Manuel's Birth Story

Things were going pretty normal over my last weeks of pregnancy. This is, after week 36.5, when an u/s confirmed that he was on the right position (heads down).
I had sporadic contractions, nothing special.
On tuesday, July 17th, I had an appointment with the midwife, who monitored the baby's heartrate and eventual contractions. Baby was doing fine but there were no contractions on the almost 1 hour I was monitored. However, she said the baby was probably going to be born on the next weekend, specially considering I was having an appointment with the OB/GYN on thursday and he was going to check on my cervix and therefore that would stimulate the process.

But little M apparently didn't want anyone to hurry him, so he decided to hurry himself. That same tuesday, or more precisely at 3 am on wednesday, I started having huge contractions...painful contractions, between 5 to 10 minutes apart for about an hour, and then about 30 minutes apart for a couple hours, then 20 and then stabilized in 12-15 minutes for the rest of the night. You can imagine it wasn't a very nice night, because every contraction woke me up, it was pretty horrible. So I called the midwife in the morning and went to see her at about noon. She checked on me and my cervix was 50% effaced, so I had had effective contractions, but considering they were 12-15 minutes apart, I wasn't in labor yet and she told me to have some medicines for the pain, and to see the ob/gyn the next day as programed.

Problem is, contractions continued all afternoon, and by 1.30 in the morning of thursday I was in deep pain and really worried about how was I going to hang on until a decent hour to call either the midwife or the ob/gyn. From that moment on, contraction were more like 10 minutes apart very painful, so I never slept for more than 10 minutes in a row.

Finally, at about 9 in the morning I called my doctor, told him what I was going through but told him that I was aware that I was not in labor (because of the frequency of the contractions), but needed urgently something to ease the pain, so he told me to take some other medicine and see him at 2 o'clock (as programmed, again).

That waiting until 2 o'clock was very difficult, specially because since about 12 o'clock contractions started being more like 6-8 minutes apart.

Well, I went to the doctor, he checked on me and I was already 90% effaced and 2 cm dilated, so he FINALLY sent me to the hospital! (his office is in another place), although he considered at that moment that I had a lousy tolerance to pain, which hurt me a little because I was really in huge pain.
Anyway, I arrived to the hospital at around 3.15 pm (my wonderful husband was with me at all times, when I went to the midwife, both times, when I went to the doctor...always with me, behaving wonderfully), and met the midwife there, who checked me (which was SO painful, considering the huge contractions I was having at that time) and she was like "oh yes, you've progressed a lot since yesterday, you really did have contractions", and I was like "told you!"..so then to pre-labor, where the amniotic liquid was taken out of me (MORE AND MORE PAIN), and then I was administrated the epidural (I thought I wasn't going to be able to stand the pain of the contractions while being in a fetal position and having that big needle crossing my back, but I survived!) and I started feeling A LOT better (this was around 4.45 pm).

In the meantime, families and friends had been warned, and while waiting to be more dilated, I could be with them...thing is, about 5 minutes after the epidural, the midwife checked on me and I was 3-4 dilated...some 20-30 minutes went by and I was already 6 cm...so the midwife said the baby was going to be born around 7 pm. But by 5.45 I was already completely dilated, so they called the doctor, the pediatrician, and things started to move around me (they were transforming the room into a labor room)...some times the midwife told me to push, and there I was, feeling the baby's head in my lower vagina...almost waiting for the doctors to be ready!

The doctor arrived a little past 6, and then it was "push" (head went out), "push", and pum! the baby was out!!! It was unbelievable!! He was with his eyes wide open!! And so cute!!!

Well, they measured him, made him breathe and gave him to me (my husband took him to me)...it was really a great great unforgettable moment...after a while they dressed him and the re-transformed the room again, so my family and E's family could come and see the baby...

After a while I was taken to my definitive room, always with my baby in my arms....I stayed there 3 nights, had a LOT of visitors....E was wonderful all the time, stayed with me, attended the visitors...I felt great, I had a couple stitches that still bother me a little, but nothing special.

I think the only "negative" thing is how tired I am, because after 2 nights of not sleeping, I was exhausted the day M was born, but couldn't sleep well because I was so excited (so E and I spend half the night recalling the events), and the following nights I have to feed M, so I haven't been able to have a good night's sleep for the last 2 weeks...

But really? it's all MORE than worth it, my son is INCREDIBLE, I'm so in love with him. My husband is the best of all, he has been so helpful and wonderful....I have so many people that care about us and have visited us...so I'm so grateful for this whole experience, and I haven't stopped thanking God for allowing me to finally be a mother of such a fantastic baby!!!

Meet little M

I've been dissapeared for a long time, mainly because I was a lot out of my house...and then well, my precious baby was born, on thursday july 19th.

Here's a picture of him...he's really wonderful!!!

Birth story in another post!