I’m so happy to share with you our birth story. Mati came so much faster than Alessandro, and I had a feeling he would arrive early too! My birthday was on December 30th, and we were celebrating it at my mom’s house with family and friends. I had no signs that labor was approaching, so I was out and about as usual. We came home around 11:30pm, and went right to sleep. I woke up around 3:00 in the morning to use the bathroom, and I saw cervical mucous. I thought, “mmm this could be my mucous plug.” I didn’t think anything more, and went back to sleep. I woke up feeling this insane urge to clean and prep the house. I told my husband if we could go to the home goods store to grab some baskets and things I needed for our house. We left around 10am, and when we arrived back home I used the restroom, and this time saw a bit of blood. That’s when my nesting instincts really kicked in. I ran out of the bathroom and told my husband what was happening…then I told him to hurry and grab all the laundry cause it had to be done ASAP.
We finished laundry, semi prepped the car stuff, and packed our hospital bags. We were celebrating new years eve at my in-laws house in Fremont, which is about 20 minutes from where we live. We got ready and left to Fremont, leaving everything behind because I thought labor wouldn’t happen yet. We did pack a bag of clothes since we were sleeping over there that night. As we’re driving, I start to feel contractions. They were 20 minutes apart, so I hung in there. I arrived to my in-laws and told my mother in law that I was getting contractions, but they were far apart and not bad yet. Around 8pm I really started to feel them, so I went into the room and just decided to lay down and rest. I had a 24 hour labor with Alessandro, so I was like, “no way I need to sleep, I don’t know how long this will take.” I slept through the new year, and at 3am, I woke up with really strong contractions.
This time the contractions were super strong, and 7 minutes apart. I told my husband, “ok, babe its time, can you take Alessandro upstairs with grandpa.” As soon as he did that Alessandro woke up and was crying so much and calling my name. It broke my heart, I felt as if he knew his little brother was coming. My husband waited 15 minutes, but he was still screaming. I felt so uneasy leaving him like that, I told my husband to bring him down so I can sleep him. Sleeping my crying toddler while controlling my contractions was by far one of the toughest things I’ve done. Finally we left the house around 5am. We were 30 minutes from the hospital, and I knew I was going to go through 4-5 contractions in the car.
Having contractions in the car is torture. It’s so painful, and you can feel every bump on the road. I decided to sit in the backseat, and I just told my husband, “step on it!” Luckily, we arrived quickly to the hospital, and I was having some really strong contractions at this point. I could hardly walk, doing down to the floor to pass the pain. We finally get to the room, and the doctor walks in. She checks to see how far I am and breaks my water by accident. I’m 4CM dilated, at this point and she asks if I’ll be getting the epidural. I immediately say YES. We get transferred to the another room, and they start prepping me for the epidural. Once I get it, my parents walk into the room at 8:30am.
After the epidural, my pain is gone. I’m able to carry on conversations with my parents, asking how their new years went, etc. By 10:30am when they check me again, I’m at 8CM. I told my husband, “I bet Mati gets here around noon.” Sure enough they check me at 10:30 and I’m completely dilated. The nurse tells me, “ok we’re ready to push.” Seriously when you hear those words, it the most magical thing. All the pain and aches of pregnancy and labor all come down to this moment. It’s like you’re nervous and excited to know that in a few minutes you’re going to see your baby. I start getting teary eyed, and I start to push. After the second push, I hear the nurse say there’s his head you can pull him out. I didn’t even have time to grab him because by the 3rd push he was out crying on my chest. All I hear is my husband say, “omg babe you’re amazing,” and my mom say, “tali, que chingona eres.” haha I’m like in awe that it happened so fast. I look down at Mati and I feel my heart expand twice it’s size. I have another son, he’s perfect, thank you God, thank you a million times, is all I keep saying.
I enjoyed this labor, and want to thank all the nurses and the entire staff at the hospital who truly made a difference and were part of making this experience truly amazing.
You can also check out the video of our birth story here:
En Español, pueden ver el video del nacimiento:
