2 By 30 and A Natural Birth (Part I)

Two goals I've had for a long time: 1. To have two children before I turned 30, and 2. To have a natural birth, with no assistance from drugs. Mission accomplished!

So I guess we can all say this post is a continuation of yesterday's occurrences. After I blogged about my frustrations with my contractions. To make a long story short, or emphasize on the best parts of the story, the contractions slowed down a bit until I started to move around more at 3:45pm. I decided to keep time again, since I was feeling that they were more painful and coming a lot faster. 45 minutes later I had a pattern of 5-7 minutes and a minute long so I decided to call my doctor to see if she thought if that meant this was actual labor.

An hour later( 5:50pm) I'm at the hospital to be checked and see if indeed it is labor. Now this is where the story gets funny and exciting. I go to registration and they bring me a wheelchair, so I tell them I can walk fine, just can't really talk during contractions. 10 minutes later I'm waiting again for a nurse to come and lead me to the maternity ward. She also brings a wheelchair and tell her that I can walk. So while we're going up, I can tell that she's looking at me and thinking there's no way this lady is really in labor.

By 6:20 I'm being checked by a nurse named Cleo in triage. She soon calls my doctor, who is in the hospital on call, and tells her that I've arrived and that she checked me and I have a weird cervix. Translation: one side is 2cm dilated, and the other is 4cm. I'm also having contractions which have slow down a bit, but some of them have been pretty strong according to the monitor on my belly. Cleo comes in and announces that my OB wants to wait another hour before admitting me, just to make sure that contractions aren't going away. I guess she felt that since this was all so random it was better just to make sure. And because of it, Mike and I had planned that I was to go in and confirm that I was being admitted before he came in with our bags and Isaac who was asleep at this point.

So I texted Mike and asked him to call our friend Lynn who was going to stay with Isaac. I figured there was no reason for her to drive an hour from Albuquerque if I wasn't going to be staying. She decided to come anyway, and meanwhile I was trying to convince Mike to bring me my laptop so I wasn't so bored while I waited for an hour dealing with contractions. At this point, my contractions started to get more intense, and I was seriously considering asking for some medication cause they were super strong. I looked at the monitor and saw that some of the contractions were peaking off the charts and that's when I asked for some medicine. I couldn't have an epidural yet because I wasn't admitted, if you remember. This was about 7:00 pm. and another nurse, Ruth, was arriving.

I'm almost hyper-ventilating and I asked Ruth for drugs. She says: "Hun, I'll get you some as soon as I check you." She proceeded to lower my bed so I could be laying down, but there was a contraction coming and I coped better sitting up. So I sat up and at the moment it peaked, my water broke. I breathlessly told her that my water just broke, and she had to confirm(in my head I'm thinking that none of these nurses believe what I'm going through at this point). I laid down as more water is gushing out and she checked me quickly and said I was dilated to a 7. This is when all hell broke loose.

All of a sudden I have both Cleo and Ruth in triage yelling at some other nurses(including Nikki, the nurse who came to get me with the wheelchair in the waiting room) to get my room ready and call the doctor. Cleo arrives with a wheelchair to take me to my room. Ruth is getting my belongings and ignoring my begging for drugs. My contractions felt like they were 30 seconds apart and I was shaking and becoming more hysterical with each contraction. Cleo was trying to calm me down yet firmly convince me that I needed to go on the wheelchair to the other room because it was faster that way. I wanted to just stay on the bed I was on and have them wheel me over.

So I get on the wheelchair as another contraction hits and I'm panting and begging everyone that went past for an epidural. When I got to my room which was around the corner, it was somewhere between 7:15 and 7:20pm. There were 4-5 nurses arranging for everything, and another OB was there. Somehow my doctor--who was in the hospital--wasn't able to make it. I had my cell in hand and I was hoping to be able to calm down enough to text "NOW" to Mike, when he serendipitously stomped in with Isaac in toe. I was panting with no sign of stopping and still shaking and asking for my epidural. Isaac was a little shocked to see Mommy screaming and he tried a couple of times to tell me: "Não chora, mamãe." Mike said Isaac even yelled at me. I just remember him getting to the bed, and Mike grabbing him really quickly and escorting him out of the room. Montessa, one of my nurses tried to appease me by pretending she is going to put an I.V. in so I could get the epidural. Nikki says: "Hun you don't have time for an epidural, you are going to push." I replied: "I don't want to push, I want an epidural PLEASE, I'm going to pass out." Nikki, later on, commented that she almost wanted to tell me I was getting one so I could shut up and push.

So about 5-10 minutes later, the doctor told me to push and I put my hand on my crotch and yelled that I wanted an epidural and didn't want to push until I had it. My body was pushing and I was trying to stop with my hand. My second push I just couldn't help it and Isabella's head came out. I pushed again and her body came out, and my fourth and last push was a minute or two later to get the placenta out. Now that I had Isabella out and the contractions had stopped I was so relieved. I barely felt any pain when the doctor stretched me more in the middle of a push so her head could come out. I tore and ended up with a couple of stitches.