Rory Mark Jorgensen
Wednesday night, October 2, we were watching the show, 24. It was around 11:00 pm when I felt something pop in my stomach. I didn't really think much of it. The show ended and I used the bathroom downstairs before heading up to bed. On the way up the stairs I felt like I was leaking so I ran to the toilet in my bathroom and I knew my water had broken. There was a stream of liquid coming out of me. I cleaned up a bit and called the hospital. The nurse I spoke with told me she wasn't so sure it was my water that broke (ha, there's no way it hadn't) and that I should call back in an hour and to report how things were going... like how much more I was leaking. I had had some minor contractions earlier in the day, but nothing was going on at that moment. I called back and reported that there were gushes every time I stood up. She informed me that my doctor allows his patients to stay at home for up to 4 hours after their water breaks. So, it was 12:30 am when I called back and she told me to be in by 3:30 am. I let my mom know what was going on and Dru and I packed up and tried to take a nap. Dru succeeded, but I was too anxious to fall to sleep. Contractions started about an hour later and were about 7 minutes apart and lasting more than a minute each when we headed to the hospital at 3:30 am. We got there about 3:45 am. We got all checked in and I got into my lovely gown and laid on the bed for a bit. The nurse checked me and I was dilated to 4 centimeters. The contractions were not yet very painful and so Dru and I walked around for about 45 minutes.
By 5:00 am I was in the bed and contractions started picking up, but still manageable. About an hour later I was dilated to 5 centimeters. Another nurse had come in and wanted to get an IV hooked up to me in case I wanted any intervention or if something happened that they would need to get something in me quickly. I kind of freaked out thinking they were going to put me on Pitocin which I absolutely did not want. I was trying my hardest to do this labor all natural. Since the contractions still weren't terribly painful I asked if we could wait a while because I didn't want a needle in my hand for so long. That was a mistake. The contractions immediately picked up and when I asked for an epidural my nurse tried 2 times to get an IV going in my arm/hand and failed. She had to call another nurse to come get it in and said the anesthesiologist was still a half hour from being able to come give me the epidural. It was probably somewhere between 6:30 am and 7:00 am at this point and contractions were on top of each other. There were no breaks and these were the most painful I've ever felt in all of my labors. A few minutes later I told Dru that I needed to push. Dru told the nurses and they called my doctor and now there was no time for an epidural. My doctor was on his way and the nurses would not let me push until he got there. I was so mad. They kept saying, "just breathe in and blow out like you're blowing out a candle." A bit after 7:00 am I heard them call my doctor again and found out he was in the parking lot. He got there a few minutes later and we got right to pushing. 3 pushes later, Rory, at 7:37 am on October 3, entered the world. I can't even describe how wonderful the feeling is when a baby finally leaves your body and the pain that you've been experiencing just stops. What a relief. And then I had to get stitches. I received a few numbing shots and the doctor stitched me up. Luckily, it wasn't nearly as much tearing as with Dalia and Mina, so it went pretty quickly. He weighed 8 pounds 13 ounces and was 21.5 inches long. He has the least amount of hair of all our kids. There's not much on the top front part of his head, but it's abundant in the back. (His hair looks really light in a lot of the pictures, but it's actually very dark.) I enjoyed having my brand new baby cuddled in my arms. I love that this hospital lets babies stay with their parents pretty much the entire time you're staying. The only thing they take the baby away from you for is the hearing test and then for circumcisions for boys. 
We got cleaned up and settled in and I just got to hold my baby for a couple hours before he was even given a bath. We didn't have any cell phone service in our room, so Dru left for a little bit to make a couple calls and send some messages to people. My mom and the girls came around noon and stayed until around 4. Dru left to take the second part of his DLPT during that time. I was so happy to see my girls and sad when they had to leave. They were so good while visiting, too. We all had lunch together and Mina couldn't wait to hold Rory. Dalia didn't want to hold him, but was very interested in looking at him and "petting" him. She told us, while petting him, that it was "kind of like a dog." Haha. Then when Rory cried, Dalia started cracking up and would say, "the baby say, 'AHHHHHHHHHHHH!'" And she would just laugh. Both girls kept calling him "the baby brother" instead of by his name. It was funny.
So, my mom and the girls left and Dru and I looked forward to being able to go home the next morning. I was so uncomfortable in the hospital bed that I had Dru sleep on it and I slept on the little couch in the room. They took Rory sometime in the night to do his hearing test and then the next morning we waited on the doctor to come do the circumcision. Well, he got there too late to do it that morning and said he would be back after lunch. That meant we wouldn't be able to go home until late afternoon. That frustrated me, but we got everything else taken care of so that that would be the only thing we had to wait on. But then the nurse came in to tell me that they had read Rory's blood type wrong earlier and that I would have to get the Rhogam shot after all. But, they had to take my blood first, test it and then give me that shot. Grrr. So, then we ended up waiting on that. Finally a little after 4:00 pm we got into our car to go home. I hate being cooped up in a hospital. Though I appreciate all the care the wonderful nurses gave me, I was so glad to be home with my little family.
