I was fortunate to be home from work for the last two weeks before my due date. My doctor had me coming in regularly to check on me. I went in on Monday, October 29th for a check up and I was just 1 cm dilated.
I came back on Wednesday, October 31st at 1:30pm and found out I was now 2 cm dilated. My doctor asked me if I was busy, which I was not, so he told me to walk around for three hours and come back to him. At first, I thought, does walking really work like that? Luckily Ricardo left work early, met me at the doctors office in Brooklyn and the two of us started walking. I had a few errands to run so I walked along Flatbush Avenue to Target and then headed up to Fulton Street to do a bit of shopping for one of my niece’s birthdays coming up. It had been a little more than 2 hours of walking and we were hungry. I knew I didn’t want to have anything to heavy if I was going to be giving birth later that night but I walked by Sweet Chick and had to have a waffle. I know that once you are admitted to the hospital, you are not eating until after you give birth and I was not about to go in there starving. We enjoyed a lovely lunch together and I drank a virgin Bloody Mary. I think that added spice helped to move things along because as we turned the corner to my doctors office, I started to feel contractions. They were bearable but contractions none the less.
I came back on Wednesday, October 31st at 1:30pm and found out I was now 2 cm dilated. My doctor asked me if I was busy, which I was not, so he told me to walk around for three hours and come back to him. At first, I thought, does walking really work like that? Luckily Ricardo left work early, met me at the doctors office in Brooklyn and the two of us started walking. I had a few errands to run so I walked along Flatbush Avenue to Target and then headed up to Fulton Street to do a bit of shopping for one of my niece’s birthdays coming up. It had been a little more than 2 hours of walking and we were hungry. I knew I didn’t want to have anything to heavy if I was going to be giving birth later that night but I walked by Sweet Chick and had to have a waffle. I know that once you are admitted to the hospital, you are not eating until after you give birth and I was not about to go in there starving. We enjoyed a lovely lunch together and I drank a virgin Bloody Mary. I think that added spice helped to move things along because as we turned the corner to my doctors office, I started to feel contractions. They were bearable but contractions none the less.
It was now 5 o’clock now and my doctor checked me again to see if I dilated more and I was now 3 cm. To my surprise, he told me to head to the hospital. I didn’t expect to not go back home but that is what happened. Chloe was already with my in-laws from the morning time and I had been carrying all my lab work results around with me so everything was taken care of. My packed bag was already in the car and we headed over to the hospital. I was about to give birth!
We strolled into the Brooklyn Methodist hospital and I was able to walk to the labor and delivery ward. I went into triage where they admitted me. It was now 6pm and told me that I was now 6 cm dilated. Things were moving along rather quickly so they called my doctor and he arrived shortly thereafter and was checking in on me right away. At 6 cm dilated, I was feeling the contractions but luckily they were bearable but at the same time, I didn’t want to deal with them getting worse. I quickly informed the nurses that I will be getting the epidural. I had such a great birth experience last time, why ruin a good thing. I was moved into the delivery room and within two hours, the anesthesiologist came by to give me the epidural. They could see the contractions on the monitor and she commented that I had a high tolerance for pain because I was able to tolerate the contractions. I quickly told her I did but didn’t want to find out how high this tolerance was! Many people are nervous about getting the needle in their back and the pain associated with it. I will say that you do feel an initial sting but you feel more pressure than anything else. Yes, it is uncomfortable but it honestly doesn’t last long and those few minutes of pain are better than hours of contraction pain in my opinion. The best advice I have ever received was to enjoy giving birth and the epidural allows me to do just that. I had a magical experience last time and wanted the same thing this time around. Ricardo was standing in front of me holding my hands, while they administered the epidural. This helped me to relax. The whole process was less than 5 minutes and it started to take effect right away. In probably less than ten minutes, I no longer felt any contractions…it was amazing. I love this thing. Best invention ever! One of the side effects that I had last time, returned this time as well. I was itchy all over but I will take that over those labor pains any day. Once the epidural was working completely, they inserted a catheter and my doctor broke my water. I felt a rush of fluid and at that moment, they told me there was a bit of meconium which is what happens when the baby poops in the uterus. This caused a bit of worry for me because it is possible that they may swallow some in the womb. The doctor and nurse informed me that there will be a pediatrician in the room when she is born just in case now. Other than that, they said she was fine and doing well. Even though they said everything was going well, I did feel a bit nervous about the meconium.
Now my body was doing everything it’s supposed to be doing. I was still 6 cm and my doctor told me to go ahead and get some rest. I love my doctors. They let the contractions do the work before rushing anything along. From there I took it easy, I laid back, chatted with Ricardo for a while about current events, then he stepped outside to get something to eat and I took a nap!
Since I was dilating pretty quickly, I expected to give birth on Halloween. I was 3 cm at 5pm and by 6pm, I was already 6 cm dilated. My doctor came back to check on me and at 9pm, I was still 6 cm dilated. Apparently, everything had slowed down. My doctor decided to give me Pitossin to speed up my contractions. He said he didn’t want me to be pregnant for another 24 hours! The nurses were great and explained everything to me that was going on. I was already in labor and this would just help my contractions to come closer together to allow me to dilate faster. It helped because in the next hour, I was now 8 cm.
Now for the last few weeks when I would go for my check ups, this baby was always sleeping! Now in the delivery room, this baby was not being very active once again. It was 11:30pm now and my doctor decided to attach an internal heart monitor which started to cause me concern. The nurses assured me that she was fine and that my doctor just wanted to have a more accurate measurement. In addition, he decided to increase my fluids and give me oxygen to get this baby moving. This was different from the last time I gave birth so I began to get tense and nervous again but the nurses were so great and explained that this is just the doctor taking an extra step to get the baby moving. The oxygen actually did help me to calm down. My doctor kept saying that this baby just does not like 10/31. I guess she didn’t want to be a Halloween baby. He was right because shortly after midnight, I was fully dilated!
When it came time to push, Ricardo was standing there beside me. We began to push and after my third push, they said that they could already see her head! I pushed for a second set of three pushes and once again, I reached down to feel by baby’s head. It was so amazing. Pushing my daughters out is always magical to me. I pushed for another set of three and there she was. Due to the meconium that they say when they broke my water, she went straight to the pediatrician to be checked out before I got to hold her. They did all their checks and fortunately, there were no issues and I finally got to hold her! She was perfect! As soon as she was put on my chest, she shimmied over to my breast and latched on right away. It was such a beautiful moment and I will never forget how happy I was to hold her. Once again, I enjoyed giving birth. I pushed for less than 15 minutes and she was here on November 1st, 12:56am, weighing 6 pounds and 12 ounces, and measuring 18 3/4 inches. Giving birth doesn’t have to be painful and a horrific experience. I have been fortunate to have amazing births that I enjoyed every minute of.
Thank you for reading,
Andrea
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