oh man! i still can't believe i brought in another tiny human into the world. his entrance into the world was fast and furious.
started getting contractions around 8:00 PM
left the house at 9:50 PM
got to the hospital at 10:00 PM
delivered the baby at 10:46 PM
he came at 38 weeks and 6 days exactly (i was expecting around 39 weeks, just like with mya). i had a checkup scheduled for that morning and i used the toilet before i left the house. when i had wiped, i noticed some blood on the tissue, which meant my mucus plug was coming out. it sounds grosser than it is but essentially it's tissue that plugs up your cervix to protect anything from going up to the baby and when it comes out it pretty much just looks like slightly bloody discharge. (let's normalize talking about bodily functions, y'all!) it can start coming out as early as 2 weeks before delivery, but for me with mya, it literally came out one hour before i started having contractions, so i thought the baby was gonna be out soon after.. it was about 10 AM so i texted carlo to be on standby and then i told my boss that it might be soon too.
got to my doc appt and it was uneventful. at my previous checkup, they said they would check how dilated i was, but they still didn't check me at this appointment.. their reasoning was that people just get fixated on how dilated they are and that really doesn't mean much. meh. well, i kept working all day as nothing progressed. around dinner time i did start having random sporadic contractions here and there, which just felt like a long, mild cramps, except it felt like it was on the surface area of the entire front side on my belly and not just like, the stomach area.
after dinner, around 8, while we were getting ready for Mya's bedtime, i started getting contractions more regularly but they felt fairly far apart. i looked at the clock for one of my contractions and it lasted 45 seconds.. again it just felt like my entire belly area was tense for the entirety of that time and i had to clench my teeth during that time while still talking and playing with mya. at that time they FELT fairly far apart to me, but Carlo said he was looking at the clock and it was already pretty consistent at about 5 min apart. 5 mins is what the doc recommended us to call to go in. knowing how fast i had mya, i knew i didn't wanna mess around and wanted to go in at that 5 min mark..
of course it was a night that mya wanted to keep reading books and sleep late.. she wanted to keep going til 9:30 that night (she's usually down by 9) and by that time, the contractions felt more and more uncomfortable. i was kept shifting positions while still sitting in a chair or floor reading to her and was really uncomfortable but didn't want to make anything seem off or weird to her.
FINALLY she went down and i knew i wanted to shower before going to the hospital. at that time i had an inkling my contractions were 5 minutes apart, but hadn't timed it. (when i was talking later to carlo he said it was around 8 that they were already 5 minutes apart and pretty consistent since he was looking at the clock..)
i was gonna take a quick shower anyway and it was then i finally realized how close my contractions were. i already had 1 contraction while taking my clothes off, and then another one in the shower - and i had already planned to take a lightning quick one. it already started feeling pretty intense like they were happening from both my stomach AND my lower back that going on all 4s with my head down was the best position to feel comforted. that was when i told carlo that we had to go to the hospital and i already felt like i was behind knowing that i should have left when they were 5 minutes apart.
we left the house at 9:50. thankfully the hospital is only about 5-7 minutes away. the doctor checked how dilated i was. i could tell in her eyes that she was surprised and she was checking around down there for a while.. in my head, i was like WHAT IS IT??! she was still checking me while i was having a contraction and i was just wriggling and super uneasy and uncomfortable. she finally said, "you're 9 cm dilated and ready to go!.." (10 cm is when your body is ready to push). she really didn't expect me to be ready to deliver and THAT dilated based on how calm and collected i was .. i asked, "how are people usually like when they're 9 cm dilated?" the nurse said, "not having a full conversation!" they were all surprised that i was THAT close to delivering seeing in the calm condition that i was in.. IDK.. to me, contractions are only difficult when they are happening and i just kinda brace down when it happens and breathe through it. when they're not happening, honestly it's just like normal.
i forgot exactly what she said to the nurses, but something like i was 9 cm and my bag was engorged? i guess my water bag must have been close to popping but didn't pop by itself. even with mya, my water bag never officially popped, it just came out while i was changing to a hospital gown when i got admitted. they called all the necessary people to come get ready and transport me to the delivery room. they got me into a wheelchair and wheeled me off for probably like 30 seconds, but i was having a contraction at that time, so it just felt like FOREVERRR and i was miserable. the wind when they were pushing me in the chair felt particularly cold, maybe because i was just in the hospital gown too. they got me into the bed and everything's kind of a blur after that. she popped my water bag for me - i didn't hear any water coming out or feel anything different or additional to my contractions - just saw that she used some kinda tool inside me O_O.
after that, she said, "okay, whenever you're ready to push, we're ready.." I was like.. alright.. and braced for my next contraction and started pushing. of course just like the first time, my body wanted to do the opposite of what you're supposed to do (i.e. my body just wants to keep my legs closed when i'm going through my contractions, whereas you're supposed to open up your legs and knees to push to make way for the baby). i already knew this from last time, but my body is in so much pain that it does what it wants. in new york i think they were much more gentle so i took longer to push mya out because i was doing it all wrong but they wanted to be patient and let me do it on my own. this time the nurses were almost yelling at me and probably more forceful at holding my legs and that's why jackson came out in 5 minutes (mya came out in 45). maybe that coupled with the fact that my contractions were probably more strong this time around and working better too.
omg it was so painful to push but i knew to just think of pushing it exactly the same way you would push a shit. i was still so convinced that it was a shit and not a baby that i said it too and the nurses were like - nope, it's your baby, we know that's what it feels like though! jackson came out literally one or two pushes after that, and i was still there baffled and surprised like.. damn, i can't believe i just pushed out a baby and that i have a baby in my arms right now...
I'll write more about recovery and how we're all doing and how the baby is and everything probably another time. my milk finally came in yesterday and so i think his body is adjusting to how to eat and digest and and he couldn't sleep much last night (aka we didn't sleep last night and pulled our first all nighter T___T)
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