Okay so here is Emma's birth story. Warning to those who get grossed out when hearing the word "blood" or "poop". I will be mentioning those words on this blog, so if you can't handle it you should click that 'x' on the top right hand corner. OKAY...like I said earlier, I am quite happy with my experience, especially since for the past 9 months all sorts of women just HAD to share their birth story with me and 90% of them were horrible, just nightmares of a story. It did not help with my fear of childbirth one bit. I started having contractions the weekend before she was born on Saturday, September 24th around 8 p.m., they were about 10 minutes apart and 10-15 seconds long. I still find contractions to be pretty incredible. They come and hit you HARD and then the pain disappears instantly and the cycle continues for God knows how long, for me, the cycle continued for two days. I had them all day Sunday, but I was still able to do everything I wanted to do: clean, do laundry, spent the evening with my family and had dinner, cleaned some more. Kevin told me I was "nesting". I don't think so though, if you know me at all, you know that I am borderline OCD and I clean everything that comes to sight, so ehhh nesting, I am not too sure if it happened with me. It is Sunday night and I am attempting to go to sleep (you can't when you have contractions going on, plus I was feeling super uncomfortable as always trying to find a position good enough to sleep). It was around 1:10 a.m. when the most painful contraction that I had so far hit me and I had to get up and walk because I couldn't lay there anymore and once I stood up, my water broke. I didn't want to make a mess (OCD, you see!?), so I held my fluids in my hands and ran to the bathroom. I made it to the toilet and more fluids just came out of me. It really is like water, no smell to it, no color, just water or amniotic fluid as the doctors call it. Did it hurt? Not really. Unless it was the contraction that I felt, it was the most painful one I had so far, so if that was my water breaking, then yes. I called my doctor and he gave me the okay to go to the hospital. So, here we are, driving to the hospital and fluids just keep coming out of me and my contractions were getting closer together, about 7-8 minutes apart and getting more powerful as well. We get to the hospital, get admitted and placed in our room. Our nurse checks my cervix to see how much I was dilated and I was dilated a whole ONE. In my head at this time I was like, OH MY GAWD I AM GOING TO BE HERE ALL WEEK THIS IS GOING TO TAKE FOREVERRR! I guess it doesn't matter how much you are dilated, if your water breaks, you are admitted to the hospital. Our nurse recommended us to walk it out because it typically helps, so we did. Kevin and I walked for about two hours around the labor and delivery department and once my nurse checked me again (around 4:30 a.m.) I was dilated a 5! OH GOOD GAWD, THANK YOU. At one point, I was literally speaking out loud to God, I typically keep my prayers private, but at this point, I didn't care who heard me. Anyway, so I was dilated a 5 and I forgot to mention that I was one of the lucky ones to experience back labor. Let me try to describe to you what back labor feels like... let's say there are about 10 butcher knives flying towards you, towards your back and they all stab you at once. It literally took my breath away. Kevin, being the good support partner that he was, kept saying "keep breathing, breath with me, you can do it" but I couldn't. It was like I forgot how to breath it was that painful. So back to my nurse, she started to tell me that now that I am a 5 I am allowed to have some drugs and she was about to ask me if I wanted drugs and I interrupted her immediately and said "give me the epidural". I think she and Kevin laughed at me, well laughed with me, because at that point, I was laughing too only because I didn't want to cry. I was nervous laughing with tears in my eyes. The anesthesiologist came about 30-40 minutes after, did his magic, and I was soooooo relaaaaaxed. I don't know what kind of drug is in an epidural, but it is pure magic. My back labor went away completely and so did most sensation on my lower body, but that was OKAY because I was feeling good. Once you get an epidural, you can only lay in bed, so I did. Our nurse came to check on me every two-three hours. I was dilated a 6 around 6 a.m. and then almost an 8 around 9 a.m. Unfortunately, the epidural, like all drugs, wear out, so I started to feel my back labor again, but only on the right side of my back, super weird feeling. I was still dilated an 8 around 10:30 a.m., so my nurse said that she'll check again around noon and hopefully we can begin to push by then. She checked me around 12:30 and HALLELUJAH I was dilated a 10! I was ready to push this baby out, so I did. I was pushing and pushing and Emma was "turtling" which means I would push just enough for her head to be seen and then she would go back inside of me. I guess this was happening for about an hour, then my IV machine starts beeping. Kevin takes a look at it and sees that I am almost all out of my epidural, so he asks our nurse if I can have another one. Our nurse sort of chuckles and says "it's too late for that, she will just have to keep pushing and if the pain comes back, that's okay". EXCUSE ME LADY, it will NOT be OKAY. At this point, I was determined to push Emma out as soon as possible because there was no way in heck that I was going to feel that back labor in full force again (at least not until our next child). I have no idea where this next wave of energy came from, but I was ready and this is another part where I spoke out loud to the Big Man. I pushed hard for probably 20 minutes and our Emma arrived at 2:59 p.m. on Monday, September 26th. I was crying for two reasons: the first reason is the most obvious one, we have our daughter with us, I was holding her and looking directly at her and she was perfectly healthy and secondly I was no longer at an uncomfortable position where it felt like I was pushing out a big poop. Pushing out a baby has to be the most uncomfortable sensation ever. I didn't feel any pain during this time because thank GOD the epidural was still in effect, but man, super duper uncomfortable. I look towards the doctor and he tells me to keep pushing because the placenta has to come out. Pushing out the placenta is not half as bad as pushing out a baby, but when that placenta does come out, so does a whole waterfall of fluids and lots and lots of blood.
So, there it is. Emma's birth story and as crazy as it sounds, I would do it all over again. My husband was the best support partner. He was right by my side throughout the whole time, holding my hand or messaging my back, pushing me and motivating me to keep going. Thank you, mi amor. Thank you to my family who came to the hospital the moment I called to let them know that my water broke. I'm sure their prayers and just by them being there helped me mentally. By the way, I asked my little sister last minute if she could take Emma's birth pictures and she did and she did so well in the room with me. She was quiet, a little too quiet where I thought she fainted at one point, but she didn't. She has one strong stomach to have seen all that she saw, and the pictures turned out great, so thank you baby sister. I'll share a couple of the pictures below. Lastly, I want to express my gratitude to the nursing staff at Doctor's Medical Center. They were all fantastic and they made us feel so at ease the whole time. Also, thank you to our families and friends. The ones who visited us (either at the hospital or at our home), the phone calls, the cards, the posts on our social media, the FOOD, seriously, thank you to those who have fed us, we appreciate it so much! It's been two weeks and we are still filled with so much joy. I have been waiting a long time for this moment, and I know I was born to be a mother. I love being a mother. I love every moment of it.
Here are a couple of pictures from the second best day of my life (Our wedding day is the first, of course):
Thank you God for our biggest blessing yet.
Good night, world.
With love,
Ale
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