Your Birth in Detail...

Daphne, now that I have a little time, I'm going to tell you a bit about your birth and your first week of life.

Your birth was horrible. It started on Saturday night. I had a feeling I was going to have you soon, and a little while after the initial setting in of that feeling and really strong braxton-hicks contractions, I started to get what seemed to be really painful, REAL contractions. I say they "seemed to be painful" because I had not yet experienced active labor contractions. Your dad was awesome. He tried and tried and tried to keep me comfortable and distract me from the pain. We attempted to watch Fight Club in an effort to keep my mind from the pain. This went on from 10:00pm that night to 4:00am the following Sunday morning. Around 4:00am, we decided to call up the midwife and go in. I was pretty convinced by then due to the intensity of my contractions that I was in active labor. When we arrived at Redlands (where the birth center is located) the midwife checked me and I was barely dialated a finger. I highly doubt her measurement was accurate. She had me take Benadryl to try to go to sleep and sent me back home which was horrible. It's a 30 minute drive full of dips and bumps and potholes. I forgot what time I called her the second time; it was probably around noon. So we go there for a second time, and I've barely dialated an inch. She lets me get into the birthing tub, and it got cold quickly. Tania and Teresa arrive and try to help me out. I'm sent home again, and the drive is hell. Your daddy, through all this, has been beyond helpful and understanding. I'm yelling at him and being short-tempered, but he still is patient and understanding. I think I hurt his feelings quite a bit.

Around 9:00pm on Sunday, almost 24 hours after I had started labor, we return to the midwife only to be told that I had only dialated an inch. SOOO inaccurate. I know this for a fact. I finally decide to go to the hospital and the midwife escorts us to Loma Linda Medical Center through the ER. I go to the labor and delivery ward and luckily get a private room. At first, I immediately wanted an epidural, but changed my mind after talking to the anesthetist. The OB/GYN there checked me and said I was four centimeters. Two hours went by and the contractions got increasingly worse. They got so bad that my legs would give way when I tried to walk them off. I finally decided to get an epidural. So they called the anesthetist again and he was very nice about giving me one. I had to stay very still which somewhat scared me because I could barely contain myself when I got contractions. It wasn't bad at all though, and the epidural was successfully executed. They had to stick a catheter in my bladder because I lost all control down there. After being numbed from waist down, I'm finally able to get some rest. I knock out until about 7:00am, I think, maybe a tad earlier. It was really funny because when I woke up, I was very alert and ready to push, but when the time came to actually push, I started getting really drowsy. Go figure. So at 9:00am, I started to push. When Daphne started to crown or beginning to, a strong desire to just sleep overcame me and I asked the nurse if I could stop and start a little later. She kind of laughed and said no. I was really sad. Well not really, but I was kind of pissed at myself for wanting to give birth so badly. I should have just waited and let the baby descend more. Nevertheless, Daphne was born 12 minutes later, just was my epidural was running out. It didn't end there, though. I was given stitches galore, had to be transferred onto a wheelchair, and wheeled over bumps to my room.

Oh yes, I forgot to mention, the doctor thought Daphne had passed meconium while in utero and a team of doctors had to work on her. So I didn't get to immediately hold her. Emmanuel got to hold her first! It was also a good minute before I heard her cry because they had to vacuum out her lungs or something to that effect. She was very healthy though, and I very much doubt she really did pass meconium.

The end. I know not all my verbs agree, but this was written in fragments. So forgive me. There also may be repeated instances. Oops.