Jasper Robin Nance

Jasper was born on October 13th and 12:56 am, weighing in at 6 lbs 8 ounces and 19.5 inches long.  He arrived three weeks early and fast catching us all by surprise.  He arrived in this world before any of us really had a grasp on what was happening.

Here is the story:

On Saturday October 12th we had dinner plans with our friend Jesse and his girlfriend.  After dinner we were all planning in heading to a birthday party.  So we met for dinner in Korea town to get some Korean BBQ, this is on 32nd street.

During the day I hadn't been feeling very good but I pretty much hadn't felt good for several weeks so I didn't really think that much of it.  Joseph and I kind of argued about wether we should even go out that evening, but being the stubborn pregnant lady I am we still went.  Also, I had gone to the doctor on Thursday and she was very confident that I wouldn't go into labor since I was only 37 weeks and hadn't had any contractions during the week.  She didn't even check me at my appointment.  As a little bit of foreshadowing there was a low pressure storm that was passing through that week and Josephs dad had called earlier that week sort of joking to be careful because they have been known to push pregnant women into labor.  When I asked the doctor about it she assured me I would be fine.  So I wasn't even thinking at all about going into labor.  I figured I would have to suffer through 3 more weeks of swollen ankles.

We took the subway downtown and met for dinner at 8.  After we had gotten off of the subway and on the few blocks it took to walk to restaurant I noticed I was having some weird pains in my stomach.  It turns out these were early labor signs but what did I know.  I figured they would go away and I would feel better once we sat down had something to drink and ate some food.  Jesse even commented that I looked a little stressed when we sat down to eat and I mentioned that I wasn't feeling very well.  I also told Joseph shortly after sitting down that we would probably have to abandon the party plans and just go home and relax after dinner.

We proceeded to order a lot of meat for our Korean BBQ feast.  After we had ordered they brought out all of the accompaniments for dinner but hadn't brought out any of the food yet is when it happened.  My water broke in the middle of a very crowded restaurant.  My whole pregnancy the one thing I kept saying was I really didn't want my water to break in public, but no such luck.

Having my water break was the strangest feeling.  All of the sudden a huge gush just came out, if felt like a balloon has popped inside of me.  My pants got soaked as water ran down my legs and there as a puddle underneath the chair.  I was caught so off guard that I looked up and said to everyone, "Either I just peed my pants or my water just broke."  Immediately everyone jumps up and says we need to go to the hospital, I was scared to stand up because I knew more water was going to come out.  Also, I was scared to know that this was really happening.  I wasn't ready.  Joseph pulled me out of my chair and we walked out with my soaking wet pants.  I ran into the bathroom to just check everything out and to see what was going on and at this point I was confident my water had broken.  The fluid didn't smell like pee.  Meanwhile Joseph had gone outside and gotten us a cab and was waiting on the curb.  This happened around 8:30pm.

We took the cab straight to the hospital which was on 59th street because we didn't want to go all the way home and then have to come all the way back down.  I called the doctor when we were in the cab and left a message with the answering service but she didn't actually call me back until we had gotten to the hospital.

We sat in the waiting room for 30 very painful minutes waiting for our room.  The nurses and staff did not seem to be in any kind of hurry and I thought I was going to die.  I was so uncomfortable sitting there in soaking wet pants with contractions that seemed to get worse by the second.  By the time they had put me in a room and hooked me up to everything it was about 9:30 and I was already dilated to a 4-5.  It was at this point that everyone started taking me seriously.  They realized I was in fact in labor and that it was happening fast.  I immediately requested an epidural.  I had no desire to "see what my body could handle" or to "connect with the women of the world" by going natural.  Those contractions were some of the worst pain I had ever felt and I was not into it.  After what felt like forever but I am sure was just a few minutes the doctor came in and gave me an epidural.  That is a magical beautiful thing, just like magic my pain went away.  My legs were numb but I could still move them and I felt like I could actually focus on what was happening instead of the mind numbing pain I was in.  After they gave me the epidural they checked me again and I was complete.  Everyone, us included, was shocked.  At this point we were waiting on the doctor who hadn't made it to the hospital yet.

Meanwhile our friends who we had gone to dinner with, ate dinner brought Joseph some McDonalds since he didn't get to eat, picked up our keys and went to our apartment to get some things for us.  Our hospital bag became a paper bag from Trader Joe's.  We didn't have anything with us since we had only planned on going to dinner.  I vaguely remember the nurse lecturing me about why I didn't have my medical records in my purse, because they needed them.   Jesse and Meryl picked up our phone chargers, the medical records, my slippers and toothbrush and toothpaste and brought it to us at the hospital.  They got there just in time, right before we started pushing, which was good because both of our phones were about to die and I would have been heartbroken to not have gotten a bunch of pictures.

When the doctor came in she took a more casual approach to the delivery, she didn't even break down the end of the bed.  I pushed once and it was obvious the baby was very close so the doctor took a break to put on her gown and foot booties and then we pushed 4 more times and he came right out.  It took only about 10 minutes of pushing.  We hadn't even turned the baseball game off in the background.  It was really exciting when he came out and everyone yelled out that it was a boy.  I am glad we waited to find out the gender, it made the delivery more exciting.  I feel very lucky that my delivery went to smoothly.  It only lasted about 4.5 hours from start to finish and went off without any complications.  Jasper came out crying and was healthy as could be.  It was such an amazing feeling when they placed my little baby on my chest and he was mine.