David Paul Hurtado was born May 29, 2015 at 1:14 AM, 7 lb 4 oz, 20 inches. This is the story of how he came into this world. It’s long and detailed for my own record.
At 36 weeks I was getting tested for Strep B and had the midwife check for dilation/effacement while she was down there. I was dilated to a 2 and 40% effaced. I pretty much never dilated or effaced on my own with the other two, so I was pretty thrilled there was progress at all. I told myself I wouldn’t have the midwife check me because I wanted to just let things happen in their own time without being anxious about it. Yeah right. At 37 weeks I was dilated to a 3, 50-60% effaced. She didn’t think I’d make it to the next appointment. I don’t know if they say these things to make you happy or not. It makes you happy thinking you won’t make it another week, but really it just makes you anxious the whole week and angry when you come to the next appointment still pregnant with no significant contractions. At 38 weeks I was dilated to a 4, 70-80% effaced. Dilated to a 4? How could I possibly go another week pregnant. Easy peasy. At 39 weeks, dilated to a 5, 70-80% effaced. Ugh. A 5?? Shouldn’t I be in labor yet??
The midwife stripped my membranes to try to get contractions started. I read forums online to see what people were saying about how long after having their membranes stripped they were in labor/delivering their baby. The general consensus was 12 hours. So my mom came down that day (Wednesday) just certain I would go into labor in the middle of the night. I couldn’t sleep that night so I stayed up and watched Friends until about 1:30am. Come 9am Thursday, no contractions. Of course. We went to breakfast, and shared it, but it was still a HUGE breakfast. Afterward my mom decided she would go home. She had work to do, and it didn’t seem like anything exciting was going to happen around here. And we figured it would be just our luck that she’d leave and I’d go into labor.
It’s 2 pm Thusrday, I’m still full from breakfast, but have a small snack of yogurt. I figure we’ll use a coupon and a gift card to get eat out cheap, that I’d eat a big meal, with the hope I’d go into labor and not be starving. Eli had soccer practice at 4:15, I picked him up and dropped Halle off for her soccer practice at 5. I texted with my mom about 5:15 about my plans to eat a big dinner and hopefully go into labor and call her around 8 or 9 pm. She predicted David would be born between 1 and 3 AM, even though I wasn’t having any contractions or signs of labor.
5:30 PM, MINUTES after texting my mom. My water broke. Holy crap. My water broke. Statistically only 15% of women’s water breaks on its own at home. I was not expecting this. Eli was outside playing with a friend. And this wasn’t a trickle. Seriously, my water BROKE. It gushed. Luckily I was in the kitchen on tile. I ran upstairs, called my mom and Jared, and hopped in the shower. Jared was running soccer practice, where parents just drop off their girls and go home to cities like Highland and Saratoga Springs that are 10-15 minutes away. He couldn’t just call all of them to pick up their kids. So I took a shower, put on a Depends (life saver for having your water break and continuously trickle), and he finished out practice. I called Joan, assuming Jared had already asked her to come stay with the kids, but just making sure she was on her way. Joan answers the phone, “IS IT TIME?!” which is kind of a joke because that’s how my mom and Joan always answered the phone, and my answer was always no. But this time it was YES! COME NOW! So she practically took Jess’ dinner away from him and came here. I called the midwife to let her know my water broke, but I wasn’t having contractions. She said to go in and she’d meet me there. Given it’s my third pregnancy she was quite certain things would move quickly. Jared got home and took a shower (I told him to), and we got to the hospital about 6:45. My mom beat us there. From Syracuse, in rush hour traffic.
I got checked in, and they had to run a test just to make sure my water broke. Are you kidding me? It gushed all over the floor and hasn’t stopped! I did NOT pee my pants. In case you were wondering, it tested positive for amniotic fluid, my water did break. Huzzah. I was dilated to a 7, 80% effaced, still no contractions. The midwife thought he could be born as soon as one hour (she was very wrong), so we got the videographer/photographer to come just in case.
So I bounced on a birthing ball.
And walked.
And walked.
And walked around that hospital wing. I was the only one walking. Probably one of the few not attached to IVs with pitocin or an epidural. It felt good not to be attached to anything. They monitored me for 10-15 minutes every hour and during that monitoring I could do lunges our sit squat or bounce on the birthing ball.
I was having contractions every 3 minutes or so, and they were painful, but I could walk, talk, and breathe through them.
The midwife said David’s head was turned just slightly so that he wasn’t pressing straight onto my cervix, and that there was still a bag of water that needed to break. Labor wouldn’t progress and contractions wouldn’t hit hard until all of that happened. Lunges weren’t working. Walking wasn’t working. So I laid in the hospital bed with a giant peanut shaped birthing ball thing between my legs hoping to naturally move things. And it worked. All of the sudden in the middle of a contraction I feel this pop and gush. Right then he must have turned ever so slightly and that bag of water popped. And I yelled, “HOLY CRAP!!” That was about 11:30 PM and that is when everything changed.
No way could I walk or talk through the contractions. I didn’t even feel like I could breathe through them. I was constantly being reminded to breathe. I didn’t follow instruction well, and they gave me oxygen. I tried being on all fours, standing, and sitting on the birthing ball.
The picture above might have been around the time that Jared said, “I know you’re in a lot of pain, but you don’t have to dig your nails into my skin.” The nurse, midwife, and Jared would rub my back and push on my legs to try to relieve the pain and pressure. NOTHNG could describe the pain. Jared suggested a little change on their little pain chart. The final guy that describes a 10 is crying.
He thinks there should be an 11 with a guy screaming his head off. That was me. I just found this one online. I think this could work. After 11:30 when the real pain set in, my eyes were closed and didn’t open until David was on my chest, which is when I looked around and realized how many people were in my room. I have no idea when those people came in. I don’t know when I started pushing. I would estimate it was about 1AM because I wasn’t pushing all that long. I was yelling that I had to push, like right now. The midwife said there was a little bit of cervix left and I wasn’t allowed to. I kept yelling that I had to push, so she moved the bit of cervix over David’s head as I pushed.
David finally came out and the cord was wrapped around his neck 3 times and he was purple. She laid him on my chest just so I could say Hello, had Jared cut the cord, and then they took him to get him to cry. He cried after they helped him out a bit, but they still wanted to monitor him, so they brought him to me for a kiss goodbye and took him to the nursery.
Jared and my dad joined them since my dad had been sitting in the waiting room by himself for hours. My mom, Joan, and Mandy the videographer were the only ones allowed in the room.
After I was all fixed up they brought David back to get pictures with family so that Mandy could go home, then David could eat and get a bath.
Jared finally left about 4AM, and I slept from about 4:30-6. As I was trying to fall I asleep I was worried I was getting sick because my throat her. Then I realized I had just been screaming like a maniac for a few hours straight. Oh yeah. I couldn’t sleep any more than that. I was so awake. Friday was the last day of school for Halle. It was only an hour and a half, and the plan was to then bring the kids to meet David at the same time and eat some lunch together. Well apparently that wasn’t soon enough for Eli. He was so upset he couldn’t come straight to the hospital that Jared had to bring him so he wouldn’t cry so much.
The first poopy diaper. Gotta love that tar poop.
My mom brought Halle after school.
Halle got a hold of the camera and took some candid pictures.
As Jared held David, Eli sat next to him and kissed the baby over and over and over. He said, “He’s just so adorable I can’t stop kissing him!” David is now 4 weeks old and this hasn’t changed. Eli cries if he goes to bed and realizes he didn’t give David a hug and kiss goodnight.
I stayed awake that whole day until 9:30 Friday night. Which is the only time that David wanted to be awake. I was so tired it didn’t seem safe to be holding him, and he would scream in the bassinet, so I had the nurse take him to the nursery.
The midwife said she was glad there was nobody in the room next to me. I probably would have kept them awake with my screaming. How embarrassing. I was the last one on the hospital floor to give birth, so hopefully everyone else was already asleep and their visitors had gone.
Saturday the kids had their last soccer games of the year, but they had a couple hours between the two and came and got David and me between games.
My brother and his family came to our house and was nice enough to bring lunch and hang out while Jared took Halle to her soccer game.
And so began our summer of having a newborn, sleep deprived mom, soccer practices, summer camps, and the kids being home from school playing with their friends all hours of the day. Jared has been amazing working from home a lot, and literally walking me upstairs, and making me take a long nap. David has been such a good baby. Of course we have our rough nights, but generally he’s a very good sleeper and eater.
