Life's Surprises...

You can plan and plan, but that doesn't always mean those plans are going to be the final outcome.

Life sure gives you lots of surprises that you never expect in a million years to happen, right?!

I mean how many times do you plan an outing only for the weather to down pour on you and cause you to cancel or resort to "inside only activities"? Booo on bad weather! Or when you plant a whole garden full of tomatoes only to find out that the soil has a lack of calcium in it, and you are stuck with rotten bottom tomatoes that you can't even eat... that's torture... and yes that happened to us this year! Boo on bad soil!

But all those life's surprises might happen for a reason, and you can choose to either be mad and hate life, which what kind of a life would that be? NOT FUN! or you can accept that you are not in control and find whatever positives you can in those surprises.

Well life sure gave Todd and I quite the surprise last week, and it was one that neither I nor anyone else would have ever even imagined!

Without losing too many readers, I'll try and give the best version of the story without going too far in detail to make people leave the page to go throw up. So stick with me here... the ending is the BEST part...

So last Friday August 19th came, which for those of you who follow us, know that was our due date. Sure enough, our boy was not done cooking as he was still gaining lots of brain cells to make himself SUPER smart! A couple more days past, which brings us to Tuesday. Todd and I had been waiting patiently for some signs to come that would give us a clear idea as to when our little guy was indeed ready. We went to see our midwife on Tuesday, and things looked great, but no signs had arose, so we scheduled an ultrasound for Friday to make sure things were still ok with him and we had nothing to worry about. At this point, I'm pretty sure I'd be pregnant forever.

Tuesday evening, we were headed out the door to go visit some friends, and sure enough one of those lovely "Baby is on the Way" signs decided to grace us with its presence... nothing too urgent to go and get the car packed, but just there were signs that there could potentially be a baby within 24-48 hours. As the night went on, I was feeling a little bit more uneasy and as we went to bed that night, my mind would keep me awake along with some pain I was having. Little did I know that any sleep that I would get that night would be my last for a REALLY long time!

The next morning, the pain I was having was still there as it was much stronger. I knew that they were contractions because they were coming at regular intervals around seven minutes apart. I had been having those fun "fake" ones for weeks now, and considering the intensity they were coming, I knew the end was so close... or so I thought...

I talked Todd into going into work that day, and just told him I would keep him posted. I decided to keep myself relaxed and near home so that if anything were to happen and progress quickly, I was not too far and I knew I would need my energy as I had been planning an 'all natural' labor for months now and I knew it was not going to be easy.

The pain I was having throughout the morning was bearable, nothing breathing couldn't help with. I'm pretty sure all my yoga really helped me through them and as the day went on, the pain got stronger. I called Todd around 12:30pm and told him I needed him to come home. I was getting a bit overwhelmed because I knew that this was IT and soon enough it would get a lot worse. I needed a distraction and Todd was what I needed.

When Todd got home, he helped distract me. He would help me breath, relax, laugh, smile, and follow me around the house with our exercise ball because if I had a contraction in a room the only thing that would help would to sit on the ball and rock back and forth. I am so grateful for him...

Somewhere around 8PM, I knew things were progressing a lot quicker and my contractions were becoming stronger and stronger. I started having a great deal of pain in my lower back. A pain I was dreading, as I knew it was "BACK LABOR". I was a bit overwhelmed as everything that happened up until this moment seemed so slow, and now it was like the gear shifted and we were going a mile a minute. We called our friends to come get Maddox, packed the car, and waited the hour of those fun 5 minute intervals of someone beating me with a baseball bat for at least an hour long. I didn't want to go to the hospital too early, but did not want to wait too long.

Around 9:30, I called our midwife and told her it had been over an hour and she actually told me that I sounded fine. Sounded fine? Seriously, I almost jumped through the phone to beat this lady. She thought since I sounded "fine", I should wait until they were more around THREE minutes apart and that I wouldn't be able to talk much... Yes, she was crazy I tell ya!!! I was in so much pain, I wanted to curl in a ball and die. Luckily no more than 45 minutes later, it was TIME!!!! It went from one contraction, rest for 5 minutes, to one contraction, the next contraction, to the next, etc... they were right on top of each other and ones that I could not even talk through. I only could breathe. I told Todd we needed to go... and he questioned me... I said, "No, it's TIME!!!" We got in the car, I stuck the tennis ball behind my back for pain, put on my headphones, and we made the 30 minute trip over to the hospital.

The trip there was a blur, along with the whole trip up to the birthing center, but once we got in there, changed, and saw our midwife, I was at ease and the contractions had slowed down, which helped. I told her about the back pain, so she first checked to see my progress and did a quick ultrasound of our baby. As she checked me, my water broke... what a weird feeling that was... Haha! She had us guess to see how far along I was... we had no idea so we just said maybe 4 cm. She laughed and said, "You're a 7!" I was in shock. I thought oh my goodness... I'm almost there, considering you just go to 10. I had only 3 cm. to go! Wooo... the bad thing was she did a quick ultrasound of our baby and turned out he was indeed what they call "sunny-side up" which is not ideal for labor, but it was doable.

After we got checked in and into our room, we would do everything we could to get our baby to turn in the right direction. It was slow and long and exhausting. I kept wanting to know what time it was and if I was close, but Todd kept telling me to breathe and the time would come. I did a lot of rocking on the ball, sitting in the jacuzzi tub, laying on my side, and basically, anything and everything to breathe through the pain. It was NOT fun... the pain started getting to be unbearable... I'm talking to the point where I no longer could breathe and it was more screaming than breathing... Yes, labor does some pretty crazy things to you. My back pain got so bad, I literally thought I was going to die.

8 hours later, our midwife decided to check my progress... as she wanted to see where I was indeed at and if it was time to get the ball moving. I wasn't having any pressure to push, but I never was in labor before so how was I suppose to know what that feels like? I thought for sure I was almost there. I mean it had been so long and I was EXHAUSTED! Around 7am she checked me and I could not even bear the pain any longer. I wanted a way out... I wanted our baby out! I knew this was not going to be easy, but seriously, it was the most awful pain I have ever endured. She checked me to see and I was barely 8 cm. I think at that point, I was done... I could no longer go any further! Due to my progress after the 8 hours being at the hospital, she recommended an epidural and pitocin to speed things up since I was so wiped out, I had no energy to even breathe through any more. I was really bummed because of my "plan" to do it without medicine, but I knew I went as long as I could and that epidural could not come fast enough. I was begging the nurses to tell them it was an emergency. Once I got all doped up, I could actually breathe again, and was able to just relax. I took a quick nap and waited a few more hours, until they told me it was time to push.

6 hours had passed, and it was a long 6 hours! I could still feel contractions, they just weren't as intense and I didn't feel like someone was beating me with a bat in my back. I was able to breathe a little bit more through them. After 6 hours of waiting, it was finally time to start pushing.

Our nurses were awesome... all of them! We got started and she explained everything to me and we did practice breathing so I knew exactly what to do. I asked her about how long would it take to get him out, of course there is no exact time frame, but she said average about an hour or two. So the contractions came and pushing came with it... harder and harder... who would have thought pushing without breathing would be so hard. It is SUCH TOUGH WORK!!! It was not fun...

I pushed and pushed and pushed and it seemed like nothing was happening. They kept having me turn different directions and after awhile I could hear whispers to Todd. I opened my eyes at one point and there was a mass amount of people in the room with us. Doctors and nurses galore. At one point, there was six different people holding different parts of my body while I pushed. I started to get a little panicked. I was losing energy and my back pain was coming back, which if you remember the worse pain I had ever endured in my life. I kept asking if I was close... all anyone would say was "You are CLOSER!" I was confused. I was waiting for that moment where they say, "I see a head!" But nothing...

After THREE LONG, DREADFUL hours of pushing, I could no longer go any further. My back pain was back, I had no energy left, I was crying, hyperventilating, begging everyone to just get him out. I wanted a way out! I had no clue how to get out of this situation... and get out quickly. I was hopeless and Todd did the best he could at helping, but at this point I needed relief and I needed it NOW. I just wanted to meet our little boy... it was TIME!

After the three hours and all the whispering, and me getting a bit out of control... Yes, I admit I was out of control at the time because of all the pain, a doctor that had been checking in from time to time came in and assessed the situation. It was pretty crazy! The doctor had determined that he had not moved from when I initially started pushing. Goodness gracious this kid is stubborn, so the doctor ordered an emergency c-section because our little guys head was stuck behind my pelvic bone. How big was this boy's head that it would do that? (Just wait and you'll see!)

On the way to the C-section, I kept sobbing... I did not want any more contractions to come because they hurt so bad I thought I was going to hyperventilate and lose oxygen to our little guy causing him to die along with myself.

They got me prepped and ready to go, brought Todd back in, and did the surgery. Just when we thought things couldn't get any worse... they could! Ughhh!!! Sure enough, Jackson was stuck so tightly in my pelvis, they could not get him out and had to go from the opposite side to push and the other person had to pull him out of my tummy. Ouch! Then, due to all the stress he had been under, he had meconiume in his water and had swallowed it. Oh brother... after all of that... more bad news! They got him out, cleaned out his lungs and all I knew was that I was getting pretty out of it. I couldn't stop shivering and I felt like I was going in and out of consciousness. I was so limp... I could hear Todd talking to me, but could not respond. I had no energy, I was upset my baby was being worked on, we didn't get to see him and then they took him up to be monitored due to the stress he was under.

But he made it here...

Jackson Milo Veldman arrived at 4:27PM weighing 9lbs. 21.3 inches long

The next couple hours were a blur as well. I was taken to triage and Jackson was taken to the special nursery for observation. Since I was in triage, trying to heal as well going in and out of consciousness, which at the time was probably a good thing because I was pretty upset about this WHOLE situation. We did have a few family members there for the delivery, but the only update they got that was after all those hours, we had to go get a c-section... so it was pretty crazy! Todd was given permission to go see Jackson, and he was able to take one person at a time to go see him and after I was taken to a room and they made sure he was ok. We FINALLY got to meet him!!!

I can't tell you how crazy this whole situation was and how this was the LAST thing I ever expected to happen. But he is so worth all the pain, and I would do it all over again if I had to. But please don't ask him to do that... it was awful!

Thank you to a few family members who passed along some photos to us, as we were not able to take some that we really wanted to....

This was the first time I got to see him... I was soooo in LOVE!!!!





Our new family... (pardon my lovely exhausted look.. it had been a long couple days!)



I wasnt able to do much in the hospital, but I did get a chance to take a few photos of our boy... I'm partial, but I think he's sooooo stinkin' cute!!!









Pardon my absence as we adjust to our new life... but keep checking back as life will calm down and Jackson will make sure to make his first newborn session soon!

Happy Wednesday and Sorry if anyone threw up reading this... Haha!!!