 6 years, teaching has been my whole life. All-day, every day. Infiltrating my dreams, haunting my waking relaxation hours, looming over my summer vacation.
Other jobs aren’t like that. You can go home and forget about it. But not teaching.
I wanted to post a birth story because even though teaching is a huge part of my life, my family is even more important to me than being a teacher. They are my joy!
I hope this post will encourage other teachers to prioritize the most important things!
You don’t have to eat, sleep, and breathe teaching.
Make the time to be present in the moment for what matters most.
Baby Jet's Birth Story
Our little baby Jet was born on a Sunday in November at 6:47 pm. He was 7 pounds 8.6 ounces, and 20 inches long. He came out peeing haha.
The Beginning of the End
It all began on a Saturday afternoon! Three days before my due date, and I was READY to not be pregnant anymore!
My husband Gabe and I went disc golfing in the morning. It was nice weather, and our dog TJ loved playing in the river and jumping over logs.
After 18 holes, I was feeling pretty exhausted.
When we got home, I started having a few contractions! I was still feeling pretty good, so I did 100 squats courtesy of the fabulous glowbodypt prenatal plan. If you want to go into labor, do squats.
We spent the rest of the day watching football and all our teams won. Now that’s a good omen!
The contractions kept getting more frequent and stronger. We finally went to bed around 11:30, knowing we might not sleep much.
It was a long, painful night! I woke up about every hour at first, sleeping a little in between. I couldn’t stand to lie in bed for the contractions, so I had to keep getting up and walking around.
By 3 am the contractions were getting stronger and only 30 min apart. By 4 am they were 10 min apart, and I was dying.
At 4:30, I decided it was time to go to the hospital! I told Gabe to eat some cereal so he wouldn’t be hangry all day, which ended up being a really good idea.
I strongly recommend having a well-fed hubby for your delivery.
Gabe prayed for me that my body would be strong and then we headed to the hospital.
At the Hospital
They put me in a triage room to start. I was a little over 3 cm dilated and 80% effaced.
I had some really hard contractions while we waited. They were only 3 minutes apart by then so there was hardly any relief between contractions!
Eventually, I was admitted and they gave me the epidural around 7:30 am. Drugs are amazing. I don’t know how all you natural birth moms do it!
After the epidural, I started feeling much better. Gabe and I were both able to sleep a little bit and watch our church meeting on Zoom (thank you covid for online church!). We checked in with the anxiously waiting grandparents and texted our family and friends.
It was a long day of waiting.
One of the hardest parts of the day for me was hunger. I had gestational diabetes during my pregnancy, so managing my blood sugar was difficult. Since the hospital would only let me eat clear liquids, my blood sugar was going crazy and I nearly puked a few times.
The doctor came in around 11 am and broke my water.
The rest of the day we just sat around watching a Harry Potter marathon on tv. The nurse came in at 4 and told me I had progressed to 9 and ¾ centimeters. I appreciated the irony of that measurement under the circumstances.
The delivery
I hit 10 cm and started pushing around 5. At first, I couldn’t tell if I was pushing because of the epidural. But it wore off some with time, and I was able to feel him dropping in.
I pushed for an hour and a half before he finally was born. Most of my labor was spent playing tug-of-war with a nurse holding a towel. Gabe looked at the baby’s head as he was crowning and said that he thought he looked tiny. But then when he came out he was huge!
Gabe didn’t think he would want to cut the umbilical cord, but the doctor handed him the scissors! I honestly didn’t even notice because I was so busy looking at my baby boy!
The nurses cleaned him up and took measurements, and then I got to finally hold my little guy!
What a little miracle. The whole thing just felt surreal.
I nursed him and he did really well. Then he got to go see Daddy.
This was the part I had looked forward to most.
Watching Gabe become a daddy was one of the absolute best moments of my life. Jet looked so tiny in his daddy’s big gentle hands! I loved hearing his tiny cry and watching Gabe comfort him.
The baby’s grandparents were able to come for a quick visit (2 at a time due to covid) before the day ended. The rest of the week was a total blur of doctors and nurses monitoring us.
He passed all his tests and we finally got to go home on Tuesday! What a wild and amazing couple of days!
A Little Bit of Heaven
Throughout the whole experience, I felt that heaven was very close to us.
Just a few months after I got pregnant, Gabe’s brother passed away from a brain tumor. It was so difficult to watch one life end while another was growing inside me, wondering if they would meet each other in passing in and out of this life.
Lying in the hospital knowing that a new little life was about to come down to join our family was one of the most spiritual experiences I’ve ever had.
I felt Gabe’s brother close to us, and I know he helped drop off our little boy safely!
We are so grateful for this little piece of heaven joining our family, and for the knowledge that we will all be together forever.
A Teacher & A Mom
Becoming a mom has been the fulfillment of my life’s dream. I love this little boy and my family more than anything. I am so grateful for them!
For years, I taught other people’s babies. Now, I get to teach my own little boy and I can’t wait for the amazing journey that it will be!
I know that all my teaching experience has helped prepare me for motherhood, and I am so thankful to be an educator.
Being a teacher makes me a better mom, and being a mom will help me be a better teacher.
For more about managing life as a new mom, see my recent post Baby Essentials for Efficient Moms.
Also, thank you to the amazing Lexi Hurst at lexihurstphotography.com for her beautiful newborn photos!! All the best photos in this post were taken by her (all but the hospital & pregnancy shots).
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