Introducing Jadyn Laveglia King

Little BabyJ decided to crash Jenny's 40th birthday.... Just after 4 pm Jenny was gearing up for a special birthday dinner night out with Jeff and a few friends when her water broke. It took about an hour before contractions became all consuming, and then we were at the hospital around 6.15. Triage immediately sent us to a birthing room ("looks like we've got a hot one here!"), and then there was a shift change at 7.00, so things were a little chaotic for awhile. Jenny's labor was fast and hard, with little breaks between contractions and excruciating back pain. We found out at the end of the ordeal that the back pain was due to the baby's occiput posterior position -- the hard skull bone pressing on my lower spine/tail bone. This presentation is also called OP or "sunnyside up." Thankfully the doctor and nurse didn't state that plainly to laboring Jenny, and this quiet omission allowed us the chance to stick with our original birth plan to avoid pain medications.

With an efficiency that surprised everyone involved, by about 8.45 Jenny was in transition, and around 9.15 or so she started pushing. At 10.19 BabyJ joined us for good. Jeff cut the cord, and after BabyJ was suctioned so that she could properly cry and the products of her first potty break were cleaned up, she laid on Jenny's chest for awhile so we could hold her and love her. She weighed 6 pounds and 4 ounces and measured 18.5" long at birth. Her ultrasound on Feb. 3rd predicted a weight at that time of 6 pounds and 13 ounces, so now we really appreciate the margin of error the doctors were concerned about. She is a very strong individual, having endured the fast, hard labor with ease (and a major cone head), and so far she has been fairly quiet and quite a love bug. Jeff and Jenny fell in love with her immediately.

There were three unusual occurrences with this birth: Jenny's water broke spontaneously, before true labor contractions began; the labor was only about 6 hours, a near miracle for a first baby; and Jenny made it through the horrible back pain without any pain meds. With all we have been through in the past 6 weeks, we feel truly lucky and so incredibly blessed. We all collapsed from the day's events and true physical exhaustion some time after 2 a.m., and this morning we named her Jadyn Laveglia King. Here are some pictures of the proud parents and one the world's newest citizens.