Step by Step Parenting

With the birth of my twins right around the corner, I’ve been reflecting a lot on the first time I gave birth. Not only has it been over five years, so I’ve forgotten a lot, but I also don’t really have it well documented anywhere. Honestly, I didn’t do a fantastic job of documenting any of that pregnancy, something I’ve grown to regret over the years.

Luckily, I kept a journal at the time! Between old journal entires, photos, archived Instagram stories, and my daughter’s dad’s good memory, I was able to piece together my birth story. I know some people don’t like reading birth stories and don’t care to know the details, which is fine. If that’s you, stop reading now! But given that this blog is just as much for me as it is for any sort of audience, I wanted to have a more permanent place to keep this story, and what better place to do that than my blog where I share all about motherhood and parenting?

And lastly, it’s important to note that I was terrified to give birth before I had my daughter, and had feared childbirth for as long as I can remember. Now that I’m nearing the end of my pregnancy with these twins, a lot of those fears are coming back. But my experience birthing my first child could not have gone any better, and typing up this story was a good refresher that positive birth stories happen, too! So without further ado…

On August 28th, 2020, at 5:52pm, Eloisa Montserrat Romero was born. She was 8 pounds 1.5 ounces, and 20 inches long. We were so excited to meet her, especially because I had been in labor for over forty hours!

August 26th: Two Days Before

On August 26th, around 10 o’clock at night, I was sitting at my desk doing homework while Jacobo was at work. Slowly, it started to feel like I was having period cramps, but I knew that was impossible. They were coming and going, but I didn’t really pay much attention to them. However, it eventually occurred to me that any cramping or tightening feeling that was coming and going could be contractions. I decided to message my friend who had had her baby only a month before, and she confirmed that’s exactly what hers felt like at first, too!

I started timing them now that I knew what they were, and they were anywhere from five to ten minutes apart. I knew this part of labor could last awhile, especially if it was your first pregnancy, so I knew that I should get some sleep.

But Jacobo wasn’t home from work yet, and wouldn’t be until midnight, so I decided to stay up until he was home, and then go to bed.

August 27th: The Day Before

My contractions woke me up only a few hours after that, and I couldn’t fall back asleep, so I decided to take a hot shower instead, to see if that would help.

I never ended up falling back asleep, and I spent the rest of the day trying to delay going to the hospital as long as possible. I went for a walk outside, ate a big dinner, and made sure everything around the house was ready to go.

My doctor seemed convinced I would give birth that day. But even though my contractions were frequently less than five minutes apart, sometime they’d taper off to only twenty or more minutes apart. Finally, around 11 o’clock at night, since I had been having consistent contractions for over 24 hours, the doctor decided I should come in, at least to get checked.

It is important to note that at this point, I had been up since… 5:00am…

I snagged one last picture of my baby bump before we left, and we were off!

August 28th: Birth Day!

By midnight, I had made it through triage. The nurses started my IV, and set up a fetal monitor to keep an eye on the baby’s heart rate, a contraction monitor, a heart rate monitor for me, and a blood pressure monitor. Hooked up to all of that, with cords everywhere, and constant beeping, I quickly realized that I would not be getting more sleep anytime soon.

Around one or two in the morning, the contractions ramped up in intensity. Whereas before I just noticed them, these were more painful and lasting longer. I really felt the rise and fall of each one, and it began to take some breathing exercises to get through them. The nurse commented that based on what she could see on the monitors, she was surprised I wasn’t in more pain. She went to grab the doctor so he could check how much progress I’d made in the past 26 or so hours.

I was only dilated to 1 centimeter. This is not what I wanted to hear. I had already been having contractions for over a day, I was in pain, I was exhausted, and I was hungry. I just wanted to go home and sleep in my own bed, and I think I even asked the doctor if I could just leave and get Taco Bell and then come back.

But because (1) I had already been in labor for so long, (2) the baby’s heart rate had dropped a few times during monitoring, and (3) I was dead set on getting the epidural, my doctor decided not only should we put a pause on eating, but that I should get induced.

I wasn’t thrilled about the idea of being induced, especially because of what I had heard about Pitocin (note: I wrote this down in 2020, but now over five years later, I genuinely can’t remember “what I had heard” about Pitocin and was surprised to read this). My two worst fears about giving birth, however, were getting an IV and getting the epidural. I had already survived getting an IV placed, so I told my team that I wanted to go ahead and get the epidural before they induced me.

A few hours later, around 9 in the morning, I was able to get the epidural. I was so nervous about the epidural that when they came to my room to administer it, I was shaking uncontrollably! It ended up being no big deal, and before I knew it, I was ready to go. Once I had the epidural, they started pushing Pitocin, and I finally, FINALLY was able to fall asleep for a few hours. It was my first time sleeping since I had gone to bed the night of August 26th and I was beyond ready for sleep.

I woke up around 2 o’clock in the afternoon, feeling refreshed, but in pain despite the epidural. It was more of a discomfort than true pain, but still, I hit the nurse call button just in case. I was dilated to 4cm, which meant the Pitocin was working and I was finally progressing! All that was left to do was wait. Too excited to go back to sleep, I killed time by FaceTiming friends and family to give everyone an update and chat. Since this all happened during the pandemic, no one was allowed to come to the hospital, so we had to keep everyone updated this way instead.

Around 4:30pm, I noticed something felt different, so I hit the nurse call button again. Everything after this is a blur to be honest! I know when they first checked me I was at 8cm, but shortly after that I reached 10cm and it was time to push. I remember it being another ten or so minutes before she was born, but my ex-husband (who wasn’t drugged up and as sleep-deprived at the time, so we’ll trust his judgment over mine!) insists that it was closer to thirty minutes. Either way, I didn’t notice. Despite spending my whole childhood being more afraid of childbirth than maybe anything else, nothing can explain how amazing it felt to give birth to my daughter. The rush of endorphins I felt when I heard her cry for the first time is hard to explain, but the giant smile on my face says it all. I spent all of pregnancy swearing up and down that I would never go through this again, but the moment I had my daughter in my arms, all of that went away.