When I was pregnant I used to imagine: When I’m 38 weeks along, the baby’s bedroom and clothes will already be all clean, folded, and ready. I’ll have my suitcase ready for the hospital and I’ll always have my legs shaved, my hair and nails done so that I won’t be scary looking on my princess’s birthday. I would be with everything ready and pretty just waiting to go into labor and then when I started with contractions every 5 minutes, I would just grab the suitcase and go to the hospital. Just like that.
I was feeling great, so much in fact that it didn’t seem at all like I was in the final stretch of the pregnancy. Because I wasn’t feeling anything, besides a lot of heart burn, but nothing to indicate that the big day was coming, and also because I had heard a lot that it was common for the first baby go past the due date, I thought that Leah would go past 40 weeks.
There I was at 38 weeks and a half and didn’t have everything done and pretty as I had imagined. Leah started to give signs that she was on the way. I was happy that finally I was feeling something but didn’t think that everything would be so fast.
When I woke up on Wednesday, June 30th, with 38 weeks and 5 days, I saw that I was loosing my plug, during the entire day I was feeling weak little cramps, so weak that I wasn’t even sure I was feeling anything at all. Alex was off work that day and I remember being in front of our house helping him mow the lawn and talking with a neighbor that had stopped by to say hi: “I’m almost at 39 weeks!”. What I should have ended up saying, “I’m ready to go, I’m having contractions right now!!”, but I didn’t know that little tickle in my belly really were contractions.
During the night the tickles got a little stronger, I still didn’t believe that I was in labor, but I still decided to eat light and try to prepare myself psychologically for the event. The “tickles” started turning into actual “cramps” really early in the morning, it didn’t hurt much, but they also didn’t let me sleep. I waited until about 5:00 a.m. to wake Alex up. That day he only needed to be at work by noon. When a contraction came he would write it down and dance with me until it would pass. The contractions were fairly frequent, but the pain was bearable, I said that he could go to work and that it still wasn’t time for me to go to the hospital, I had an appointment the next morning anyway and there we would be able to check to see how things were going. (Look at my innocence, I had no idea that in the next morning I my baby would be in my arms).
Even though I was thinking that this was a false alarm, I decided to get ready, and so I went with contractions 7 minutes apart getting my suitcase ready, did my legs, hair and nails. Alex called several times during the day to know how I was and ask to make sure I didn’t want to go to the hospital. I was waiting to feel that unbearable pain. Since the contractions were so frequent but still very bearable, I didn’t want to go to the hospital for the nurses to think that I was an overreacting first time mom and have them end up sending me back home.
Alex being worried already had called the hospital and a nurse suggested that I took a warm bath to see if the contractions stopped. So I decided to take the bath and if the contractions continued I would go to the hospital. At this time, already in the last bit of the afternoon, my mother in law came over to see how I was and she called Alex, who came practically flying home. The contractions hadn’t stopped.
Around 6:30 pm (Thursday, July 1st), we arrived at the hospital and got the diagnostic: loss of amniotic fluid, 4 cm dilated and the nurse confirming “You’re not leaving here without your baby in your arms.” Pure joy! Now it was only a matter of time to see the little face of our awaited Leah. (I knew that when the water breaks it can come out all at once, or it can leak little by little, but I didn’t know it could be drop by drop, my water had broken and I didn’t even know!)
I called my mom, took pictures, everything was going fine. When a contraction came I breathed deep, Alex gave me massages all over my back. It was just us two there, our moment, our birth. Except for the nurse that kept coming in to tell me to lay down, put on the monitor, take my blood pressure… stupid ting.
Time went on and the pain kept increasing. I lost track of time and I don’t know at what point the pain became really intense. I don’t even remember anymore what the pain felt like, I just remember that it hurt a lot and I told Alex many times that I just wanted to go home, and that I wanted it to end soon, he was so patient the whole time. It’s hard to remember things, the contractions were so intense and frequent, and I was so involved with my bady that you didn’t even know what was happening around me. Alex says that it seemed like I was drugged. I was at "Birth-land".
They say that when you think you can’t handle any more and want to “give up” it’s because you’re close, so I wanted to check my dilatation to know if I really was close. After a lot of insisting, because it still wasn’t really time to check again, they did anyway and the news discouraged me: 6-7 cm, the same as the last time they had checked, so I yelled out “Still?? I want an epidural!!”. My labor was progressing fairly quickly for one in labor for the first time, but out there in “Birth-land”, one hour seemed like an eternity.
And so came the anesthetist. It was hard to sit still all quiet during contractions while some guy was there poking my back, and then on top of that I was thinking: “What if this guy is sticking me in the wrong place… am I going to be paralyzed?!?!" I asked the anesthetist a few times: "Is it done yet??". With Alex holding me on one side, the nurse on the other, and a few pokes later the anesthesia was in. Phew! I even said out loud "Finally!!" (I didn't care anymore and would say whatever came into my mind...)
A few minutes later there I was, no pain, unable to leave the bed… I slept. I don’t know how long, or even how I woke up. I just remember all of the sudden the whole staff ran into the room… doctors, nurses, residents, the janitor, the pizza delivery guy. Ok I’m just playing, but looked like there was more people there than it's actually needed.
It’s time. Wait, what’s it time for?? Time to push, the baby is going to be born! What do you mean? Already? I was just laying there completely calm, just finished taking a nap, I had almost forgotten that I was there to have a baby. Then here suddenly everybody storms in because it’s time to go. I didn’t even have time to organize my thoughts. The nurse said “Alright, on the next contraction I’ll give you the signal and you push with as much force as you can ok?” What? Push? Force? Here comes the baby! An enormous emotion took over, a great joy, an indescribable feeling.
Every time I pushed I thought “Is she going to come now??” Daddy was all excited and emotional: “I can see her head!!” and there I was asking: “Does she have any hair??”
After only 20 minutes pushing... there was our little princess, all swollen, with a pink face and little purple hands, chubby, and with just a few little hairs, all perfect! I looked at her and thought “She’s so beautiful!!!” and then fell back to rest. Daddy got to cut the umbilical cord and then she went right into my arms, it was impossible to contain the tears with the emotion of how privileged we were to have such a fragile little being, so pure and beautiful, trusted to our care. It was a dream come true.
Daddy stayed with her the entire time while they did all the basic procedures. After breastfeeding and transferring us to another room, finally the three of us rested, baby in arms and Alex by my side. Leah was born 2:05 a.m. on Friday, July 2 of 2010, weighing 7 pounds and 18,5 inches, tiny, beautiful, and very healthy. In the next day we were already home to begin our long awaited life of three.
Leah came to fill our lives with even more love, to turn our days even happier, to show us feelings that we hadn’t felt yet, to teach us new things and to prove that what makes us live is a little tiny heart that beats outside our own body. Welcome to the world Leah, we love you unconditionally!
