This past week a close friend of mine had her baby. Another baby girl to join the crowd! Staying true to herself, that is humble and reserved when it comes to personal stuff, she responded and participated of our ridiculous conversation as if nothing had happened. It wasn’t until someone in our other larger group chat sent a pic of her adorable baby that we found out that she had given birth earlier that morning! You know that monkey emoji covering its eyes? Never have I ever felt so identified by an emoji… Of course she wouldn’t interrupt our pointless convo to giver herself some attention, you know maybe shoot us a quick: FYI my baby is here! Hands to the face and shaking my head jaja gotta love her.
Anyway, as I tried to contain my excitement so I could type a congratulatory message without a billion typos so many emotions emerged, so many memories. Of course she hasn’t had time to share her experience with us yet, but I hope to God is was as magical of a day as it was for me and that got me thinking: How lucky am I? That I can wholeheartedly say that I had a blast the day Chiara was born and that I’d gladly relive that day again and again. I love every detail of the story: suspense, luck, laughter, and above all love. I don’t think I ever shared it with you so now that all the feelings have been brought up again, it’s a great time to do so.
It all started the Thursday before Chiara was born. As the team left for Seattle, Justin and I sat in the doctors waiting room anxiously hoping that he’d give us some guidance on whether Justin should travel or not. Originally we had planned on Justin missing the game, better be safe than sorry! But a series of injuries, national team call-ups, suspensions had us in pinch. There truly weren’t any defenders to sub in his place and how bad would we both feel if he stayed when the team really needed him and the weekend went by and I still had my watermelon sized belly?! Anyway, the doctor wasn’t much help. He basically told us that there wasn’t much chance Chiara would be coming on her due date. There was an 85% chance that she’d be late, but of course he couldn’t be responsible for me falling into that other 15%. He said he wouldn’t risk it, but of course he also couldn’t imagine being in our situation, so it truly was up to us.
As we drove home in silence I remember thinking how much I wanted Justin to stay, but how much I also knew that if he did stay she wouldn’t come. I also knew that if she were to come and he were to miss it he would be devastated. Was I concerned about myself? Not really, I had Plan A, Plan B, Plan C. I was ready and I knew that worse came to worse I was ready and had good support around me. Plus, my mom was coming into town Friday night. We spent the rest of the day ignoring the elephant in the room. That night, Justin asked me if it would be ok if he went to Seattle and of course I said yes. It was the right thing to do.
Friday morning as Justin got ready to leave I broke down into tears, worried to death that he would miss the birth of our first child. Sweet as always, he said that I shouldn’t worry about him and focus on relaxing and enjoying the weekend with my mom. As soon as we kissed goodbye, the knot in my stomach dissolved and I knew he was right, everything would be just fine. I got ready to go on my daily 3mi walk and decided to treat myself to coffee from that new shop on the way back. It was a beautiful early fall day and somehow 3mi turned into almost 5 so after a long shower and a nap I lounged on the couch, next to my hospital bag, binge watching Netflix and tracking my mom and Justin’s flight on my phone.
I went to bed early, probably around 9pm, I’d have to wake up again around 12:30am since my mom would be arriving at my place sometime around 1:00… At midnight I woke up because I had to pee and also probably out of excitement to see my mom J I never sleep well when I’m waiting for visitors to get in! As I get up I feel my shorts a bit wet and I think to myself MAN! Did I pee myself? Is this the start of the awkward pregnant lady who can’t hold it in? I head to the toilette and after I finish peeing I still hear myself peeing… huh? Is this my water breaking? Maybe I’m just out of it. I thought Justin would find it funny, so I head back towards my phone to text him. As soon as I start texting him another trickle of liquid makes its way down my leg. My heart starts to race and I “run” to the bathroom (it’s 2 steps away jaja), this time either I’m really peeing myself or it’s my water and there’s only one way to find out. I have to smell it.. ugh gross and sorry for TMI. It smells like nothing and it’s clear. I run back to the phone and call Justin in tears. I’m freaking out! I can’t believe he’s going to miss it!! Is he going to ever forgive himself? As he reassured me everything would be ok over the phone he did a great job staying calm and sounding happy. He’d get on the next flight out and luckily my mom’s flight had landed and she was on her way over. As Justin said to me “babe, don’t worry it’ll be ok and I will try to make it back in time, you won’t be alone and everything will go smoothly” I’m never going to forget the next words that came out of my mouth: No it’s not! How am I going to get to the hospital if I’m dripping water?! I’m going to get the cab all wet! Jajajaja yes, that was my biggest worry. After he pointed out there were multiple ways to avoid that I calmed down and let him get off the phone so he could go talk to the team manager. Poor guy, he had landed in Seattle to eat dinner and fly back.
Sorry this story is long. Once my mom got to our place, she freshened up, I changed and we took a cab to the hospital. And yes, I made it there safe and dry. At the hospital the nurse hooked me up to the machine, confirmed my water had broken and pointed out I was having contractions! What?! Jaja I had no idea. They were inconsistent and far a part so they gave me two options: induce and get the show on the road or wait and see how I progressed naturally waiting a max of 12hrs before having to induce. Naturally I wanted to wait as long as possible holding on to some hope that Justin would get there in time. I explained the situation to them and the awesome staff excitedly agreed to wait. I think it was a fun situation for them, especially since Mom and Baby were doing so well. Naively thinking I would get some sleep I asked for permission to go home to shower and get some rest. I was discharged and told that unless contractions got worse and closer or anything felt weird I should come back no later than noon the next day (12 hrs from when my water broke). We were back at the hospital at 10am the next day, because I had no idea how to time my contractions. I could feel the peek of them but could never feel them coming. What did they feel like? Like I had to poop jeje TMI again. Sorry.
Did I sleep? A bit, I was too excited and so was Justin so we spent a lot of time over the phone talking about how crazy it was that this was happening.
Once we were back at the hospital I got admitted and hooked up to all the machines that track baby, contractions, etc. It wasn’t until 1:00pm that I started getting a bit more uncomfortable. I went to look for a nurse to see if they could check my progress and when they did she said I was half way there! And of course, they’d move me up to my delivery room and give me an epidural. Since things were going so well, they decided to wait until Justin landed and was on his way to give me any “inducing” drugs. I think I got the epidural when I was somewhere between 6-7cm dilated (this probably means nothing if you don’t know much about labor and I won’t be giving the deets). Once I got the epidural I relaxed. The epidural itself didn’t hurt at all, but it was terrifying for me because the doc kept telling me I was flinching. I’m ticklish so every time he came near me with the needle I had to try really hard to not laugh. I also laugh when I’m nervous and needles make me nervous. When I stopped laughing and he did a great job! One of the ridiculous things I remember saying was: MOM!! I’m so happy you’re here, but explain to me WHY would anyone ever do this? I don’t want to get pinched but I don’t want to be in pain!! Why would I do this more than once?! To which she responded: you know he’s already got you all hooked up right? Silly me. I was so busy being dramatic that I didn’t realize I was all anesthetized :D My mom and I chatted away until Justin came. It felt like forever, because we were both sleepy, but the excitement also didn’t let us close our eyes.
Justin arrived around 5:00-5:30. I was just so happy he made it back in time, again although I tried really hard to fall asleep I was unsuccessful. As we caught up and talked about nonsense to kill time the time crawled by at the speed of turtle. I even watched a bit of the ND football game in the hopes you know, we’d get started soon. Chiara was coming down on her own so well that they didn’t want to give me meds or speed things up unnecessarily. She was also face up (instead of down, the ideal birth position) so they wanted to see if in the final stretch she’d flip over before they tried “guiding” her to flip. Finally, during one of the checks the doc says: oh hey! I see hair, it’s time to start!
Yes that’s right, by the time I started pushing, Chiara’s head was already starting to come out and I wasn’t feeling it haha I’m a fan of the epidural. And how lucky are we? She had also flipped herself and was in the perfect position to get out. I am not lying or glamming it up when I say that we were cracking jokes and laughing as I pushed. Justin thought my face was funny and I am sure it was because I was trying so hard to not hold my breath even though it was my instinct. I also might have over done the epidural clicker so I couldn’t feel on of my legs as much. So I kept telling Justin to hold my leg so I could push and that cracked me up. I have very fond memories of the shot 30min it took. I probably pushed through 4 or 5 contractions (you push 3 times in each) it was quick, it was funny, and above all it was one of the happiest moments of our lives.
Justin was impressed with my determination and the fact I didn't threaten to kill him or say I can't not even once.. I was impressed with his support, he's not a man of many words, but at that time he said exactly what I needed to hear. We were both impressed with her the moment we saw her, madly in love with her little face at first sight. I don’t remember if Justin cried, but all I remember is holding her, crying, and saying over and over “she’s so beautiful” and every time I said so, Justin patiently replied with a huge smile on his face, “yes babe, she is”.
How lucky am I that the moment I had feared the most worked out to be even better than we had ever imagined? This is the first of my new series: How Lucky Am I? an initiative to focus on the good things I’ve been given in life, those things I didn’t have to work for and yet I will always be eternally grateful for.