On Friday, March 6, I began feeling contractions around 9pm. They were very minor, feeling more like cramping than anything and not painful at all. I began tracking them anyway, and by 1am when they were still coming, I decided to call my mom. She had a two hour drive ahead of her and even though these contractions weren't painful and not very consistent, I decided it would be better to call her earlier than later. After answering my call, my mom hopped in the car and got here in an hour and a half ... Record time! Unfortunately, by the time she got here, what I thought were contractions had completely stopped. So we all just went to bed for the rest of the night.
The next day (Saturday), we were all eagerly waiting for the contractions to come back. They didn't. But we decided having my mom stay until baby came was the best option, rather than have her drive all the way home and have to come all the way back on the drop of a hat. So Jack, my mom and I spent Saturday, Sunday, and Monday doing projects around the house, taking walks and spending time with the kids at home and at the park. It was actually a very productive and yet relaxing and fun few days.
On Tuesday, I had a prenatal checkup and asked for Maria to see if I was dilated since I had so many hours of contractions on Friday. She checked and I was 4cm dilated and 80% effaced! That's practically halfway through labor without really ever being in labor! She reminded us that when the time came, it was going to happen quickly, so to be prepared. That night, Jack, my mom and I played Scrabble after we put the kids in bed, and decided to pause the game for the next day when we noticed it was getting late (I was in the lead! JETTED - 62 points!). I was especially exhausted that night. Around 3am on Wednesday morning (March 11), I was in the middle of having a dream. In my dream I was using the bathroom, when I suddenly woke up and found that my pants were slightly wet. I thought, "Did I seriously just dream I was peeing and then I actually peed my pants?!" So I got up to use the bathroom, noticing my mom was awake on the couch (she had a few nights she had trouble sleeping). I went to the bathroom and felt the need to sit and wait a minute, then feeling a gush of fluid come out. Did my water just break?! When I wiped, I noticed a tinge of blood and realized that it was starting. So I quietly called my mom’s name. She came right away and I told her the situation and to call Carlee, my sister-in-law, to come to the house to watch the kids. She did so while I was figuring out what to do to get myself back to my room for a change of clothes and to wake up Jack.
Jack excitedly got out of bed when I told him the situation and we all started getting things together (changing clothes, zipping up our suitcases, eating a few snacks and measuring my contractions). Up until this point I had no contractions. Nothing. The ones I had the previous Friday were barely anything ... Not even painful, barely noticeable ... But as soon as I got back to my room after having my water break, they were starting and these were DEFINITELY contractions. They were much more intense, but I could still talk and move through them. But since we knew I was so far dilated, and the hospital was a 20 minute drive, we knew we needed to get to the hospital soon.
Carlee got to our house around 3:45am and we left shortly after. On the drive there I could still talk through the contractions, but they were coming closer together and were much more intense. We pulled up to El Camino Hospital in Los Gatos and had to enter through the ER. I needed to sit in the car through a contraction and then walked inside. They wheeled me down to the Women's Hospital where we met Lin, my midwife. She measured me and I was 6cm dilated. To be honest, I was a little disappointed to be only 6cm. I thought for some reason I'd be further along than that. I soon got the chills really badly, and needed Jack and my mom to hold my legs still while I was on the bed in the labor and delivery room because I was shivering so badly. Though I thought my water had broken at home, the bag was still in tact when Lin checked. She said the top of the sac might have broken at home, but the bottom was still full of fluid. I asked her to break the rest of my water to get things really moving. Once she did, she recommended I go in for a hot shower to warm me up while I labored for a bit. I loved it in there. Jack was holding my hand while my mom reminded me to breathe through the contractions and Lin brought in candles and rubbed lavender oil on my belly and arm. All very relaxing. A this point the contractions were very intense and I had to mentally remind myself to relax my body through them. It’s really a time of such intensity. A few thoughts I had running through my head during this time:
- I remember telling Jack that we weren’t going to have any more children
- I was singing “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, theres just something about that name. Master, Savior, Jesus, like the fragrance after the rain. Kings and kingdoms will all pass away, there’s just something about that Name.”
- The words of my friend, Julie Alvarez (who had, a week prior, had her third baby), running through my head, “You have more time without a contraction than with a contraction …” and other things about contractions that she had experienced.
- Visualizing the baby actually moving down through the birth canal with each contraction and the more I relaxed, the more she would move down
After about 30 minutes in the shower, I really felt the urge to push. I kept telling Lin I wanted to push and she encouraged me to wait through one or two more contractions. When I told her after another contraction that the urge to push was strong, she told me, “You know your body better than I do. If you want to push, push.” At the end of that contraction, my body naturally pushed a little bit, so I asked to get out of the shower and I was getting really warm anyway. On the way to the bed, I looked up and saw the hospital wrist bands for the baby laying on the table on the side of the bed. I remember from my birth with Seth that when the nurse gets the baby’s wristbands ready that means that delivery time is near, so that little peek really encouraged me that I was almost there. I had another contraction come just before I got to the bed, so I braced myself with my arms at the end of the bed and ended up pushing through the whole contraction. My body didn’t want to stop pushing. I felt Lin checking my cervix and then yelled out toward the hallway, “Elizabeth, we’re going to have a baby!” (Elizabeth was the nurse). I was still standing on the side of the bed, leaning over onto my elbows and found my mom’s fingers in my hands. Lin gently asked if I wanted to sit on the bed but I wanted to stay right where I was. She was massaging my lower back as another contraction came. I pushed through that whole contraction too (and apparently was squeezing my mom’s fingers SO incredibly hard!). And this time I felt as though half the baby was out. I just kept pushing even though the contraction was over and sure enough, little Cora Belle Osorno was born at 5:39am on Wednesday, March 11, 2015 (on my Grandpa Hull's birthday ... he would have been 85)! Both Jack and Lin were on the floor, catching her as she came out. Then Lin passed her to me through my legs and instructed me to turn and sit on the bed. It was in that moment that I realized what this was all about. So crazy, especially after having three children, that I forget the immense joy that comes after laboring. I know, after 9 months with her in my belly, feeling her move and listening to her heartbeat at each checkup appointment, that I have a baby in my tummy, but until I actually saw her face and held her in my arms, it’s almost surreal.
I had no issues with excessive bleeding, like I did with Olivia. And my recovery has been the best out of all three kids. All glory belongs to the Lord. I give Him all the honor.
But what really astonishes me from this whole thing, is the thought that, if it were up to me and Jack, Cora wouldn’t be here right now. She wouldn’t be here at all. Ever. Because of the fear we experienced in my delivery with Olivia and my uncontrolled bleeding and the chances of it happening again with more children … we decided we were done having more biological children and instead were pursuing adoption. It was FEAR that was going to keep us from more abundant LIFE. It was FEAR that was going to keep us from BLESSING. It was FEAR that was going to keep someone else from loving God and bringing HIM GLORY. I praise the Lord for the “oops” of becoming pregnant with Cora. Already in her 5 little days of being born has she brought so much joy to our family and I imagine so much joy to her Heavenly Father.
