Aurelia’s Birth Story
Aurelia came exactly two weeks early. Her precipitous birth is nothing short of
exciting! Leading up to her birthday, I
had thankfully already started maternity leave.
I was preparing for our baby and trying to make the most of my little
time left baby-free. The morning of her
birthday, I woke up with a sign that labor would be coming soon, but I had no
idea how soon. The pregnancy books all
said that labor could start within the next day, to the next week or so. I decided to take it easy that day, and
skipped the daily 3-mile walk that I had been faithful about keeping up. Instead of walking, I sat at my computer all
day, organizing my contacts in my email and in my phone so that I could
seamlessly notify everyone when our baby was born.
That same day, my mom and sister left the Bay Area via their
two cars to drive down to me, to spend two whole weeks with me before my due
date. My mom kept calling me to check in
on me to make sure I was being “boring”.
I told her that in addition to that “sign”, my lower back hurt a little,
but that no, there was no rhyme or reason to it, it was just a continuous dull
backache. I attributed it to being very
pregnant with my due date right around the corner!
At around 3:00 that afternoon, I got up from the desk to use
the bathroom. I was surprised when there
was an involuntary surge of liquid. Just
to make sure that I am in fact able to control my bladder, I stood up, and
liquid continued to spill. Yes, my water
broke! As soon as I was done in the
bathroom, I rushed to the phone to call Stephen at work, at 3:08. I told him that he had to come home because
my water just broke and that we needed to get to the hospital. Then, I called my mom at 3:11 and said, “Mom,
you’re going to be mad at me…my water just broke.” I was supposed to be doing nothing, being
“boring”, and nevertheless, my water broke.
My mom started speeding at that point to get down to me as soon as she
could. She actually hoped that CHP would
pull her over so she could get to the hospital faster.
After I was off the phone, I got busy working on our
packing. I thought I still had time, so
I had yet to finish this task. I had a
printed checklist, and an open suitcase with many items already packed. I set about gathering the other items to add
to the bag, and I also made a list for Stephen, so he was able to quickly
remember everything I thought he needed, too.
He arrived home at about 3:30 (I called him at 3:27 to see where he was,
and he said he just turned onto our street), after sending a few emails out at
work to let people know that his wife was in labor and he’d be out for a week.
Stephen worked on his packing, I worked on mine. I had Stephen help me with a few things, like
packing our brand new camera (bought two days before) and our phone
chargers. Things were starting to feel
pretty intense for me, which is why I needed his help, and I started feeling
like we needed to hurry and get to the hospital. Meanwhile, I kept remembering little extras that
I didn’t have on my packing list, but might be a good idea to pack. I remember our childbirth class instructor
mentioning tools to help with labor, such as a rolling pin and socks with
tennis balls. Because my water broke (it
was difficult to ignore), I told Stephen to make sure that he put some towels
down on the passenger seat. Then I
remembered that family was coming to stay with us, and that our master bathroom
needed cleaning, so while doubled over, I quickly scrubbed the toilet and wiped
down the sink. Then I think I exclaimed
one last, “My love, we really have to go!” and we got in the car and finally
left.
I was in extreme discomfort on the way to the hospital. I was writhing in my seat, not able to sit
still. At a stop light waiting to get on
the freeway, I wondered if the driver in the car in front of us was wondering
what was going on through the rear view mirror.
On the freeway the rest of the way to the hospital, I was
crying in pain and complaining to Stephen that I really had to go to the
bathroom! In reality, what I was feeling
was a lot of pressure and with urgency I had never experienced. I got a few breaks from this feeling, so in
retrospect, these must have been my first contractions, aside from the
discomfort I felt at home whenever I told Stephen, “We really have to go!”
while finishing up our packing.
I was well aware of my level of pain, but neither Stephen
nor I had any idea how little time we had left.
I guess we thought that I would follow a normal labor pattern, and that
there was still a lot of time left. As
we approached the hospital, he pulled into the parking garage. I implored Stephen, “What are you doing?! No! We
are not walking from here!” He replied,
“Well, this is what we were told to do in our childbirth class.” I answered, “I don’t care, I’m not
walking. We are going through
Emergency.” I felt claustrophobic inside
the parking garage because not only did we have to wait to get through the
kiosk to get out, we even had to ask the attendant directions to Emergency.
The Emergency room had valet parking, so Stephen and I both
were able to go inside right away. I was
closer to the hospital now, and was very uncomfortable, both from the pain of
the pressure and leaking all over the place.
My arrival to Emergency took priority over the few people waiting in the
room. I agonizingly had to answer some
questions, such as how far apart my contractions were. Shoot, I didn’t know, but get me the heck
upstairs! I told them I was already
preregistered, that my water broke, and I was very uncomfortable. I felt like I was making a spectacle of
myself to the old man and the mom with the toddler waiting. All eyes were on me. At that point, they were ready to admit me,
and a hospital volunteer, an older lady, was ready to wheel me up. Part of me wanted to have the option to walk
from there, but hospital policy is that the patient cannot walk from Emergency.
I imagine that when we reached Labor and Delivery, it was
about 4:45. It was about 4:30 when we
were getting off the freeway. Upon our
arrival, a nurse on her break tried to distract me by asking us what we were
having. I answered, “A surprise!” and we
kept moving. We approached the nurses’ station,
and an attendant said, “We have another!” to the lady there. A young man escorted us to a delivery room,
where he handed me a stretchy fabric band (to hold the monitor in place) and a
hospital gown. I put on the garments
and the same nurse who had tried to distract me just moments before greeted us
and helped me onto the bed. She told me
that she was going to check my progress as she slipped on a pair of gloves. A moment after starting the internal examination,
she exclaimed, “You’re 10 cm dilated plus!
The baby’s head is at (station) 2!
You’re going to have this baby!”
I was shocked at this announcement, as I imagined there
would be quite a lag between my water breaking and having our baby. I didn’t think I’d be having our baby until
at least the next day! I asked, “When is
the baby coming?” and I got the same answer, “You’re going to have this baby!”
along with, “This is the way birth is depicted in the movies, but it almost
never happens that way. You’re like the
movies!”
Throughout my pregnancy, I was hoping to have an unmedicated
labor, but at the same time, I decided to not rule out the option of drugs. I was already in pain and wanted to keep my
options open, so I asked, “Does that mean I can’t have drugs?” and the nurse
repeated the same again, “You’re going to have this baby!”
More nurses were called in, and the doctor on call
(ironically, the on call doctor was the one obstetrician in my practice who I
had not seen yet during my prenatal checkups.) had to be called because she was
not actually at the hospital at this time.
I was hooked up to an IV and a contraction monitor. Because of this, the nurses knew better than
I did when my contractions were happening.
Right away, they told me exactly when to push. Yes, push!
I arrived to the hospital already pushing! Meanwhile, I really had just gotten there, so
they had a million questions to ask me about my medical history and contact
information in between pushes.
The nurse who led me through the pushing told me when to
push and when to stop. I complied for
the most part, but a couple of times, I was just in so much pain that I told
her, “I don’t want to push!” So, I let
some contractions ride out without really pushing much. I pushed more and minutes later, another
nurse told me that you could see the head and offered for me to touch it. However, I was too distracted by my pain and
declined the offer. The pressure was
burning and intense, and the nurses tried to coach me through the pain. With a couple more deeply strenuous pushes,
our beautiful newborn baby entered the world, at 5:37 PM, just two and a half
hours after the first real sign of labor.
A nurse in the room, who is coincidentally a neighbor of
ours, turned to Stephen and asked if he’d like to announce the gender of our
baby. He declared, “It’s a girl!” We felt such joy to find out the gender of
the baby we’d been carrying for 38 weeks!
Stephen may have been hoping for a boy, but he loved our daughter the
moment he laid eyes on her, and could not imagine anything different.
I got to hold our baby girl right away. I was awed by the beautiful girl in my
arms. My first thoughts were of
disbelief. First, this had all happened
so fast. Only a few hours before, I wasn’t
even in labor. Second, this idea that
I’d had a baby growing inside of me was now a reality, and I was holding my
own, very real, baby. I admired our little
girl with love and pride, and took in the joy of her precious birth by saying
words such as, “You were a real live baby in there!” while crying tears of
happiness of exhilaration. I felt so many emotions at once, more than I’d ever
felt at one time.
A nurse then took the baby and Stephen helped cut the
cord. The nurses cleaned her up, wrapped
her up in a swaddle, and Stephen got to hold her for a few minutes before
handing her back to me. It was during
this family moment that Stephen whispered to me, “I think she looks like Aurelia,
Riley.” It was a sweet moment, and
looking back, we really did know her name at birth, even though we kept the
name undecided and unannounced for a couple more days.
Not too much longer passed before I started to deliver the
placenta. At this point was when my mom
arrived! She didn’t realize that our
baby had been born, and let alone that we had a GIRL! With my legs propped up and disguising the
small bundle at my chest, she didn’t realize that I had already had the baby. My first words to my mom were, “Mom, I’m
going to be the one that every woman hates!”
I felt that I had lucked out with such a quick labor, and was still in
disbelief. I never thought our baby would
be born before my mom arrived, especially with her starting the five hour drive
at noon, three whole hours before my water broke!
Even though my mom missed the birth, she still shared some
very special first moments with us, including me nursing our baby for the first
time. She was able to take some of our
first pictures together as a new family.
And here began the journey of our first born, the little girl who made
me a mom, Stephen, a dad, and who made our little family a family of three! She was loved so much from the start, and that
love continues to grow for her everyday.
Our Sweet Baby Girl!
7 lbs. 6 oz., 19 ½ inches
Our first picture together!
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