Life in the Woods Chapter III: Welcome, Jacob Daniel!

Jacob Daniel arrived on February 20 at 5:30am, weighing 10lbs 3oz and 23in long. I was scheduled for an induction at 6am on the 20th. I went to bed the night before and just committed the induction to the Lord. I had a lot of fear about being induced and had so badly wanted to go into labor naturally. But, at 9:30 that night I had great peace about being induced and went to sleep thankful that I knew the Lord had it all taken care of.

I woke up around 1:30am and had a lot of pain but the contractions were so close together and only about 30 seconds long so I got up and walked around a bit to see if they would slow down or lengthen. I took a shower and as I was in the shower the contractions were coming faster and were only two minutes apart and very painful. I quickly woke up Mike and he showered and we headed to the hospital. We arrived at 3:30 and I was in so much pain and could not even sit down. When the nurse checked me for the first time I was already 7cm. They started the admission process along with the epidural process. Two nurses worked to get us settled. Thankfully a room was all ready for me since I was supposed to arrive in just a few hours and my designated nurse was already there. I was barely able to get the epidural for which I was so very grateful. The contractions were so unbelievably painful. Once I had the epidural it was time to push and in just a few pushed Jacob arrived.

When my water broke during labor it had a significant amount of meconium in it. Because of that we had the special nursery team in the room and they worked on him as soon as he was born. He was very purple and I was very nervous about him for a few minutes. Soon everything was just fine and I was able to hold him for the first time. My initial reaction to him was that he was so ugly. For his first half hour he was ugly. I was a little concerned something was wrong with him but the nurse explained that the labor and delivery were so fast that his face was completely bruised and very swollen. They even had to put a sign in his bassinet that his face was bruised because the nurses kept thinking he wasn't breathing. As some of the swelling went away we were able to see Jacob's sweet face and enjoy our time alone with him for a while.