Joaquin Jose Luis Nunez’s Birth Story – Born October 27th, 2010

After some false labor on Saturday night, October 23rd, my “true” labor began on Monday night, October 25th. At about 6:30 p.m. I started to feel crampy and uncomfortable and had sporadic contractions similar to the ones I had experienced a few days earlier. I figured it was just another tease, and didn’t get my hopes up too much.

Jay and I went to bed a little after 10:00 p.m. I fell asleep, but kept waking up with contractions and finally gave up on sleeping at about 11:45 p.m. I let Jay keep sleeping. I was restless so I cleaned up the house, folded laundry, and did the dishes. Then I decided to enter all of my billable time for the month of October, just in case. Next, I decided that I would finally fill in my ballot for the November election so I could vote by mail. By that time, it was about 3:15 a.m on Tuesday, October 26th. I still could not sleep so I got on the couch and started watching the first Sex and the City movie, hoping that I would fall asleep at some point. It never happened.

Then, all of the sudden, at 4:45, my water broke on the couch. It almost felt like Joaquin had punched a hole in the amniotic sac – it came out so forcefully and even made a popping noise. Luckily I was laying down on a blanket so the couch was not ruined.

I ran to the restroom to try to clean up and then I woke Jay up. Jay immediately notified our doula, Lorraine and helped me clean up the mess. We finished packing the hospital bag, attended to some last minute work emails, fed the dogs and got ready to go. My contractions began to intensify dramatically about 45 minutes after my water broke, so I focused on breathing through them while sitting on my birth ball in the living room. I was really glad that I had purchased a package of adult diapers just in case my water broke – not the most attractive look, but it was so helpful. I couldn’t believe how much fluid there was!

By 6:45 I decided we should head over to the hospital. We packed up the car, got the dogs, and took off. We made a detour to drop the dogs off at day care, which is conveniently located about 3 blocks away from the hospital.

We got to the hospital a little after 7:00 and were immediately admitted and given a room. My first nurse got my IV set up and did all of the paperwork, which took about an hour. Then I was finally allowed to get on the birth ball for the contractions. They kept getting worse and I was extremely exhausted from the combination of no sleep on Saturday night and on Monday night. Jay was really helpful getting me through the contractions by reminding me to breathe slowly and deeply and by massaging my lower back.

Lorraine arrived at the hospital at around 9:00 a.m. and continued to help me through the contractions. At this point, I was so drained that I would collapse after each one on the pillow set up on the side of the hospital bed. I started to cry because I was in so much pain and was so tired and couldn’t imagine doing it for several more hours. I decided to ask for an epidural sometime between 10:00 and 11:00 a.m.

About an hour later, the anesthesiologist came to give me the epi. He saw that I had a doula and immediately offered a “walking epidural”, which I was happy about. I was not anticipating that procedure to be as uncomfortable as it was. It wasn’t that painful, it was just weird. It felt very unnatural and Jay said that at one point my pupils went from dilated to tiny pin points in a split second. Once the epi was in, I started to feel much better. Our nurse immediately said that because I had gotten an epi that she was going to give me pitocin to speed up the labor. We told her we would talk about it. She left, and Jay, Lorraine and I discussed it and decided that we would ask to have progress checked in a few hours before agreeing to pitocin. She reluctantly agreed.

Then, I got to take a nap for about an hour and a half. It was awesome. I woke up feeling much more energized. I got checked again in the early afternoon and was 5.5-6 cm. Yay! No pitocin necessary. I was so relieved.

Then my nurse’s shift was over and I got a new nurse. She came in and immediately scolded me for sitting up in bed. She said that the epi would not work as well if I sat up because gravity would pull the meds down and I would start to feel contractions at the top of my uterus. I told her that sitting up seemed to be helping with the contractions and that if I started to feel uncomfortable I would lie back down. She responded “Trust me. You need to lay down.” And then she put me down and checked me for progress and said I was still at a 6. Hmmmmm…. I actually still don’t believe she was telling the truth. She immediately said that she was giving me pitocin and was going to hook up an internal contraction monitor. Jay, Lorraine and I all said no to the pitocin and said we would think about the monitor. Later, we agreed to the monitor but told her that I was not going to agree to pitocin until I talked to my OB. We knew that would take a couple of hours so we bought some time.

After the nurse left the room, we were all in a bad mood. We decided to call the charge nurse and request that I get a new nurse. I would never have done that on my own, but Lorraine convinced me it was the right move. Boy was she right!

We got a new nurse and she was fabulous! She was so nice and came in to check on progress and said I was at 8.5-9 cm!! Woohoo. That was at about 6:00 p.m. I was thrilled.

The epi did start to wear off a little, so I decided to lie down and rest. I was pretty tired. But, when I was on my side, the contractions decreased dramatically in intensity and frequency. From about 6:00 to 10:00, I stayed at 9 cm, with mild contractions. We were all really tired and getting frustrated. We finally agreed to pitocin at the lowest dose to get through that last cm. I also upped my epi by one notch because my contractions were getting painful again.

At about 11:30 my nurse checked me and I was 9 cm on about half of my cervix and 10 cm on the other half. I was at a +2 station too! Lorraine and the nurse had me lie down in a special position to help dilate the side that was being stubborn. At this point I was really starting to feel the contractions through the epi, so Jay helped me breathe through them and we upped the epi one more notch. Thank god for that yellow button on the epi machine!

Around midnight, I started to feel the urge to push, so we called the nurse back in to check me. She confirmed that I was at 10 cm!! Woohooo! We were all so relieved. We got set up with Jay on one side and Lorraine on the other side, holding my legs to do one practice push with the next contraction. I was told that first time moms with epis generally push for one or two hours.

The nurse and Lorraine were really surprised that I pushed correctly the first time and could tell that I had actually moved Joaquin a little. They were very excited and I was relieved. I was not anticipating feeling pain during pushing because of the epi, but I definitely felt pain that first push, so it was nice to know that I was at least making progress.

We pushed for 2-3 more contractions and the nurse said that she would probably call my OB in about 10 minutes because she thought I would be delivering sooner rather than later. One push later, the nurse changed her mind and called the doctor right away. Joaquin was so far down that I could feel the top of his hand already in between contractions, which was exciting and also really freaky to feel. She then told me to just try to breathe through the contractions without pushing – she didn’t want to deliver the baby without a doctor!

A few minutes later, she called the on-call OB because she wasn’t sure I’d last for the 15 minutes it was going to take my OB to arrive. She also called the NICU team. They had to be present because Joaquin was exactly 1 day short of being considered a “term baby”. The on-call doctor showed up and the NICU team followed, but I was told to continue just breathing through the contractions. At this point, each contraction was extremely painful and it was almost impossible for me not to push, but I tried.

Finally, my OB arrived! I was so happy. I was then allowed to start pushing again while my OB helped with massage to keep me from tearing. I’m glad she did that, but oh boy did it hurt!! About 3 contractions later, Joaquin was born at 12:51 a.m. on October 27th. Jay said his entire body just came out in one motion – which he said surprised him because usually a baby’s head will come out and there will be a pause before the shoulders and body come out.

They put him on my chest quickly and Jay cut the cord. He was purple-ish gray at first. The nurses rubbed him and he started to cry the sweetest little cry I have ever heard. I started to cry too. It was probably the happiest moment of my life. We had finally done it!

He got checked by the NICU team for about 10 minutes. He was healthy and weighed in at 6 pounds, 12 ounces. He was 19 inches long and scored an 8/9 on his Apgars. After I delivered the placenta, my OB told me that I had no tears!! Woohooo!!!
Then they handed Joaquin to me and we started nursing. It was amazing.

The whole experience, while long and exhausting, was so magical. I was so happy that we hired Lorraine and I was so thankful to have Jay there – he was the perfect birth partner in every way. We are both captivated by our beautiful son and thankful to finally have our take home baby.