From the day I knew I was pregnant, I had a feeling that April 16th would be the day. I don't exactly know why, but the feeling was pretty strong... and fortunately quite accurate! I had a checklist for all the things I wanted to get done before he got here, a checklist that I was working on the whole week leading up to Alex's birthday. The fact that April 16th fell on a Saturday was an added bonus, since traffic would be lighter and make it easier to get to the hospital downtown. I kept working until April 13th, and then took vacation days on Thursday and Friday to get stuff done around the house and spend some quality time with Ava too.
The only downside to having a strong feeling of when the baby will come is that it makes it quite impossible to sleep the night before, as if the constant need to get up to go to the bathroom and the virtual impossibility of getting truly comfortable is not enough to keep one awake! Well I barely slept at all the night before, I just rested and focused on reminding myself to trust that my body, the baby, and God knew what was best and all I needed to do was follow their lead and I would be able to do an all-natural, drug-free childbirth again.
Saturday morning came and I noticed my contractions had become rhythmic, I started to time them around 8am and noticed they were about 5-7 minutes apart, but really not that intense. Our neighborhood was hosting an Easter egg hunt for the kids, along with a petting zoo, in the playground about 3 blocks from our house. Daddy and I really wanted to take Ava, but figured we should get our hospital gameplan in order first. I called Vovô and Vovó to let them know that I thought I was in labor since they would be taking care of Ava while I was in the hospital, but there was really no rush... of course they got here in about 20 minutes! I said "no rush!!" ;)
After they arrived, I told them that I wanted to take Ava to the park for the Easter activity and that hopefully the walking would get my contractions a little closer and a little more intense... they all thought I was nuts! They wanted to drive to the park, but I insisted.
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| Ava was curious about the animals, but didn't want to get too close by herself. |
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| Ava and Vovó running downhill :) |
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| Mommy having a contraction... my tummy would get kind of square and really hard!!! |
The walking did help to get the contractions a little stronger, so after our 1.5 hour long outing I did call the doctor to see what they had to say. Of course they recommended I come in to get checked, so I hung up and called our doula to let her know that we would call her when we got to the hospital. Daddy and I got our things together, made sure Vovô and Vovó knew where all of Ava's things were, and got ready to head out.
Since it was lunchtime and I figured baby wouldn't arrive until dinnertime, I made Daddy stop to get a sandwich before we headed to the hospital (knowing they would not let me eat once we were there) - Vovô actually went to the same place to grab a bite to take back to our house, and was quite shocked to see Daddy walking out of the restaurant - too funny!
It took us about an hour to get to the hospital, and my contractions were still about 5 minutes apart - although, when we were about 15 minutes from the hospital, my contractions seemed to be slowing down, so I decided to put in my acupuncture tack needles to keep things moving. We finally got there around 1:45pm. I got checked in and setup, and then told I was about 4 centimeters dilated.
Our doula arrived about 2pm, and got our delivery room to be a little less hospital-like (she sprayed vanilla aroma, had some soothing music playing, lights dimmed, air conditioner turned off to warm us up - it was freezing originally in there!!). I got to have a wonderful back massage, while our doula also worked to help loosen my hips to make it easier to give birth. I just got to sit on a birthing ball and relax, with periodic contractions and having the baby's heartbeat checked every 30-45 minutes.
I realize that the pictures below don't look like the images given in the movies of someone in labor, and my nurses did tease me about having a high pain tolerance since I would actually be smiling through my contractions - but, I really attribute that to feeling confident in what my body can do, that God's design is amazing and I am in awe to see how it all works, as well as being surrounded by love, support, and those who also believe in what my body can do.
By 4:30pm I was at 7cm, and the contractions were coming a little closer together, around 2-3 minutes. Our doula reminded me that the 7-10cm dilation phase would be faster, probably around an hour - Daddy and I did some walking in the hallways to help Alex descend a little more, the doula did some more massaging, and as the contractions got a little more intense I decided to do a little more resting. While Daddy was out signing some papers, I got a really strong contraction with a lot of pressure - it made the top of my stomach start to bulge, but then all of a sudden relief - my bag of waters popped and all that intense pressure went away. Having the bag stay intact throughout most of my labor certainly helped keep the intensity of the contractions from being too painful, and now I knew we were almost there. I was checked and found to be fully dilated, I was ready to push.
My doctor was called (she was sick, but decided to come anyway - just fully masked!). The pushing part was pretty intense, took about 45 minutes to push Alex out! Mentally I started to get a little discouraged, since everyone was expecting the pushing to go a lot faster - myself included... Daddy kept encouraging me, letting me know that my efforts were not in vain, our little one was almost here. With the contractions one on top of the other, my stomach got a little numb - just like any other muscle that you might work to the point of fatigue. But when the little guy started to crown, I could finally tell that this little one was almost here, a couple more pushes and at 6:31pm he was out - I opened my eyes and saw we had a little boy. Daddy was checking out the fingers and toes and didn't realize we had a son until I said "it's a boy!!!". :) Our little guy was finally here!!! He was immediately placed on my chest, umbilical cord still attached while the nurses rubbed him down. He had an adorable little cry, was pink almost immediately, and gave me the first of many "baby boy showers" by peeing on me within 45 seconds of being born - too funny! :)
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| Such long fingers!!! |
I was thrilled to have a little boy... and had thought we might be having a boy - I had one weird dream while pregnant about having a boy that was 27.5 inches long when he was born, but since that was such a ridiculous size for a baby, I didn't really think of the dream as being that intuitive :) Turns out even that weird dream was right... guess mom's intuition can come in various different ways. When I was pregnant with Ava, I had 4 dreams about it being a girl - in my dream I would wake up in the hospital to find a baby bassinet next to me with our baby; I would ask Daddy two questions: 1) what did we have? and 2) did I have to get an epidural? All 4 times he would answer "it's a girl" and "no, you did it all natural". Those dreams seemed much more intuitive than my baby boy dream this time, but I guess dreams come is all shapes and sizes :)
... back to the birthday story...Daddy took a picture of our little guy and let our families know he was here!! I got cleaned up, was able to nurse the little guy, and then we were transferred to our postpartum room by about 7:45pm. Vovô, Vovó, and Ava came to meet the newest little member of the family around 8:30pm (and to bring me some dinner ;) - chicken fried rice). Ava was very tired, a little overwhelmed, but still curious about her baby brother - she made sure to say "baby brother" and point to him to anyone who walked in our room :). They didn't stay long, as we were all pretty tired, so it was time to get some rest. What a wonderful day it was!!!
Sure it took us about 40 more hours to decide on the little guy's name, but we wanted to get it right! By Monday, April 18, we were home, and happy to begin this journey as a family of four, plus Bo :)
