hola, isabel

Babboo is a year old today. It’s been an amazing year and nothing I could say would be an accurate desciption of the amount of love we have for our little guy. He has changed our lives and made us better people.

In honor of this special day, I finally present you with the birth story, that I should have posted a long time ago.

Click to read the story and see a video of his first year on this earth.

Being 8 days overdue should be against the law.

We were schedule for the induction on Sunday the 16^th. Easter Sunday, when we would rather be at Church or with our family. We were told to wait by the phone. We were told not to call them. They would call us. But they didn’t call us on Sunday. Or Monday. It wasn’t until later Monday that I finally called my doctor. Just to remind her that yes, we were still waiting. My doctor was at the hospital and told us she’d she what was going on. The hospital finally called us and asked if we were still interested in coming in for an induction. Still interested? Yeah, we were interested in having this baby. I asked the nurse on the phone if it was all right if we were there in an hour. Which she said was fine.

I had heard rumor that you should take a shower right before you go into the hospital, because it might be the last one you get for a few days. I needed some time for what might be my last shower of the week.

I showered, did my hair and make-up, put on some cute clothes, grabbed our hospital bag and we headed to the hospital. We got there at about 6:30 pm.

It was a little alarming how fast they got us into our room, my clothes off and me hooked up to the monitors to track my contractions. They were already five minutes apart. The nurses were surprised when I told them I couldn’t feel anything. Apparently I was having regular contractions and was probably in the early stages of labor already.

I began to question why I wasting my time putting make-up on or even combing through my hair. I just knew we were there for the long haul and that I would be cursing my make-up in about 8 hours. Or 8 minutes, for that matter.

The nurses gave me the pitocen and left The King and I alone in our hospital room. I’m pretty sure we were both in shock. Mostly because it all just happened so fast. Within a few minutes the nurse came in and asked if I was ready for them to call for my epidural. Which I wasn’t. Hey, this is easy. It doesn’t hurt at all. I can totally do this.

The nurse really pressured me, saying that it would take about 20 minutes for the anesthesiologist to get here once they called him. I looked over at The King who was sitting at the foot of the bed. “No, we’re fine. I can handle this for a little longer.” Again the nurse pressured me to call for my epidural. I figured that she must know something I didn’t. I told her to go ahead and call for the anesthesiologist.

The anesthesiologist was there in 20 minutes, like promised. And pretty much it was about 18 minutes too late. By this time I was feeling the contractions and they hurt. They hurt more than any pregnancy books have ever said. They hurt more than I could have imagined. I kept looking over at The King with this upsetting scared look on my face. He didn’t know what to do, how to help me.

When I felt the first contraction I knew I had made a mistake with this whole pregnancy thing. It hurt so bad that I wasn’t sure how I was going to deal with this. I knew my own limitations and I knew that if I had to put up with that for any length of time I would have to die. Seriously, why didn’t any of you all tell me how bad contractions hurt?

I didn’t feel the epidural go in. I was too busy hoping it would start working before I had to feel yet another contraction. Before I jumped sky high and was forever paralyzed. It only took moments for the pain to go away, for the feeling in my legs to leave. I was instantly calm and confident again.

Okay, I can do this.

We knew we’d better try to get some sleep. We knew it was still going to be a while before the baby was born. We’d read the books and attended the classes, so we knew what was going on. The King made himself a little bed on the cot next to me and I relaxed in my hospital bed. We were able to get as good of a night as sleep as you can with someone coming in every hour to check your cooch.

I was progressing nicely for the first few hours of labor. But as would be my luck, eventually I stopped progressing as nicely. I didn’t care since I was too focused on getting some sleep. I figured that the baby was going to come, so what if he didn’t come until morning-when I would be well-rested.

The night nurse was so great and really made us both feel at ease. She was a young, upbeat girl, and I liked that. She kept telling me what a good job I was doing and how proud of me she was. Heck, I could do this in my sleep. Oh wait, I was. She also told me that the baby’s heart seemed to slow down with each contraction. Fortunately, they weren’t worried about it. Phew

Around 9:00 the next morning the doctor who was working that day came to check on us. She wasn’t my regular doctor and I was a little sad about that. I realized that my doctor, the doctor who had been so wonderful during my miscarriages and my pregnancy, wouldn’t be the one to deliver my baby. This new doctor was very lovely, but she wasn’t what I was used to. She wasn’t the person I had assigned to this role during countless daydreams about the birth of my baby.

Dr. New (as we’ll call her) again told us that the baby’s heart rate was a little questionable. Again, nothing that she was worried about. So we didn’t worry. After a few minutes of small talk she said, “I think it’s time for you to push.” I was taken aback by how calm she was. What? You want me to push? Now? You mean we’re about to have a baby? A real baby? Holy crap!

Two nurses came in and joined Dr. New. They were my cheer section and they were great. I pushed when they told me to and I felt great when they assured me I was doing an impressive job. I kept pushing. It was easy. I was sure this baby would just slide out in no time. I kept my eye on the clock, just to see how fast I could push this baby out. I wanted to be one of those ladies that is all; I only had to push 2 times before the baby came out.

I started to push at 10:00 exactly. I remember when the clock showed 11:00. That hour felt like 7 minutes. It literally flew by. An hour into it and I was still pushing. I was trying so hard to get this baby out. The King was next to me the entire time telling me how proud he was. He even said “I can’t believe you’re doing this.”

I also didn’t feel a thing. Really. Not a thing.

A little after 11:00, Dr. New said that things weren’t going so well. We were surprised since things seemed to be going famously on my end. Even my nurses said I was doing a great job. The doctor said that the baby seemed to be in distress. His heart was slowing down. He wasn’t moving down the birth canal. He was all turned around, and stuck.

We were told we had two options at this point. Either we could opt for a C-section and start on that process immediately, or the doctor could try to manually roll the baby over and see if that would set things back in motion. The doctor told us that if we went for option 2 and it didn’t work, we may end up with an emergency C-section.

I turned to look at The King. I wanted the two of us to quietly and calmly discuss our options and decide what we felt was best for our little family. I never wanted to have a C-section. I especially didn’t want one after all that we had been through already. The doctor informed us we didn’t have time to think about this. We needed to decide NOW.

I told her I didn’t want a C-section, but that we trusted her and wanted her to do whatever she could to make sure that the baby and I were safe. We told her we wanted to go with option 2. We wanted to try to get this stuck baby, well, unstuck.

The doctor told us she would have made the same choice. I breathed a sigh of relief knowing that my first decision as a mother wasn’t the wrong one. She told me to stop pushing and she quickly proceeded to try to use both hands to manually turn the baby over in the birth canal. You can only imagine how this is done.

I didn’t feel a thing. Really. Not a thing.

The King looked at me with complete horror in his eyes. His face was completely white when he said, “are you sure you can’t feel that?” I was sure. I didn’t feel a thing. He later told me it looked very painful and very horrible. Again, I can only imagine.

The doctor had managed to turn the baby over. I started to push again, which is a million times easier then not pushing. The baby immediately turned himself back over and got stuck again with the first contraction. His heart rate also continued to slow down with each contraction.

I would have to have an emergency C-section. I began to cry uncontrollably. I felt like a failure, especially after I had labored all night and pushed for over two hours. Through my tears I told The King to call my mom. She was waiting with The King’s mom at their house.

They rolled me into the operating room. Within about 5 minutes I was hooked up to even more machines and had even more tubes coming out of both arm. The King was on my left side and the anesthesiologist was on my right side. He assured me that this would take less than 10 minutes. I was crying and The King kept wiping the tears off of my face with a tissue.

It was all too fast. It had literally been minutes since I had been in my hospital room pushing. Minutes since I was on my way to having a baby the way I had originally planned. But now here I was strapped to a bed with tons of strangers standing over me, looking at my naked body and huge belly.

I was so scared. The King had to be scared, but he seemed so calm. He made me calmer, as best as he could. He was literally my hero. I just kept looking at him in the eyes. I didn’t look away. I couldn’t look away.

The anesthesiologist told me that I would feel “touch and pressure, touch and pressure”.

I felt them cut me. I felt them pulling at the baby to get him out of the birth canal. Touch and pressure, my ass. I felt it. It hurt. I was still crying when I turned towards the anesthesiologist and told him this was taking way longer than the 10 minutes he has promised me. I started to scream. I was hurting. I was scared out of my mind.

I knew when he was born. I felt them stop pulling at the baby inside me. I saw The King’s face when he saw the baby for the first time. He immediately started to cry. I asked him if he was okay and he said he was. They took his little body over to examine him. I could just see him, but he looked miles away and all fuzzy without my glasses on. I told myself that I could pass out now. I had seen the baby and knew all was well. The King left my side to go over to get a closer look.

I closed my eyes and went to sleep.

I woke up what felt like 5 hours later. I was back in my original hospital room. I could see our mom’s standing over by the window trying to stay out of the way. I saw The King and a nurse with the baby at the foot of the bed. The nurse brought him over to me and put him to my right breast. She helped him latch on. Which he did without any problems. I was in a daze, but awake enough to still know what was going on, to know that I wasn’t comfortable with our mom’s seeing my boobies. The King told me it had only been about 30 minutes. Our mom’s must have rushed to the hospital.

Our mom’s wanted to know what his name was. Yeah, so did we, since we still weren’t sure. We really hadn’t come to a final decision before he was actually born. I looked at The King and said “is it?” He said it sounded good to him. It was hard for me to say the name out loud after keeping it such a secret for so long. I don’t think I had ever even said it out loud before.

“His name is Babboo.”

And then I went back to sleep.

(The final belly shot.)

That, my friends, was probably that last uninterrupted sleep I’ve had in the last year.

(The video was removed. E-mail me at holaisabel at gmail dot come if you missed it and still want to see it.)