My Birth Stories Part 1 - Samuel

I decided I wanted to record my birth stories, because it is always interesting to read about other people's experiences of their children's births, but also so I would have them archived for my children to read later. So, here is the story of my first birth, the birth of Samuel John Lomelino.

It was 11pm on January 29, 2005 when I first started having very very mild contractions - very much an early labor stage. In fact, I didn't even realize I was having contractions. I was still over a week from my due date, and not planning on having a baby any time soon. I went to bed and had a very UNrestful night of sleep, having mild contractions all night, but not realizing what was going on. Then I finally got up out of bed at about 3 or 4am, not being able to sleep anymore. I didn't wake Jason up yet, but I sat at our kitchen table and wondered what was going on. I was definitely in total denial, until I started watching the clock and realized that something unique seemed to be happening every 5 or so minutes. I was slightly excited and a bit concerned, thinking there was a possibility that I was in labor. Finally at about 5am I woke Jason up and called my doula. Mostly I just wanted to ask her if she thought there was any way that this might be labor. She instructed me to drink some absurd amount of water over the next hour and lay on my left side. She said if I still kept having contractions after this, call her. I proceded to drink the amount of water she recommended, but had to spend most of the hour on the toilet instead of my side. I continued to have contractions, called her back and reported this, and then was told that I was probably in labor. After letting this sink in, we called our parents and told them, and then I tried to take a shower and pack a bag in the midst of contractions.

I have no concept of time, but I guess about 3 or 4 hours went by and I was just "doing the labor thing" - having contractions, trying to breathe deeply, ya know! Then we decided to go to get something to eat at a local restaurant called Silvergreens. It is right by UCSB, so it was full of college students, and I was doing okay, but every 5 minutes or so would have to stop what I was doing and have a contraction and try to breathe deeply through it, making very low moaning sounds, and I am sure anyone who payed any attention to us was probably really wondering what in the heck was wrong with me!

Finally when we got back home I asked Jason (my husband) to call the doula and ask her to come over. I could tell I was starting to get more out of it and was going to need more help soon. So, she came over probably around 2 or 3 in the afternoon and helped me get into different labor positions and go for walks around the block every half hour or so. Things were starting to pick up, and finally around 7pm we decided to go to the hospital. After a grueling trip to the hospital (I had major back labor and sitting in a car was almost unbearable), we made it inside and they checked me, I was about 4 cm dialated. From there, I continued to progress, slowly but surely, and was at about 8 cm by maybe 1am. I spent most of that time laboring on the birth ball with my doula doing some serious hip squeezes and massage on my back to help with all of the back labor pains I was experiencing. So, finally around 1am when I was 8 1/2 cm, the nurse checked me and said I had a "bulging bag of waters" (aka, my water had still not broken and was right there in the opening, keeping me from dialating completely). So, she took it upon herself to "pop" my bag of waters, and then I pretty quickly dialated from there. However, just before I was at 10 cm, I started having an uncontrollable urge to start pushing, and the crazy nurses told me to not push yet. It was the most miserable part of the whole labor when my body was telling me to push, but the nurses were telling me not to. So, I tried as hard as I could with each contraction to not push, until finally another nurse came in and said I could start pushing. Praise God! It felt so good to start pushing at that point.

So I think I pushed for about an hour and a half, and the baby was finally starting to show himself- part of his head was visible each time I pushed. But then the nurse came in and said that the baby's heart rate was showing up the same as mine, so something was not being read correctly. Soon after that, the doctor showed up saying he needed to get a better heart beat on the baby, and he ended up having to put an electrode thing into his scalp to get a reading. When he did, it showed that Samuel's heart rate was way too low, and the doctor calmly said that he needed to get the baby out right away, so he did an episiotomy and with the next push, Samuel came sliding on outat 3:37am. It was a major relief in many ways, because it felt like I had been pushing forever and I wasn't sure how much longer it was going to be before he came out. He was 6 lbs. 15 oz. and 20 in. long.

They put him on me for a second, but then had to take him over to be checked out because of the heart rate thing. Then they took him to the nursery and said he was having very mild breathing problems, so they kept him for an hour or so, and got me all set up in my room, then brought him to me. I tried breastfeeding him, which is a crazy thing to learn at first.