January 20th, 3:20am
I’m not sure if it was the dream I was having or the pain
from the contractions, but one of the two woke me up. I started to count the breaths during
contractions and the minutes in between while still in bed until Ethan woke up
and came into the room asking for me to lie down next to him on his bed. I walked over to his room and sat on his bed,
tucked him in and waited for him to fall asleep. When I returned to my bed, I woke Daniel oppa
and asked for his opinion as my contractions were consistently coming every
7-10 minutes. He suggested waiting it
out as long as I could since it was still very early in the morning. With that said, I tried to go back to sleep
until the kids woke up to start the day.
[Daniel] I was sleeping.
7:35am
I called Kaiser Labor and Delivery to ask for their
thoughts. When I told the nurse how long
the contractions lasted and how far apart they were, she felt that I should
wait at home until the contractions were closer apart. Having had 3 false alarms with Ellie, I
agreed. I got off the phone and started
to get ready for the day. I got the kids
dressed and gave them breakfast before taking a shower. When I got out of the shower, I felt that my
contractions were feeling stronger and were coming every 5 minutes so I called
my mom to let her know that we were going to drop off the kids soon.
[Daniel] Could this be happening today, right on his/her
due-date?
9:30am
We got the kids ready to go to my mom’s house and headed
towards Union City. In the car, my contractions
were consistently coming every 3-5 minutes and going over the speed bumps in my
mom’s complex was so painful! Because
the kids were happy to see their uncle at home, we were able to head to the
hospital knowing that the kids were going to be okay.
[Daniel] Yup; looks like today could be it; time to text
Pastor Jun that I won’t be able to make it to church.
10:15am
We arrived at Kaiser Hayward, Labor and Delivery. It was a little funny when we got to the
hospital because Daniel oppa acted as if it was the first time! Hehe… The nurse I spoke with over the phone
ended up being our nurse for the day. J We got settled in the triage room and waited
for someone to check my progress. Looking at the monitor and comparing the
graph of my contractions to the other moms’, it seemed like my contractions
were not as strong as I thought.
[Daniel] This happened last time too, when the contractions
seem to slow down just as we get checked into Triage…
11:00am
The midwife came in to check how far along I was in
labor. She found that I was 6cm dilated
and kept commenting on how “cool and calm” I looked. I totally didn’t feel that way when the
contractions came and went, but I was sure glad to hear that I was 6cm dilated…
thinking “I only have 4cm more to go!”
So, we were admitted and taken to the labor and delivery room.
[Daniel] Yay! Here we go (again)! Time to get admitted, and
marvel at the fact the new birth will cost us $250. That’s already $750 for all
three of our kids.
11:30am
The nurse came in to put an IV on my arm. While she was doing so, she told me about how
she has three kids and about how she wanted epidural as soon as she came into
the hospital because she wanted to be on her “best behavior” in front of her
coworkers. She and the other nurse were
very encouraging and kept saying what a good job I was doing as I sat and
breathed through my contractions. The
nurses left and Daniel oppa and I just passed the time on our phones. Daniel oppa went out and brought back some
lunch. I wasn’t very hungry so I didn’t
eat, though the midwife said that it would be okay to eat while I’m in labor
especially since I didn’t plan on getting an epidural.
[Daniel] Surprised to find the Hawaiian bbq place had now
been replaced with a Chinese takeout place; figured I’ll give that place a try,
and ordered some orange chicken. I won’t be going back there again.
2:00pm
After passing the time by standing, walking, and sitting, I
decided to lie down and take a nap since I didn’t sleep too well the night
before. I lied down on the bed and tried
to rest while Daniel oppa also tried to nap on the chair beside me. Then, a little while later, I felt something
leaking so I pressed the call button and the midwife came in to check on me. I told her I felt something leaking and so
she decided to check to see if my bag of water had broken.
[Daniel] What is that on bed???
2:35pm
When the midwife checked, my bag of water was not quite
broken, so she told me to bear down on the next contraction, which then caused
the bag of water to burst! She said I
was 9cm dilated and felt that I could deliver the next time I felt an urge to
push. The nurse came in to prepare the
room for delivery and they left for a few minutes. Daniel oppa seemed so surprise that we were
getting ready to delivery so soon.
[Daniel] Whoa! That was a lot of liquid! And just like that,
we were preparing to deliver the baby. I wasn’t mentally prepared yet.
3:00pm
I felt an urge to push so I called the midwife in. She came in with a different nurse and both
of them seemed surprised to see me look so calm getting ready for
delivery. After the first push session,
the nurse had a hard time finding the baby’s heart beat, so the midwife called
the doctor in for a second opinion. The
doctor said that everything seemed fine, especially after the baby recovered
from the pushing and had a steady heart rate.
The next time I pushed, the baby’s head was out, but his shoulders were
stuck, so everyone told me to keep pushing until finally, baby Ezra was
out. He let out a small cry, but with
the cord wrapped around his neck, his body looked blue. However, the nurse and midwife, quickly
unwrapped the cord and got him under the warmer within seconds and then, we
heard a loud cry as his body turned red.
Whew!
[Daniel] Before I knew it, after a few pushing, the baby’s
head became visible and started to come out. When they said s/he had a lot of
hair, we thought perhaps a girl, but then it’s always unsettling to see the
nurses pushing all sort of buttons and calling for doctors ASAP. Baby somehow
managed to squeeze out, and the body was purple! How shocking! There was a bit
of entanglement with the cord which was quickly removed, and then the baby was
out! They took him under the heat-lamp and squeezed out rest of amniotic fluid
and massaged him to ensure proper blood flow, and within a few seconds, he gave
a loud and continuous cry, much to our relief. Whew. Let’s not do that again.
3:15pm
When the nurse weighed baby Ezra, he was 8lbs 1oz! We were totally surprised since Ethan and
Ellie were both under 7lbs at birth!
Nonetheless, we were so happy to finally meet our baby BOY as he was
placed into my arms.
[Daniel] Good job Michelle! This one came out rather
quickly, albeit with a bit of drama. Perhaps a future drama king?
