Mother of three… finally

In 2007, I shared my son’s delivery story on my Facebook page.  This time, I chose my blog.  I’m hoping to share my first year with three kids regularly on this blog.

And so, on July 19th 2012, my baby girl was born.  I had been waiting for 41 weeks and 2 days.  The wait was unbearable. And as like previously, I had felt small contractions here and there for weeks, but nothing that would announce the arrival of the baby.

Finally, in the late afternoon of the Wednesday, July 18th, I started to feel something.  Nothing major, but I still told my hubby that it might be the beginning of “something”.  But really, I was just hoping.

I was, in any case, scheduled to be induced that next morning at 5h30am.  I really did not want to be induced, but had accepted my faith telling myself that what I really wanted is the baby in my arms and healthy.

So I started to feel little contractions on the Wednesday.  We brought our older kids to their caregivers and went on with the rest of the evening.  My husband went to bed, but I, as usual, had a hard time falling asleep.

At around 1am, I started feeling stronger contractions.  They still weren’t super strong.  I could still handle them but started to time them with my iPhone (I have a contraction timer application on my phone, very handy). The contractions were more than 10 minutes apart and not really regular.  It was hard for me to evaluate when to go to the hospital.

The doctor had told me at my last appointment the previous week that I should come as soon as it starts, but I wanted to make sure it wasn’t a false alarm.  Apparently, going to the hospital for nothing was a big deal to me.

So I purposely waited until they were closer together and more painful.

At around 2am, I went to take a shower and right after that woke my hubby so he could do the same.  Around 3am, I started to feel stronger contractions and told my husband it was time to go.  Well, at that point, it was already “too late”.

The strong contractions started all of a sudden and they came one minute apart right away.  I went from 8 min to 1 min in the matter of one contraction.  Unreal…  But the same thing happened with my son.  We headed to the hospital, the car ride was excruciating.  We got to the hospital, went straight to the birthing center, the car stayed in the emergency entrance and they took me to a triage room to check me.

Like for my son, I was already 9cm and almost ready to push upon arrival.  My husband ran to go park the car and come back before I pushed the baby out.  My water broke while he was away and I was already in position to push when he came back.

Pushed her out in 3-4 contractions, maybe 5 because I was afraid to push at first.  

I had prayed for everything to go well and for me to be “present” through the whole thing.  Sometimes when you are going through something that scares you, you can retreat in your mind and let the auto-pilot take over.  Ithink I did that for Eliott’s birth.  This time, I did not want the auto-pilot to take over.  I was present through the whole thing and can say once again that natural child birth is the best choice.

She was born about 30min after our arrival to the hospital.  For me, it was a wonderful experience.  Of course, I consider myself lucky because my labor was short.  I can’t say I could have endured the big contractions for hours on end. But less than a couple of hours was bearable.

Now, I have a newborn and two preschoolers and a wonderful husband.  I am in love with all of them.  It’s a wonderful feeling.