WARNING. Don't read if you don't like TMI. This is a birth story after all.
Well I would say this story should start on Monday, August 19th. (Estimated due date was Aug. 25th.) The week before finals week. I asked Alison and my doctor to dig around in my belly to see if they could tell what position the baby was. Baby was head down (yay! Sigh of relief!) but facing outward and would need to rotate to the back in order to come out. Alison suggested going swimming and doing all the different strokes, especially switching from front to back stroke. So that night I hit up the BYUH pool and swam about 20 laps. I didn't swim that much because I wanted the baby out, just because it was heavenly in the pool. (Pregnant ladies, can I get an amen!) Trust me, I wanted this babe to wait until AFTER finals to come out. And since most 1st time moms are a week late anyway, this wasn't an unreasonable hope.
Next day I woke up, got ready, and did some homework. Then I felt tired and had this distinct feeling that I needed to take a nap. When I woke up I went to the bathroom and had my 'bloody show'. No biggie, doesn't mean anything. But it was exciting to know that my body was at least getting all lined up for the birth. I went to my 4-hour chem lab. Started having sporadic contractions that were distinctly more twinge-y than braxton-hix. I had to keep a straight face because my sister-in-law was my lab partner and I didn't want ANYONE getting false hopes. Contractions stayed this way the rest of the day.
Then at 12 midnight, contractions got more powerful. I had to completely stop what I was doing until the contraction was over. THIS is where *I* consider my labor to have started. I told Iriapa at this point but they weren't consistent enough to make a big deal. Over the course of the night we walked around under the blue moon and I did stairs sideways. (The crossing motion can help get your body open.) Here is my woe-is-me moment. Everybody else went to sleep and I was stuck sitting on the exercise ball, leaning on the edge of the bed trying to sleep in between contractions I was so tired. This is the point that, if I were at the hospital, I would have been very tempted to get the drugs. They were really painful and they still weren't consistent enough. Because they weren't consistent, everyone kept saying that it would be quite a while until the baby would come. This tore my morale down. I couldn't imagine having these painful contractions every 3 minutes for the next 24 hours. I just wanted to sleep. The contractions were so painful that all I could do during them was remember to breathe and remind myself that I wouldn't die. I didn't realize it at the time, but I was having back labor. It's apparently twice as bad as regular labor.
Around 4am Alison decided my contractions were powerful and consistent enough now. Maybe it was because I was clenching my teeth and crying during contractions, haha. This is when Alison and Iriapa start my labor timewatch. We went over to my parents' house to pick up my mom and I got a priesthood blessing. Iriapa drove wonderfully to the hospital an hour away in Kailua. About half way there I started having the intermittent urge to push. Luckily, Alison had warned me that I needed to wait until I had a very consistent urge to push to actually act on it.
We made it to the hospital at 6am. They rushed us in to a room. Iriapa and the nurses got in a fight because they wanted to put a continuous monitor on me and make me lie down in the bed. My doctor had told me that I could refuse continuous monitoring but she wasn't there yet. I warned the nurse to be very gentle when she checked my dilation because she was trying to do it in the middle of a contraction and wouldn't wait. She wasn't gentle. So I said my first swear word in front of my mom. I was fully dilated (THANK YOU) and baby was all good to come.The doctor finally got there at 7am and everything finally calmed down. They got everyone out of there and dimmed the lights. She went to break my water but I guess it had already broken and didn't gush or anything. I wasn't very good at pushing on my hands and knees so they set up a squat bar for me. I was supposed to push with each contraction but I didn't have the desire anymore, haha. Now that I was actually allowed to push, it seemed like contractions slowed down and didn't hurt as much. I could easily have taken a nap. But baby was right there and ready to come out. I was a sissy and gave little pushes because I didn't want to go fast and tear. Eventually I decided just to go for it and we finally got her out! Lilia was born at 7:38am, 8lb 2oz and 20 inches.
They put her on my stomach. She had the cord around her neck so there was the mad rubbing and patting rush until she finally started crying. Then we finally got to cuddle! Oh my goodness it was wonderful to be done with labor and have that sweet little prize.
And now a year has skipped by and my baby is ONE! She is wonderful, clever, and brings so much happiness into our lives.
Happy birthday you gorgeous girl!
