Welcoming Judson!

Welcoming Judson to the world!
Born on December 28th, 2012 at 11:47am

  I first met Matt and Ashley at a local Meet the Doulas event about half-way through her pregnancy. We quickly hit it off and established a relaxed, comfortable relationship with one another. Our prenatal visits frequently lasted longer than we'd anticipated and were never complete without us all exchanging warm hugs. Ashley was fairly convinced that her body would take its sweet time going into labor and that she would end up going past her due date, so we didn't really expect Judson to make his arrival in 2012 at all.
They decided to eat some Indian food for dinner on Thursday the 27th, which seemed to be what got things started. Ashley started having some stomach pain, accompanied by frequent trips to the bathroom, which she just attributed to her dinner choice. In hindsight, all of this was clearly early labor. Ashley had a small burst of water around 9:30pm that was likely when her water broke. Even after that happened, she still wasn't convinced she was in labor. She stayed mostly in bed until around 4am when Matt got up with her. They labored together throughout the house and gave me a call around 6am. We spoke about a half an hour later and I gathered up my things and headed out the door.
I arrived shortly before 8am and stood at their front door long enough to listen to Ashley working through a contraction before going inside. She was in the living room on her hands and knees, supported by pillows, with Matt sitting in front of her. Going only off of her intense focus and the moans that were getting her through each contraction, I knew we should start thinking about heading toward the hospital sooner rather than later. I heated up a rice pack that I'd brought and applied to to her lower back as she continued laboring in the living room. I recommended that she get up and go use the bathroom, noticing that she had a couple contractions on the way there. She walked around the kitchen a bit, leaning over whatever was closest when a contraction started coming on.  She made her way over to the couch, which happened to be covered in clean clothes, propping up pillows to try and get comfortable. We moved the birth ball up onto the couch for her to lean over and she rearranged herself after each contraction. We used a flat sheet to try a bit of rebozo-like shifting but it wasn't helpful at combating the back pain so we just kept using the rice sock. She called her sister to let her know what was going on and it was during this call that I realized her contractions were only about 3 minutes apart. Shortly after getting off the phone, Ashley also started to feel nauseous, once again making me think she was much farther into labor than I had previously thought.
I started mentioning that we should probably think about heading to the hospital soon, having Matt show me what needed to be loaded into their car. Once everything was packed, it took us about 10 minutes to get Ashley to the car and another 5 to get her inside. We headed toward the hospital at 9:25, driving well over the speed limit the entire time. We arrived at the hospital at 9:45 and Ashley was wheeled into a triage bed. I went in with her while Matt parked the car. At this stage it was taking a lot of moaning to get through each contraction. When Matt came in, I confidently handed her over to him as I went to go wait in the hallway - and later a waiting room, since they had a one person per patient rule. At one point, I sneaked back in to get my birth ball & peek in on them and Ashley was entirely in her own world, not wanting anyone to touch her. When the nurse came in, Matt immediately went to their birth plan, making sure the nurse knew that they didn't want to use Pitocin and that Ashley was ready for the epidural. At this point, none of us knew just how far along she was and that we didn't have time for either of those things.
I was pacing out in the waiting room when, all at once, nurses began loudly telling people to move out of the way. Ashley was being pushed down the hallway on a bed, practically at a run, with Matt in tow. I quickly learned that she was already 9cm dilated and feeling like she wanted to push. They wouldn't let me in until they had her all set up on the bed and the longer it took, the shorter my fingernails got. I was so happy when I got inside, quickly going to Ashley and telling her what an amazing job she was doing. She started pushing at 10:20am, barely half an hour after we arrived!
The baby hadn't made his way under her pelvic bone just yet so we knew there was the possibility of a long pushing phase. Ashley started to push with each contraction, learning to push through the pain. Before long, she had a really amazing feel for each contraction as it started to build, waiting until it was at its most powerful to really start to push. As we started to see more and more of the baby's head, we encouraged Ashley to reach down and touch his head. Matt and I continued to cheer her on, totally amazed at her composure and strength. After almost an hour an a half of pushing, Judson was losing patience and his heart rate started to show some signs of distress, decreasing and increasing a little more than normal so the doctor decided to cut a small episiotomy. With the next push, Judson made his way into this world at 11:47am, quickly letting us know that he wasn't thrilled with the change in environment.
After the long wait, he was finally here, weighing 7 pounds, 5 ounces with dark hair and eyebrows. Matt and Ashley were in love with every little thing about him, completely overwhelmed that he was actually here. Judson got to enjoy some skin to skin with Ashley before we attempted breastfeeding for the first time. It didn't take much effort at all to get him to latch on and he was an instant pro. Those first few hours always seem so surreal for new parents, like they expect that, at any moment, they'll wake up from this incredible dream. I love getting to be a part of it. The pure love on their faces as they stared down at their son brought tears to my eyes and was a beautiful reminder of what an amazing privilege I'm given.