It has been a whole sixteen weeks since I’ve given birth to Annabelle. I was just sitting in the kitchen talking to my mom and Hubs about how fast the time has gone. If these past sixteen weeks have flown by this fast, I’m scared of how quickly the next eighteen years are going to go.
It’s finally time! Hubs has urged me to share my birth story and after re watching my birth video for the millionth time and still shedding tears, I figured I should finally share.
I’m just so proud of myself.
Let’s go back to Monday, April 2nd. I had already been on Maternity Leave for two weeks. I was 40 weeks and 6 days. Hubs didn’t want me staying home alone in case I went into labor, but I didn’t want to be anywhere else BUT HOME in case I went into labor. But to appease him and my parents I ventured out of my house and to theirs instead so that I could hang out with my sister.
It was around 2 pm and Dannie was going to drop Jay off at school then to run some errands for my mom. She wanted me to go with her, but I was NOT leaving the house. My biggest fear was leaving and my water breaking or contractions starting and them being so painful I would forget everything that I planned for in my Birth Boot Camp class. So Dannie and Jay leave and I stayed sprawled out on the couch at my parents house. I really wish I remember what I was watching, but I have no clue. It was probably The Real Housewives or some other trashy reality tv show. They are one of my guilty pleasures.
So I’m sitting on the couch and I have to go to the bathroom. I get up, I go. No big deal. I come back, lay back down on the couch and a couple of minutes later it started to feel like I had peed in my pants. I started thinking, “Seriously, Amber!? You literally just went to the bathroom! How in the world did you just pee again!?” As I’m talking to myself in my head, the front door opens and in walks Adelita. She comes, says hello and I decide to go to the bathroom again so in the event that I did have an accident that she would not see. I will spare all of the details of my second restroom visit and just say that at that time, I was pretty sure that my water had just broken. I freaked out because now I was no longer alone and I couldn’t let Adelita know my water had broken before telling Hubs, so I made up and excuse that a package was being delivered to the house and took off.
It was around 3:30 by this point and Hubs wasn’t going to get out of work until 4:15. I wasn’t sure what I should do, so I texted him. He immediately called me and told me that I should call my midwife and let her know. I didn’t think it was a big deal since I wasn’t in any pain so I decided to just go home and just hang out until he got back. Well as soon as I unlocked the front door, that is when I felt the big gush of my water fully breaking. I go to the bathroom AGAIN and finally call my midwife. At this point I still wasn’t in any pain at all, but she still wanted me to go in just so that they could confirm it was my water.
I get there, Adrian meets me there and sure enough, my water had broken and I was 3 cm dilated. My midwife gave me three options. I could go to the hospital and be induced, go home and do absolutely nothing to wait for my labor to progress, or I could go home and drink castor oil and pump and do everything that I could to get labor going. Hubs and I had prepared for a natural, unmedicated birth and my midwife knew this, so when I told her we were going with option three, she wasn’t surprised at all. She reminded me that since my water broke at 3:30, I was now on the clock and would only be allowed about 24 hours for my labor to progress naturally before baby would absolutely have to come out. It was finally go time.
Since I wasn’t in any pain and was still feeling really good, we didn’t want to tell any of my family. I felt that it would be best to keep this to ourselves because I felt like their excitement was just going to make me anxious. There was only one person that we decided to tell and it was going to be my mom because she was going to be in the room with my during my delivery so we wanted her with us at the house that night in the event that I needed to go to the hospital in the middle of the night.
Around this time it was about 5:30 and we left the doctor’s office, dropped off Hubs’ truck at the hospital, and took off to my parents’ house so we could get them to take us out to eat for what I thought would be “my last meal before Annabelle”. Very dramatic, yes, I know. We get to my mom’s and I told her that my water broke and she didn’t believe me. Being that I was 40+6, I had been giving her “tests” for the last three weeks. Hubs had to come in and tell her that this one was the real deal. So off to Jason’s Deli we went!
After Jason’s we took off to Walmart to buy some last minute hospital essentials. Rice Krispy Treats, Gatorade, and the dreaded Castor Oil. My midwife warned me that it was going to be bad, but she didn’t tell me it would be the absolute worse thing that I’d ever ingest in my life. If you don’t know what castor oil is used for when ingested, look it up. If you’ve never tasted it and you don’t need to, I highly suggest NOT doing it. I’m sitting here gagging right now just thinking about it. I legit can’t even write anymore about it, it’s just soooo bad!
Fast forward to about 10pm, I think that is when I finally took the castor oil and started to pump. I was starting to feel contractions, but they weren’t painful. They felt like period cramps. And not even the bad ones, they were more annoying than anything. They weren’t coming consistently, so I wanted to try to sleep, but at the same time I really wanted to get the labor moving so that I didn’t have to be induced.
I feel like I labored like a champ all night. The pain didn’t really get higher than maybe a 4? The hardest part was not getting any sleep. I stayed up all night trying to get contractions coming more regular and when they finally did, they were still only about 7 minutes apart and that only lasted for about 30 minutes. So at 6 am on April 3rd, I called my dad and asked him to bring Whataburger. I’d been up all night and knew I was going to have to go into the hospital soon, so might as well have a good breakfast. He came over at around 7:45 and after I ate I decided to call my midwife to give her an update. Since I still wasn’t in very much pain and my contractions weren’t regular, she told me that she would meet me at the hospital at 10 so we could see whether I would need to be induced.
After getting off the phone with her is when it started to get real. We knew it was only going to be a couple more hours until we would finally be meeting our baby. I showered, shaved my legs, braided my hair, and put on a clean pair of pajama pants and a cami. Hubs and I took one last picture together at home before heading to the hospital. I might’ve cried on the way over there, but I can’t remember. I was just a bundle of emotions. Nervous. Excited. A little scared, but mostly excited.
Once I was checked in, Simone came in to check me. I was now 5 cm. She recommended starting me on Pitocin and because it had already been about 19 hours since my water had broken I knew she was right. It was something that I had originally wanted to avoid at all costs, but I knew it was medically necessary so we agreed.
They started me out on 2 units. I’m not exactly sure that that is the right lingo, but all I remember is seeing the nurse set the screen on my iv to two. After about an hour or so, Simone came back to check on me. She said that I had had a couple of contractions, but I hadn’t even noticed. Because I opened my mouth and said I wasn’t feeling anything, she upped it to 4 units. Then later, 6 units.
It was around that time that I was definitely starting to feel the contractions. They weren’t horrible though because I was still able to laugh and joke around with Mom and Adrian. Simone ends up walking in again and I remember saying, “Ok, I feel them now!” She checked the monitor and I remember her nodding and saying, “Yeah, you’re having some good ones, but I need to see you visibly distressed, so we are going to have to raise it again.” I laughed through the pain and waited for it to get worse. And it did.
That’s where everything really starts to get blurry. It was probably around 5 pm or so. The pain was getting bad. I had a wireless monitor so I was able to move around, but the only comfortable position for me was on my hands and knees and every time I did that, the monitor would mess up and it would say that Annabelle’s heart beat was super duper high.
I don’t remember much, but I knew that there was going to come a time where I was going to want to give up and ask for an epidural. I absolutely, positively, did not want to get an epidural. Like I had said, Hubs and I had prepared for this. We knew that once I got to the point where I wanted to give up, that it meant that I was almost done.
And so the time came. I started crying and asking my mom to please let me get the epidural. She said no. I asked Adrian. He said no. I remember going to the bathroom and holding onto Adrian in the middle of a contraction crying asking him to please let me get it. He hugged me tightly then looked at me in the eyes and said no to me again. We walked out of the bathroom and Simone came in to check on me. She knew that I did not want it, so she suggested waiting a little bit longer.
I had been seeing two different midwives throughout my pregnancy and Simone was the one who was going to end up being the one to deliver Annabelle. She was amazing. She got me moving to try to labor in some different positions. She had me labor in the restroom and in the shower. Then finally she let me get back into bed. By this time I was begging her to check me to see how much farther along I was. I had calmed down a bit and was able to get my mind back to the right head space. I really really didn’t want the epidural, but I was so tired and I just wanted to sleep. I asked her if there was anything else that she could give me just so I could rest for a bit. She said she could give me something through my iv that would give me about 45 minutes to just rest in between contractions, but that she could only give it to me if I was around 8/9 cm. Since I was about 8 and a half, she went ahead and gave it to me.
It didn’t take any of the pain away, but it allowed to me close my eyes in between contractions. It wasn’t much, but it was enough. I was so tired. It was during that time that I felt this weird shift in my back. I could feel Annabelle moving down and I knew that she was coming. I remember opening my eyes and telling Mom and Adrian that they needed to get Simone because she was coming. I closed my eyes again for what felt like a minute and when I opened them I started to see all of the nurses coming in and getting everything ready.
I feel like I remember Simone telling someone that it would only be about 10 more minutes. After that I remember her giving me a little pep talk and telling me when to push. I don’t remember any counting or any of that stuff that happens in the movies. It was more of a, “Come on, Amber. You can do this. She’s almost here. You’ve got this. Just one more push.” I want to say that I maybe only pushed 10 times max, if even.
And finally… she was here!
Annabelle Christine Villarreal was born on April 3rd, 2018 at 7:17pm weighing 6 pounds 15 ounces.
I did it.
Of course I didn’t do it alone, but I felt/still feel so proud of myself. I did something that most people choose not to do. I had my ideal birth experience and I would do it all over again in a heartbeat. Choosing to have an unmedicated delivery and being able to go through with it has empowered me so much. I feel so much stronger now than I ever have before. I wish that I could explain it, but I just have this new found strength in me. All of which I attribute to the Lord.
I also really want to thank my Hubby Wubby and my Momma for being the best support team ever. Hubs, I’m so grateful to have you as my husband. I can’t even put into words how blessed I am to have you by my side.
Ma, I’m sorry that I ever doubted you. I’m sorry for all the drama I caused as a kid. I’m so glad that you got to be in that delivery room with me. Being pregnant and having Annabelle has opened my eyes to a whole new world. It’s strengthened our relationship. Even though you weren’t able to catch her, you were able to be the first person to see and welcome her into this world. I can’t wait for you to tell her this story from your point of view one day.
All in all, being a mother is something that the Lord put on my heart when I was very young. I knew that this is what I was put on this Earth for. I know that it was with his guidance and protection that I was able to have the birth experience that I did. I’m not quite sure how else he is going to use me, but in whatever way it is I am going to shout His praise forever.
What was your birth experience like? Was it everything that you imagined? Who was in the room with you? Would you have done anything different? Tell me more in the comments. I’d love to hear about it.
xoxo,
Amber
