Story of Her Arrival

Here is the account of how Elena came into this world. It's certainly not how we planned it, but makes for a great story, we think. I had thought about blogging about the weeks and days prior to her birth, but I saved my 300th post for her announcement (and saved you all from my complaining and frustrations!).

Let's start with the few days before....

On the Wednesday, the 26th of January, I was a week overdue and wondering if this child would ever come. I had been on bedrest for 2 weeks in December because the baby was so low and was threatening to come early. In my heart of hearts, I knew she wouldn't come early, but still, a week overdue now? On the Sunday before, she actually had backed up and turned her head outward, face up. In that position, she wasn't planning to come any time soon.

I went to Dra. Vidal's with Dra. Toni and Jenna, our doula. The baby was still not engaged and face up. I was very discouraged and almost cried. Days were ticking, the possibility of a C-section was becoming more of a reality. So Dra. Vidal sent me for a fetal monitoring the next day to see if the cord was entangled, preventing the baby from descending. I went home with a heavy heart and prayed that this baby would come on her own. Forget all my hoping for a cool numbered birth date, just come.

Thursday, the 27th, Jenna came with me to the fetal monitoring. We sat in the waiting room downing handfuls of jelly beans to get the baby moving and to make ourselves feel better. The doctor doing the monitoring was very pleasant and didn't find anything that would indicate a cord entanglement. She wished me well in my parto normal (vaginal birth) and sent us on our way. I felt a bit better and was buzzed from all the sugar, so we decided to walk home.

Friday morning, the 28th, I woke up and felt a little off. Mothers out there, you know what I mean by off, right? The whole day I wondered if maybe my body was preparing to have a baby. I didn't have Braxton Hicks during the day, but had been having them almost every night for 2 weeks. Nothing came of them, so I was feeling a bit teased....

I had another appt. that evening at Dra. Vidal's to go over the fetal monitoring. Everyone was there again and looked over the results. Dra. Vidal agreed, it seemed there wasn't a cord entanglement, at least one that would restrict blood flow, so that shouldn't be preventing the baby from descending.

I hopped on the table and Dra. Vidal started by feeling around my stomach to check the position of the baby. She found that the baby had turned and had gone face down! Praise God!! Everyone was just thrilled, she had moved down again. And then she checked my cervix. I wasn't dilated, but it was perfect. Perfect? A perfect cervix in my opinion at 9 days overdue is a dilating cervix!

But both Dra.'s said that they figured I would definitely go into labour that night or the next day. I was slightly skeptical, but since they were excellent doctors, I was trusting their instinct.

I got home, told Carl that we might have a baby that night, and double checked my bag. Going to bed, I was a bit excited, but tried not to get my hopes up. At 4 or 5 in the morning, I woke up with what seemed like Braxton Hicks, but they were a little more strong. At only 10 minutes apart, I just went back to sleep and figured this was just like the previous two weeks. Contractions should really hurt, right?

At 8 a.m. Dra. Toni called me and was a bit frantic, asking if I was in labour already. I told her, No, I've had "contractions" since about 4 but they were only 10 minutes apart and not very strong. In fact, I had hoped to sleep in a bit more. Well, she said that Dra. Vidal was very preoccupied and said I should come in right away and get checked. Toni advised us to drop off our kids, bring all our stuff, and come in an hour.

Okay, I know they are doctors, but what's all the fuss? I had hoped to labour mostly at home before going to the clinic. And if this labour would be like the others, everything would stop during the day and we'd be only going in after supper. But again, I put my trust in their instincts. We got the kids up, fed them and packed their day bag. We called our friends and asked them to pick them up and said our goodbyes. It was actually quite nice to be able to send them off, instead of having them wake up in the morning with us gone. Joel smiled as he left, "Today might be the day!"

Dra. Toni called just before we left and said she had some interesting news. The clinic that we were hoping to deliver at didn't have any rooms left. She had already called our 2 back ups with no luck and then another 4 clinics. She had only 3 options left for us; a grungy little clinic, a hospital where I wouldn't be able to have my doctors come, or the South American Mission base (the mission Dra. Toni and Jenna are associated with), where they have guesthouses. !!! It wouldn't be a clinic or anything (but close to a hospital in case of an emergency), more like a home birth in one of their guestrooms. Carl and I talked a bit before we decided to go to the SAM base to have our baby.

After piling the diaper bag, my bag, the pool, the cooler with snacks, and two pillows into the taxi, we were off to Dra. Vidal's office. I was feeling fine and figuring we were in for a long day. When we arrived, Dra. Toni and her sister, Sunny, who is also a doctor were already there. Dra. Vidal came down and was smiling and thrilled to see us. We got right down to business in her office and she checked me. I was already 5-6 cm and I was shocked. My contractions seemed so lame and were so far apart, how could they have done anything? Well, apparently a lot, enough to get me over half way there. Okay, good thing I came in when they told me. I guess perfect is a significant term to describe a cervix, who knew?

We got to the SAM base at 10:00 and Jenna was busy preparing the room. I was still in awe over the whole thing. I have to admit, it has always been my dream to have a home birth and here it was. I breathed a thank you prayer to God and also asked for strength.

Sunny and Carl filled the pool in the corner of the room while Jenna and I walked around the campus. We met the hosts, Walt and Cindy, as well as another family staying in another guesthouse on the grounds. They were all excited that there would be a baby born on the mission base that day! The pediatrician, Dr. Montero had arrived and seemed a bit shell shocked. He hardly sees vaginal births (C-sections in Santa Cruz are highest in all the country), let alone a birth outside a clinic. Dra. Vidal thought it was quite amusing. They decided that until the baby was on the verge of arriving, he could sit in the sala of the main building and watch t.v.!

At 11:30, I was starting to have painful contractions, so I got into the little pool and floated around. Carl had put on the music and put up my inspirational posters; notes of encouragement and a few 3D pictures of the baby. By 12:00 I was fully dilated, but my water hadn't broken yet. I knew that once it did (or once the doctor broke it), labour would get more painful. I continued to walk around and I dreamed about all the great food I would eat once the baby was born. Mmmmm.....Burgers, Milanesa, Caesar Salad....

At 12:45 Dra. Vidal finally broke my water and I realized there was no turning back. I know in my head that once labour starts with that first contraction, it's inevitable that you will have a baby soon. But there's something about when the water breaks that in a matter of minutes/hours, you will have to push out a baby. That's the work, that's the part that I need to muster up all my strength, all the strength that God gives, and imagine the other 300,000 women in the world doing exactly what I'm doing, us bringing in our babies into the world.

45 minutes of mustering and praying and breathing, 45 minutes of painful contractions, that after each one I told myself I would never have to experience that contraction again, one less contraction before I met my baby.....

Finally at 1:30, I knew I had to push. And that I did. The baby's head came out with the cord wrapped around twice. Dra. Vidal quickly pulled it off and there was hollering. I thought I was done, babies only holler once they are out, right? But Dra. Vidal told me to push one more time. So I did, and she was born.

1:36 p.m. and it was all done and over. She was laid on my chest right away and she continued to holler. She was perfect.

A few minutes later, the doctor took her and the pediatrician, who had been sitting off to the side, wide-eyed, took her and checked her over and got her dressed. We realized then that we had nothing to measure her with, so Sunny went to find a scale and Dr. Montero found some string. He measured her head with one piece and her length with another and then handed them to Carl to keep. Once the scale arrived, a few people weighed themselves and then with the baby to find the average of her weight. So we figured about 3.9 kg, but then Dr. Montero said remove 50 grams for the clothes, since he didn't want to undress her again in the cool room. He was very preoccupied with the AC on and that the baby would get a chill.

Dra. Vidal said that even though the cord was wrapped around her neck two times, it was such a long cord that there appeared to be no blood restriction. Maybe she got it tangled around her neck when she turned on Friday. No one knows. But one thing we do know, God had made a long enough cord in order to protect her. Had it been a short cord, there would have been serious problems. Thank you God for having your hand on our baby, even before she was born.

Once everything got cleaned up, I had a shower and Carl and I were left to bask in the newness of our baby. We still hadn't picked a name when the guesthouse hosts quietly knocked on the door, asking to see the new baby. They took some pictures of her and left us some beautiful flowers.

After about 30 minutes of looking at our baby girl, we decided on the name of Elena Luz Simone. She didn't look like the other 2 names we had thought might be options. She looked like an Elena.

That evening, we skyped with family and friends to show off our new baby. Dra. Toni and Dr. Montero came back to check on us, and Joel, Kezia and Asha were able to meet their new little sister. They were in awe of her. That night was alright, as the three of us tried to get some sleep.

By 10:00 a.m. on Sunday we started to stir and decided to slowly start to pack up. At noon, Sunny and Dra. Vidal came by to check us all out and then we headed home. By 1:30 we were home, still just the three of us, tired but happy.

Talk about an amazing experience. No one can predict when a baby will be born, but we also realized no one can predict where or how a baby will be born either! I wouldn't have traded this experience for anything. It was so different, just like how the other three birth experiences were unique in their own way.

Thank you Elena for coming at exactly the perfect time, in the most perfect place, in the most perfect way. We love you.