Finally got the chance to sit down and write Jordan’s birth story… Jordan’s been sleeping for a few hours at a time for the last couple days, wohoo! Praise the Lord this birth wasn’t as dramatic as Jude’s, it sure was nice to have Jake around for this one, he is such a great husband and support!

So I stated to have contractions about 8pm… they were really irregular and not hard at all (I’d been having contractions on and off all week).  By 9:30 they were getting about 15 mins. apart but still not really painful. I told Jake he’d better call Joy to come spend the night just incase. There was a really bad storm raging. Joy got here and then the contractions seemed to stop for a while but by quarter to 11 they were back and we decided to head off to the hospital (I still wasn’t sure if I was in labor or not).  We got to the hospital about 11:30 and went to the dilating room (labour room :). There are three beds in there with a delivery chair plus a delivery room right next door with a few more delivery chairs. They checked me and I was already at 6 cm, so I was super happy... it took me many painful hours to get to that point with Josh and Seth! The contractions were still not really painful; I could talk through them all, so great! Jake was amazing, rubbing my back and encouraging me. I just kept walking around the room waiting for baby to come.

There was one other young lady there who'd already been there for four hours, it was her first baby, all alone (which is normal here), but I’m guessing she wasn’t married, as she was pretty young. Poor thing was really suffering and shaking with each contraction, she had tears running down her face. The midwives (three in all) kept telling her not to cry, that these were joyful pains. I don’t think that really helped. It brought back memories of my first two deliveries, I can’t imagine doing it by myself.

Anyway just before 2am, I was at 10 cm and felt like pushing. I was pretty tired by now but not in any serious pain. At the exact same time the other lady went into the other delivery room. Now usually when it comes to pushing it is like the easiest part for me, as you can counteract the pain and you know you are almost there. Well not to be this time. I pushed for about an hour to no prevail, I got down and walked again, I even got down and squatted, nothing helped and I was getting pretty exhausted. The funny thing is that the chair was electric so the midwife could raise it…. there was also a big light there but there was only one plug in. So each time I got down from the chair they had to unplug the light and plug the chair in, then when I got back in they would raise me up and plug the light in again. Not very convenient! The pain was pretty intense and I was freaking out a bit. Anyway they gave me an IV to give me a bit of strength but didn’t really help. I pushed and pushed and think I popped a blood vessel in my eye as it has a big red spot on it… I was also kinda out of it, I think from lack of oxygen as not breathing probably between pushes… it’s all a bit hazy… Jake was great through this all and kept telling me I could do it and encouraging me. The electric also went out twice while I was pushing, they had a generater though as the lights came on almost immediately. One of the midwives is a little, old Spanish nun (I gave birth at a Catholic hospital). She only speaks pidgin English which is really funny to hear with a spanish accent. Each time the electric went off she would say, “Por favor, Señor, por favor.”

The other midwife said she was going to help me and push on my belly, I was like, “no, it’ll hurt too much” so I wouldn’t let her but after another exhausting 15 mins I was ready to try anything. She pushed on the top of my stomach and it pushed the baby right out! Of course it did make me tear but I was like, I should have let you done that 15 mins ago! She said that Jordan was looking up instead of down so that’s why she didn’t come out very easy. Praise the Lord, Jordan cried in the first few seconds of being born. I asked what it was and was thrilled to hear a girl. At the same time the other lady was still pushing and sounded like she was in a lot of pain too, poor thing! But she finally delivered about 10 minutes after me.

Jordan had an apgar score of 9 so she was super strong from the get go. She weighed in at 8.4 pounds; by far my biggest baby. She is off the chart for Cameroon baby charts… all the nurses kept calling her fatty :).  The Spanish nun was like, “muy grande!” Anyway as they were cleaning up and dressing Jordan the midwife started to sow me up. She had used local anesthesia but not enough because the last couple of stitches I could feel, it made me shout, let me tell you. But finally it finished and I laid down with Jordan, nursed and fell asleep.  When they had finished up with the other lady they showed us to the room…. Unfortunately there were no private rooms available so I had to go into the general ward… a room with about 10 beds in it. PTL there was nobody in it when I got there so Jake could sleep in there with me. I got some sleep and woke up about 7am. Jake went to go get the boys and some breakfast. Since I didn’t have a private room there wasn’t a private toilet so I had to use the squatties. This really wasn’t fun, just giving birth, having stitches, and then having to squat, not a good combination! Anyway, I survived, thank you Jesus!

The boys got there a little later; they were just so proud and happy to see their little sister. Jude was a bit unsure at first and wouldn’t kiss her but he soon warmed up to Jordan. At about 10am a private room became free and we could move into a room that had two single beds and a toilet! No toilet seat but a toilet nonetheless :).  We had a lot of people come in and see the baby, lots of hospital personnel, even the janitor came in! Jake was able to spend the night with me again so that was really nice. They wanted us to stay for another night but we insisted on leaving the next morning as I really wanted a hot shower (cold just didn’t cut it) and be in my own bed. As we left the nurse told me to make sure I clean my stitches with salt water, I just smiled and nodded but not in a million years! All in all it was a pretty easy labour (besides the pushing) and we just praise God for the safe arrival of Jordan, she is such a blessing, and such a sweetie!  

For more photos of Jordan click here and then click on the little Jordan icon

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