Luna's birth story

As I write this, I've got a sweet sleeping babe on my chest that has been here all day enjoying sweet skin to skin snuggles. While Mamamia sleeps beside us in a cot. At the hospital.

What a ride the last 24 hours has been for us. 

I woke up yesterday to a gorgeous, beautiful spring like day. Benicio immediately wanted to go outside and play. So we ate our breakfast and got ready to meet our friends at the park. It was a great time and it actually felt hot in sun. 

The weather here has been extra dreamy the last few days. We've spent lazy sunny mornings listening to records with Daddy while reading magazines. Benicio kept going for Vice. 

Lots of strolls around the neighborhood daydreaming about our future and reminiscing about the past. It's been sweet. Those days where you feel like wow - today would be a perfect day to have a baby.

After the park, we came home and took naps. I woke up before Benicio so I went and took a nice hot shower. 

A little back track, I felt light contractions last Wednesday then harder ones Thursday night which convinced me I was going to go into labor Friday but nothing happened. So I stopped saying today was the day and was just going to keep on.

When I got out of the shower, I felt the urge to pee. I stood up when I was done and peed more - this happened a few times and I thought oh great heres a fun new pregnancy symptom - I can't control my bladder. But then I realized it wasn't pee but that my water was leaking. WOW! I called our midwife so she could come over to check me out. Called Bobby so he could come home and let my mom know. I wasn't feeling contractions so I didn't want to get too excited. This was at 3 pm.

By the time Bobby and Janet got to the house, I started having mild contractions that were about ten minutes apart. They started to get everything prepped while I went to Benicio's room to get in the zone and try to get contractions going. Benicio was with Mamamia running errands and playing outside. Nipple stimulation really does work, haha. The contractions quickly picked up I ntensity and were coming every 2-4 minutes. 

I kept feeling like I had to go number 2 which meant the baby was posterior/sunny side up. I did everything I could think of to get her to flip but it felt like there wasn't any room. I labored on the toilet and that really increased the intensity of the contractions - my whole body was trembling. I got in the pool for maybe twenty minutes and got a little too relaxed. Things slowed down. So back to the toilet I went. I was progressing fine and contractions were building intensity but baby wasn't descending or flipping to an anterior position. She was moving and kicking but no flips. By 12:25 am I had fully dilated. It's expected that with second babies things normally move quicker. Benicio's labor was only 6 hours and this was already over 9. 

When I was fully dilated I started to get the urge to push. It's one of the best and worst sensations. When baby is in position it feels great. The contractions were super intense and my body started to involuntarily push which was putting too much stress on the baby. Around 2:30 am, our midwife suggested we go to the hospital and get an epidural to try and rest and see if it relaxed my muscles enough to turn baby. 

That was the worst ten minute drive of my life. It was awful. I was screaming and trembling and pushing. Once we were checked they got us to our room and started prepping me for an epidural. The needle didn't hurt but having to curl your body up into a ball and hold it like that through contractions sucked. Once it was in I quickly felt some relief but baby didn't like it. Her heart rate started acting funny and the doctor said she wasn't comfortable with it and said we needed to think about a c section.

I'm all for homebirth/natural birth, living a natural lifestyle, etc but I also realize and respect that hospitals are here for a reason. 

From here it got emotional - obviously. With teary eyes we hugged our dear midwife and got wheeled off to the operating room. Things moved pretty quickly. All the doctors and nurses in the room were all women who were so supportive of us trying to birth naturally. Respecting and understand all the hardwork I had been doing for the last 12 hours and then accepting the fact that my baby had a plan of her own.

At 3:18 am we heard the sweet cries of our baby. Bobby and I immediately started telling them to not announce the gender we wanted to see. To see our sweet baby GIRL. My first reaction when I saw her was OMG she's huge and adorable. She looked like a ten pound baby. Her initial weight was 8 pounds 9 oz! No wonder she didn't have room to turn. As it turned out, she had a knot in her cord and was covered in a lot of meconium. They had to take her to the nicu to make sure she didn't aspirate any. 

Bobby stayed with her while I was wheeled off to a post op room. My body felt like it was in shock. I was trembling like crazy and felt like I was freezing. I was also super sleepy. I feel asleep for about an hour and when I woke the trembling had stopped. My nurse told me the baby and Bobby were on their way. The pediatric dr immediately apologized for having kept her away from me longer than expected - which wasn't a big deal since I needed to rest. She put her on my chest and pretty much immediately latched - strongly! She's been here happily all day.

From here they took us to our room and we all passed out. Once we woke up, Bobby and I started talking about a name. We had never decided on a girl name. For some reason there was one ringing around in my head and I felt like it fit her perfectly. Bobby actually picked this name a few months ago and I shot it down. But today when I saw her I thought - MY LUNA. Here you are. We've been waiting for you. Ready to bath you in love and bring you home sweet baby. Luna.

For her middle name we picked Carmen after my Mamamia. 

Luna Carmen Power

Our daughter

And just like that she's here. Earthside. With her own story. And it already feels like she's always been here. Always been a piece of us.