Birth Story - Jordyn Lee

Progress on the teething issues: We have movement! Bottom two have broken through.  This gave him relief for about a day and a half and the tops are paining him again. They are close. I know it. Although now we are dealing with some serious diaper rash.  I hope he'll be sleeping again in a week or so. And I can post regularly again. So while I'm dealing with those issues, let's move along with Baby Momma series! Our third amazing birth is Jordyn Lee!

Jana, Jordyn's mom, is 28 and lives in Waynesville, MO with her husband, Kenny and their six year old daughter, Kailey.  Jana is a full time psychology student, mother and Army wife.

Jordyn was born on Oct. 4, 2010 and is now 8 months old. Here's Jana...

Since this was my 2nd child, I already had in mind what type of birth I wanted. My plan was to go into labor at home, once my contractions were 5 minutes apart, go to the hospital and get my epidural when I needed it. But, I guess someone had other plans. My story goes like this...

After trying for a year, my husband Kenny and I were finally pregnant with our 2nd child. My pregnancy was great. I gained a total of 20 lbs and my blood pressure was perfect. This was a big deal since during my 1st pregnancy I had to be induced at 37 weeks because of preeclampsia. 

At my 38 week check up, I was 1 cm dilated and 80% effaced. My doctor informed me that since this was my second child, I could schedule to be induced on my due date. My goal was to try and go into labor on my own but since he offered, I decided to have him schedule it just in case. The only stipulation was that we had to call at 5:00 am the morning of to see if they had room. If they didn't, I would have to wait. 

During the last 2 weeks, I tried everything. Walking, sex, Castor Oil, stripping the membranes (twice) etc... Although, this did bring on strong contractions, they weren't consistent and eventually went away. The morning of October 4th Kenny called in and they had the room. Once we got there, they put us in a room but my doctor didn't write any instructions in my chart so they had to wait for him to get there at 7:30am. 8:00am he comes into my room and checks me. I'm still only 1 cm and about 90% effaced. Also, the baby hadn't dropped. At this point, he didn't see any reason to induce me. I started balling! I think I made him feel bad because he decided to do an ultrasound to make sure everything looked OK. 

While looking at the ultrasound, he noticed that half of my placenta was calcified. In other words, it looked like a loofah sponge. This normally happens to women who smoke (which I do not) and have high blood pressure. After seeing this, he said there was no way I was going home now.  The nurses started my IV of Pitocin right away. A few hours later, they stop my Pitocin because I'm having strong contractions on my own. Around this time, my water broke on its own.  

Around 6:00pm, the doctor came in to check me. I was 6 cm dilated and the contractions were getting pretty intense.  I knew it was time for my epidural. The anesthesiologist came in about 30 minutes later and after three tries, she got it. A couple minutes later I started feeling really light headed, nauseated, and started seeing spots. My blood pressure was dropping. The nurses all started rushing around me at this point administering medication to reverse this. After about 10 minutes I was OK. 

8:00pm the doctor came in to check me again. I was still 6 cm.  He informed me that if I didn't progress in the next couple hours, I would have to have a c-section. 8:20pm the doctor rushes in my room and tells me to lay on my left side. He had been watching my monitors from the nurses station and noticed that her heart rate would drop as each contraction hit.  There was no way around it, I had to have a c-section. 

As Kenny was getting scrubbed up, I was wheeled back to surgery. I have never had surgery so I was terrified. While laying there,  I noticed that I could feel every contraction on my left side. As they increased my epidural, I could still feel it. The doctor said I would have to be put under. The mask was put on my face and I was told to count from 10-1. I think I made it to 7.

At 9:11pm on October 4, 2010 Jordyn Lee was born. I woke up around 10pm. Kenny came into the recovery room a couple minutes later. He said because I had to be put completely under, he wasn't allowed to be in the room with me. He had to watch from the little window in the door. 

Two hours later (about midnight) Kenny and I decided to go to bed. As I was laying there, I noticed that she spit up again. I turned on the light so that I could clean her up and noticed that it was light green. I called the nurse into the room. Since our hospital doesn't have a nursery the nurse decided to take her into the nurses station and watch her.  At 3am, I was awoke by the doctor. As I was trying to wake up, she informed me that Jordyn had spit up again several times and it was green. They decided the best thing to do was ship her to the Children's Hospital two hours away because they didn't know what was wrong with her. Also, the ambulance was already on the way. 

Kenny woke up in the middle of that conversation, and jumped up to get dressed. He was going to follow the ambulance down there and I was going to meet him once they discharged me later that day. 

At 5:00am the ambulance took my baby girl to the Children's hospital as I stayed behind.  That was one of the hardest things I had ever done...

Once I arrived at the Children's Hospital, the doctor sat down with Kenny and I to explain the 3 things they thought it could be: Constipation, Hirschsprung's disease, or Cystic Fibrosis. Two days later, after several tests they found out it was Hirschsprung's disease. Basically, some of the nerves in her large intestine weren't sending signals up to the brain. The only cure for that is surgery.  

 Jordyn, right after surgery. Heartbreak.

On Tuesday October 12th, Jordyn had surgery. Kenny and I were terrified but the nurses kept us very informed and even called us from the surgery room to keep me updated on everything. Within two hours, they found the part of her large intestine that wasn't working and removed it. The surgery was supposed to take about 6-8 hours but only took 4. Jordyn did great in surgery and recovered fast. After almost two weeks in the NICU, Jordyn was able to come home. 

I'm happy to report that Jordyn is a happy and very healthy little 8 month old. Thank you for sharing your story, Jana!