The Harris Family: Jack's birth story

Jack's due date was June 21st. It had been a fairly rough pregnancy as I was very sick and teaching full-time at Forbes Elementary in American Fork. I remember throwing up numerous times in front of the kids in my class and I could barely keep any food down for the first 25 weeks. I had a little break in the middle where I felt pretty good, but then I began to thrown up again periodically during the last month or so. Ryan was in law school at BYU and we were a little concerned about money as I planned on quitting at the end of my school year to be home full-time with Jack. We had been living in Union Square for the majority of the pregnancy, but then at the end of April '07 we moved to Wymount (BYU housing)...it was slightly cheaper, but gave us an extra room which was what we really needed.

The ward there was pretty nice and we had some grassy space/a park out front that I looked forward to spending time on with Jack.

My brother, Euan, cousin, David Rae, and friend, Jamie Munro, were coming over to travel around a wee bit in the States at the end of May through the middle of June. About a week before I went into labour, I drove up to SLC by myself and met them at the Christus statue in the visitors center. It was such a great day and we toured around al the sights for around 6-8 hours. By the end of the day I was very tired and just as I was leaving the bathroom in the visitors center before I drove home I started having severe cramping. I was so nervous about driving back myself, but I managed just fine. That next week I had a couple of pains here and there, but on the whole I felt totally normal.

On Thursday (14th), the boys came down to Provo to stay the night with us before heading to Vegas for the weekend. We ate out at Cafe Rio and watched a film at night before everyone hit the sack. I asked everyone to hold off taking a shower in the morning till Ryan had taken one as he was going into work the following morning. It was around 12:30pm that night that I went to the bathroom, threw up, and then my water broke. I grabbed a towel and went back to our bedroom to tell Ryan that I wouldn't stop leaking (at this point I guess I wasn't positive that my water had actually broken). I grabbed our phone and called my mum for advice, while Ryan grabbed his laptop and starting looking up pregnancy stuff on the internet....haha...what a sight we must have been. After talking to my mum for only a few moments she told me to call the hospital and then go in. Thankfully I had only just finished gathering a bag of supplies together for the hospital a few days prior, so we were able to leave quickly. I tried to climb over the sleeping boys in my living room (jamie was in the bedroom though), with a towel between my legs! Good grief. I woke Euan up and told him I was going to the hospital. He was in a daze, but I got a "GOODLUCK" and a "thumbs up" from him and David before we left.

I had checked in with Utah Valley Hospital a couple of weeks before, so that when I went into labour it was faster. We were able to go directly to the maternity ward where they only had me wait a minute or so before taking me into a room to check if in fact my water had actually broken. Immediately the test strip came back blue meaning that it was my amniotic fluid. But when checked I was only dilated to a 1....annoying. They started me off on pitocin around 1:30am, but I was warned that I was likely to be in for a long night. Ryan tried to sleep a little on the uncomfortable couch that was in my room and I tried to sleep some too. I managed for a few hours, before I was suddenly woken up by sharp pains shooting through my abdomen. I woke Ryan and he got the nurse in to check me. I was dilated a little more, but only to a 4. They told me that when I got to a 5 I could have an epidural if I wanted. I did. Thankfully it didn't take too long before I was at a 5 and then they called in the anesthesiologist. He was not very friendly.and he scared me to death by telling me that if I moved even slightly as he was putting the needle in that I could cause major damage to my back. Great. I was already nervous about the size of the needle....I never actually saw it but Ryan said it was huge. I lay on my side as he put it in and tried not to move a muscle and I cried. When he was finished he left immediately and I was abandoned for a couple of hours. Getting the epidural didn't hurt, but instead of numbing the pain I suddenly started to feel numbing in my face and down my right side only. When I nurse returned she told me that she would have the anesthesiologist come back in and give me the epidural again.....I wasn't sure about that idea. Then almost immediately my legs turned to blobs of jelly and I couldn't move them at all, but still I had all the pain of labour in my stomach that was not numb. I started to panic and told Ryan over and over again that I did not want the epidural anymore...too late for that! He kinda didn't have a clue what to say to me at that point other than that there was nothing to be done about it now. He tried pressing the button a few times to get the epidural medicine to kill the labour pains, but it did nothing. After 11 LONG hours in the hospital, the new morning staff had come on, who were so much nicer, and they checked my progress again. Finally, I was dilated to 10 and I was ready to deliver. Throughout my entire pregnancy I had never seen the same Dr. more than once. I didn't like that.

With no Doctor in sight I began with the aid of a veteran nurse and her student nurse to push the baby out. The student nurse was really great actually. She stood by my side and was very encouraging. Ryan didn't really know what to do...he looked as scared as me and had his camera in hand to take a few pics and a video. They kept saying, "push down through your bottom", which I wasn't fond of. Then a doctor I had never seen before came flying into the room. He asked one of the nurses to grab a mirror so I could see what was happening and then we proceeded. I wasn't entirely sure I even wanted to see what was going on. His name was Dr. Kent Gamette and he was a very nice older man, and had obviously delivered a lot of babies. He asked if he could cut me a tiny bit in order to prevent tearing, so in the moment I agreed, but I'm not sure if I really should have. It was very small though...on a scale of 1-10 it was a 1. I only pushed for 40 minutes before the head crowned. I could see it in the mirror...it was very surreal and bizarre. Ryan was still making a video which I thought I might regret later (I do and don't...I was bawling when I watched it back). The doctor told Ryan, who had been by my side the whole time, to come down beside him. He got there just in time to see baby Jack slip right out. The doctor held him upside down and said, "what do we have here?".....I was like, "um, it's a boy", we already knew that...but he just wanted to hear me say it I guess. They asked if Ryan wanted to cut the cord, but he really didn't so they took Jack away to clean him up and weigh/measure him. Ryan stayed close by the nurse to watch and take pictures. I still had to deliver the placenta...which I had not thought about at all. This was actually very painful. He pressed very hard on my lower abdomen, it was only briefly, but I started to cry again. I felt the placenta fall out of my body and then the Dr. began to stitch me up. Ryan was holding Jack now and brought him over to me. The minute I took him in my arms I became very overwhelmed again. He started to cry and I panicked for a second as I tried to soothe him, but he calmed down quickly and Ryan and I were in complete awe of him. I had heard the nurses as they were cleaning him, "his hair is red, no it's brown, no it's blonde!" I thought, good grief decide on a colour people...but it was fluffy and blonde. He honestly looked like a baby chick. His wee face was so sweet and I was very smitten with him right away.

I called my family in Scotland right away to tell them the news...my poor mum had been dying to find out what was going on being so far away. Then we had visitors a few hours later...the Guisti's came, the Claytons, and Ryan's sister, Rachel, and Uncle Jim and Aunt Julie. It was nice to have some family there with us. I stayed in the hospital for 2 nights before heading home. When we got home Sunday afternoon we relaxed and enjoyed Jack. The boys returned on Monday from Vegas to see baby Jack (I had such a hard time with them leaving), and Ryan's mum had arrived that same day to stay with us for the week and help out.

Here we are in the hospital a couple of hours after the birth: