Our birthing story

Ok I figure a week is enough to get over the initial shock of giving birth...time to write about it.

As I said in the last post, I woke up Thursday morning with tell tale labor signs. Knowing it could still take days to deliver, I assured Gian that he could go to work and I would call him with updates. The day went on normally and my mom and I went for a long walk to encourage the baby along. Around 6:30 pm I called Gian and told him that my contractions were very weak but becoming more regular and averaging around ten minutes apart. I wanted to at least go to the hospital and have the experts tell me whether or not I was in labor. Gian came home and we decided to park the car in Trastevere (we live right above Trastevere in Monteverde) and walk the 15 minutes to the island hospital since I felt good and wanted to help speed along my labor. The entire walk there was calm and I was very excited. I kept thinking, if this really is labor, I can totally handle this without an epidural! HA!!

Once we got there, we very calmly checked into triage and they hooked me up to a machine which read my contractions and the baby's heart rate for about 30 minutes. Then they checked my cervix. I wasn't dilated at all and my contractions, though close together, weren't very strong. They decided to discharge me and send me home. The doctor told me since this was my first birth, I could go on like this for a few days. I told him I had a feeling we would be seeing each other sooner than he thought.

We left and started walking back to the car. On our way there, my contractions started getting stronger, and actually a little painful. Where I was walking and laughing through the contractions before, I now had to stop and breathe through them. They were also getting closer together.

We stopped and bought a bottle of wine and decided to grab some pizza at a local place near our house. Gian dropped me and my mom at our building and drove off to park the car and grab the pizza. As I was getting my keys out, I felt a rush of wet warmth on my jeans! I knew my water had finally broken. At the same time I had a horribly strong contraction and felt like I couldn't even walk! My mom didn't know where the pizza place was so I had to run to the restaurant with wet pants and in the middle of a very strong contraction.

When I got there I saw Gian and yelled out "my water broke" in English and with extreme pain and discomfort on my face. I must have looked so desperate (and I was) because the pizza guy looked at Gian with a face like who is this woman and what does she want? Gian said "Her water broke" in Italian and then proceeded to calmly pay and wait for the pizza to be wrapped up nicely. Then we ran to the car and Gian drove like a madman to the hospital. I told him that I knew the baby was well on his way. At this point I was feeling so much pain, there was no way that I wasn't dilated.

We got back to the hospital and they checked me in again. In that 45 minutes it took to leave the hospital and come back, I had already dilated about 3 centimeters, which is fast. I went out to the waiting room to tell my mom and Gian what was going on, and waiting for the wheelchair to take me up to the delivery room. I was in ridiculous pain. Gian and my mom would try to comfort me by rubbing my back and I would scream at them to not touch me. I feel very badly about it now, but I just was going into a panic.

Once I got up to the delivery room I was in a complete, full on panic attack. I didn't know what to do, what to think, how to breathe. I felt like I was in some torture movie. I was banging on the walls and screaming that I couldn't do this. As much as I felt the pain, I also felt like it wasn't really happening to me, like I was having an out of body experience. I walked into my room and said "Give me an epidural now" and they said they had to wait to examine me first and so I said "well then give me a C-SECTIONNNNNNNN, now!!!!!" Anyways, once I had the epidural, I was able to calm down and be in the moment. I still felt A LOT of pain though, girls, so don't be disillusioned into believing that an epidural takes away the pain. For me, it just took away the panic and allowed me to focus. But I was in an extreme amount of pain.

I was dilated to 10 centimeters within 3 hours and only had to push for about 30 minutes. My entire labor was just under 4 hours. For those of you that don't know, that is extremely quick for a first time mom. I am so proud of myself because I was really strong and was able to really focus on pushing and breathing through the pain. Gian was also so supportive in the delivery room, talking to me through everything and reminding me of what we learned in our breathing classes. He let me squeeze his hand as hard as I could! He even videotaped a lot of the evening. We have memories that will last forever.

Part of our life plan is to have 3 children, but during labor I kept telling Gian that Gabriel was going to be an only child. I was convinced that I wouldn't be having any more children. But now, I have forgotten all the pain, and can't wait to introduce more children into our family (all in due time). Having a child, especially going through the labor, is the most beautiful experience in life. It is impossible to put into words. Gian and I are so much closer now after going through those 4 hours together in the delivery room. We watched the birth of our son together, watched him take his first breath, scream his first scream, and it was an impossibly difficult time but I got through it with his support and encouragement. It was and will always be the best day of my life. Welcome baby Gabriel, we love you so much!