my birth story

It's been almost 3 months since the birth of Honor, and things have FINALLY settled down with establishing a routine, and most of all... I no longer feel overwhelmed with the duties of being a new mom. By no means have I got the hang of it yet, but I sure am getting there as each day gets a bit easier. 

Now that I have decided to start a blog, I have so many things to write about, and share, my brain has been all over the place trying to get it all organized and written down to the best of my ability. I'm not the greatest writer, and I sure don't have the patience for it. But I am hoping that with time, I get better and better at this as I continue to write about everything that has happened.

As every mom out there knows, there's definitely no greater feeling than the one you get when you meet your child for the very first time. You get overwhelmed with unexplainable feelings that you never knew existed before, and that makes every ounce of your life worth so much more than you could of ever imagined. 

Honor's birth gave me a whole new appreciation for my own mom and all that she has gone through for me to be where I am today as a new mom myself. She always used to say to me, "When you have your own kids someday, you'll understand what it's like to be me." Boy was she right! 

 At 37 weeks and 4 days pregnant, Sean and I had no clue we were about to become parents! 

This was the last picture I took being pregnant.

This was my first pregnancy and I didn't really know how the "big day" would happen. Would I wake up in the middle of the night with crazy contractions? Would my water randomly break and gush out water while I was out in public? Would it be like a scene from the movies?? Lol, all of these crazy scenarios always played in my mind as I was approaching closer to my due date. I had been told by fellow mommy's that Honor would more than likely come later than her estimated due date since she was my first. Honor was expected to come on June 3rd, 2013. Well, much to our surprise Honor decided that she would hit full term at 37 weeks and then be on her way! Guess its true what they say, walking (which I did do religiously in my third trimester for exercise) and "other" activities (wink wink) make them come out faster!

  After what seemed like a quick 9 months of pregnancy, my water broke at 8:30 pm Thursday May 16th. And let me just say, it was NOTHING like what you see on TV or in the movies! 

Sean and I had just woken up from a much-needed nap. We were both laying in bed deciding on what to eat for dinner. As usual, we couldn’t really decide on what sounded good so we went with the leftovers I had made from the night before. I remember laying there thinking how badly I needed to pee but because I was so comfortable I didn’t want to get up. Well, as I got up, thinking I was doing a great job of holding my bladder, I all of a sudden felt a little puddle hit my pants. I thought to myself, “No I did not just pee my pants?!” Never have I ever had a weak bladder to where I couldn’t hold it, not to mention the amount was just more than a normal little "leakage" a pregnant woman would experience. After I relieved myself, I literally had another “accident” and all I could say was “I just freaking peed!! How could I have peed my pants AGAIN?!” I knew I emptied my bladder completely, so it just didn’t make sense why I kept having these accidents. I kept thinking about it, and it finally hit me...“what if my water broke?!” Since I have never gone into labor before I wasn’t sure how I would know or could tell if my water were to break so I didn’t really think that was a real possibility. Being a little embarrassed of course, I shared all of that with Sean. After explaining it to him, I asked him if I should call the labor and delivery line just to see what they would say, and he said there was no harm in it, so why not. 

By this time it was 9pm, and I gave L&D a call and spoke with one of the nurses on duty. She said from the sounds of it, my water did break. I remember her saying “go ahead and take a nice shower, get yourself something to eat, and get your things and come right on down and check yourself in”. I hang up and tell Sean, and the entire time I am thinking this can’t be real, and that nurse had to be joking! We were both in disbelief so we somewhat brushed it off and went to go warm up our food to eat. As I was sitting at the dinner table, I kept obsessing over the whole thing and I told Sean that maybe we should go down to the hospital to get checked just to be on the safe side. I would rather they say I had an accident and false alarm, verses it actually being true and I’m still at home going about my business. So we both showered, since there was a SLIGHT possibility that we wouldn’t be coming back home. Now it’s about 11:15pm. We grabbed all hospital bags (that I literally packed the week before!) and drove down to Kaiser. We knew exactly where to go since we just had the labor and delivery hospital tour just two days before this all went down! How ironic is that?! 

Making our way up to the fourth floor to the labor and delivery triage, we checked ourselves in and were escorted to an exam room. The nurse had me change into a gown and hooked me up to baby heart monitor to see if there were any contractions. Apparently there was, and I had no idea. They were so mild I felt completely normal, so I was shocked to find out I was having some. After the nurse had me lay in the bed, I waited for the midwife on duty to come in and conduct the exam. They take a swab of what could potentially be amniotic fluid, and place it on a slide to look at through a microscope. That tells them whether it is pee or fluid from the sack. 

The midwife stepped out for about 5 min to exam the sample. Let me just say, that was the longest 5 minutes of our life! She comes back in and CONFIRMED that my water did break, but not completely. I was now 1cm dilated, 90% thinned out, and at a -2 station. I remember looking at Sean and saying; “this is unreal!!" The nurse comes back in and gathers the contractions and heart rate charts that had been tracked already, and tells us to grab our stuff. She takes us to our labor and delivery room that they had been preparing for us. The room was so big, and pretty nice in my opinion.

Although we didn’t take actual pictures of the room itself, this tour is from the hospital website and just so happen to be the exact room we stayed in!

Since I wasn’t experiencing any major contractions yet (mind you, about 4 hours passed since my water initially broke) they had me walk around the whole L&D floor for about an hour to see if it would help bring them on naturally. Sean went down to the car and grabbed all of our stuff while I moseyed around the fourth floor. I called my parents in the midst of this to let them know that we were admitted and I'd keep them posted as things progressed along. 

After walking in circles for about 45 min to a hr., my contractions hadn't progressed to begin active labor. The midwife was concerned about possible infection with the sack being broken and contractions weren't progressing, so she went on to have me induced with Pitocin. I didn't object because I felt comfortable with their recommendation and I certainly didn't want to put Honor at risk of infection. Especially since the sack was already broken. 

The IV (which hurt so bad!), and the start of the Pitocin.

As naïve as Sean and I were this whole time, we really thought that with the Pitocin helping induce me, Honor would be born within a FEW hours. Well… we were wrong! Hours went by and the contractions weren't getting much stronger. I could feel them when they came, but it was still pretty mild. The nurses kept coming in every two hours to check on me and each time, they increased the Pitocin dosage. It was already close to noon the next day and I was receiving a Pitocin dosage of 12, when the max they would allow is 16. They left the dosage level as is and finally by about 1pm I started to feel the stronger, longer contractions come on. They literally came out of nowhere. I was able to still tolerate them with no added painkillers, however all of the pain I did have was mainly in my lower back. Since I wasn't planning on getting the epidural anytime soon the nurse said I was free to walk around the room, sit on a medicine ball, or do anything to help with the discomfort. That way I wasn't stuck laying in bed when I could still be active. I chose to sit on the medicine ball and had Sean sit behind me. I had him apply pressure to my lower back as well as massage me to relieve the discomfort I was feeling. And boy did that help!! After 20min Sean went to grab some lunch for himself since they don't provide the husbands with any food. He came back with a burrito.... -__-. Lucky ass! I was strictly on liquids only till after birth...No wonder they told me to have a good dinner the night before!

After all this time passing, finally the midwife on duty came in to check my progress (they really minimize that to prevent infection from happening). It was now close 3pm and I was only 3cm dilated… REALLY?!! By this time my contractions started to become unbearable and I decided to ask for the epidural. Maybe premature to some, but I was already there for 15 hours. The discomfort grew stronger but I wasn't dilating much with them. I waited for the nurse to make her round back to my room and that’s when I requested for an epidural. Mind you, I am terrified of this step in the whole labor process so I definitely tried to postpone it for as long as I could. I remember having anxiety waiting for the anaesthesit to come because this was the part I feared most—that big ass needle! The nurse and anesthesiologist went over instructions with me, and had me sit on the edge of the bed. I curved my back into a "C" shape a few times so the anesthetist could see where my spine was. She cleaned off the area where she was going to insert the numbing medicine and epidural. First came the pinch from the needle, and then came the numbing medicine. Man that stuff burns!! The anesthetist waited a minute or so, then tapped on the location surrounding where the epidural was going to go. She wasn't convinced that my back was numb enough, so she injected me one more time. After that I couldn't feel a thing! Then she grabbed the catheter and injected the epidural. Once she finished, she taped the epidural wire to my back, and it was all over! 

It took about 30 minutes before the first dosage kicked in. Once it did, any and all discomfort went away like magic!! Since I was now using the epidural, I was bed written until after Honor was born. Little did I know, once you get the epidural, you have to get a catheter put in your 'goodies' to drain the urine from your bladder since your legs go completely numb... I always wondered how women went pee in the midst of being in labor. And in no way did I think it was through a catheter and a bag hanging from the side of your bed! Cute right?!...

Now it's about 4pm in the afternoon and the epidural was working like nobody's business... My legs were so numb I almost had a panic attack because I could barely move them. It took everything in my power to have my brain tell my legs to move, and nothing happened. Letting my mind run wild for a second, I thought to myself, what if I NEVER feel my legs again?!?! Not the smartest thing to do... I quickly made myself think of something else to take my mind off of the fact that I was immobile, and kept saying, "This is only temporary"; "this is only temporary". 

We hadn't had any real visitors except for my mom throughout this whole time, and we ended up getting a call from one of Sean's football friends saying he and his wife were going to stop by. So they came to our room and sat and talked with us for a good two hours, which was nice because it took my mind off of my numb legs and kept us company. We laughed and shared jokes, and sadly enough my little Asian nurse was the butt of one of the jokes. (She looked like the scientist lady from the movie Incredibles who made the suits for the whole family.. lol!) 

Sean and his good friend Mike Farinas… (excuse his finger, lol)

It was now 6:30pm and our friends had just left. The midwife who was now on duty came in to check on my progress... And much to our surprise, I was 6 cm dilated, fully thinned out, and at a positive 1 station. Hallelujah!! The midwife ended up breaking the rest of my bag, and man was that a crazy feeling!! At this point it was just more of the waiting game, which was fine since we were happy with the latest update we had received. 

Sean laid next to me in the folding chair-bed and tried to get a small nap in. I attempted to do so also, but no real luck since I kept asking the nurse to turn me on each side to relieve the extreme numbing feeling each leg would get. 

As time SLOWLY ticked away, my contractions grew so strong to where I was able to feel them through the epidural. All of my pain/discomfort was still in my lower back, which meant that Honor was positioned head down but face up (instead of face down). With her moving down the birth canal, she was putting all of the pressure down towards my back instead of up towards my belly button. I remember it being a little past 9, and the pressure kept increasing as each contraction came on. By this time, they were coming so quick and for longer periods, it seemed like they never ended.  I kept pushing the button to release more of the epidural, but that only releases in certain time intervals so that wasn't helping much at all. I had so much discomfort and pain; I laid there on my side breathing deeply while I gripped the rail of the hospital bed. It hurt so much; tears were just silently rolling down my face uncontrollably. I know Sean felt bad for me while he sat there feeling helpless. All he could do was tell me to close my eyes, relax, and breathe...

It was almost 10 pm and I told Sean to page my nurse because I couldn't take the pain anymore. She came back in and I told her how much I was hurting, and that she needed to check me because there was no way I could be feeling this amount of pain and I'm no where near ready to have this baby... She put her gloves on and reached down and checked my latest status... She quickly said, "you're fully dilated, and we are going to have you start pushing shortly. " At this point the only thing running through my mind was "thank you god!!!!" The nurse quickly got all of the delivery tools and sheets ready, and told me to start pushing!

Since I couldn't feel my legs and had no control of them, Sean had to hold one of them while the nurse held the other. She told me to push when each contraction came on, and I had to push about 3-4 times, each time. As each contraction seemed to come quicker and quicker, I found myself getting so tired and worn out that I thought I just didn't have anymore strength left in me to finish this all the way through. In between contractions, I had Sean call my parents to have them hurry down to the hospital since it was only a matter of time before we'd all get to meet Honor. I was pushing for an hour straight!! My parents arrived and just shortly after I was ready for the midwife to come in and begin the delivery process. The first midwife on duty that came in, I wasn't too fond of but within seconds another one came in and said they had to switch delivery rooms...why? I'm still not sure of, but I couldn't be more pleased with the midwife I ended up with! Three more nurses came in to assist in the delivery... It was all happening so fast, it almost seems like a blur.

It was now 11pm and contractions were still coming on. Each time, I was still told to keep pushing. 12 minutes passed by and here came Honor Aiko-Lee Scales, born on Friday, May 17th, 2013 at 11:12pm. 

I couldn't believe how fast it all happened! The midwife pulled her out so effortlessly and both her and the nurse placed Honor on my chest... After the initial shock of feeling her for the very time, I became so overwhelmed with joy I started to cry. I couldn't believe that I just brought this little life into this world! It was by far the greatest experience I had ever gone through, and to know that I was capable of doing so made it so empowering. I couldn't believe I became a mommy within a matter of minutes!! 

They left Honor on my chest for our skin-to-skin bonding time as they wiped her off. The midwife clamped her umbilical cord and gave Sean the honor of cutting it. Honor was so alert everyone was amazed by it. 

After finishing the rest of the delivery of the placenta and getting cleaned up, they gave us two hours in the delivery room to bond as a new little family. As they were getting our recovery room together, they finished cleaning Honor up. They examined her and checked all of her measurements, and then she was swaddled for the first time. 

They handed her to Sean... He finally got to hold and meet his princess for the very first time. Sean couldn't believe he was now a daddy... He fell in love with her immediately, and was so smitten by her. Seeing Sean holding and gazing at her will always be a moment I will never forget. 

In this whole experience, I didn't have my mind set on a specific birth plan. I was more into going with the flow of things, as I needed them. But, I am so grateful that she was healthy and I was able to have her naturally without anything intervening. 

Our little family was now complete.

Welcome to the world caterpillar! 

Mommy and Daddy love you more than you will ever know!