I attended a Village Prenatal two weeks before my due date and a Hāpai Circle less than a week before my due date in hopes to ground myself in the final moments of my pregnancy, connect with fellow mamas and soon-to-be moms, and take the opportunity to be a part of a special community while I still could.
In both of these spaces, we shared our dream births. I loved hearing other women’s thoughts on their ideal births, but it was challenging for me to imagine my own. I easily pinpointed what I did not want that I had experienced in my first birth—the cascade of induction methods. However, when thinking of birthing again, I could only come up with the basics—going into spontaneous labor, trying to go natural, and crossing my fingers that since this would be my second time, the baby would just fall out of my vagina.
I decided early on that I would continue working until I gave birth. I did this the first time and I was not worried about going into labor at school because there’s so many people around and the hospital is only 20 minutes away. I also tend to overthink, so I honestly felt it would’ve been worse for me to stay at home waiting to go into labor.
At my 37 week appointment, the nurse casually mentioned me getting induced. I flat out told her, “No. I’m not doing that.” She saw it on my chart and said the doctors would be discussing it with me at my following appointment. I had a slight freak out and John and I got everything ready that week.
At my 38 week appointment, the doctor said everything looked good, including baby’s ultrasound with the maternal fetal medicine doctor, and we were just waiting. I asked if I had to get induced and she said, as of right now no, but we’ll see you again next week and see. I was so relieved, but frustrated about that nurse making me panic. The silver lining was that we got everything prepared ahead of time after all.
My next appointment was at 39 weeks + 5 days. I went to work and decided to leave a little earlier to get lunch before my appointment with Zaccai, Lola, and Lolo. While waiting for them, I went in a boutique. The shop girl asked when I’m due and I said in 2 days, but maybe today is the day and I started doing squats in her shop. Little did I know…
After we ate lunch, I went to my appointment. As I was collecting my urine sample, I had my “bloody show.” The doctor did my first cervical check during this pregnancy and said I was in early labor! I was dilated 2.5cm and was 70% effaced. I had a non-stress test and baby’s heart rate decelerated two times. The two doctors discussed it and said I needed to go to the hospital within the hour.
I called John to meet me at home, then I called my doula. My doula asked if they had me change positions during the NST to see if baby’s heart rate would go back up, but they didn’t. Then she said I could decide what I wanted to do because ultimately it’s my birth. I can decide how I want to spend the end my pregnancy, I can think about Zaccai and if I want to eat dinner with him and do our night time routine, or labor at home and go to the hospital while he’s asleep. I didn’t realize I had options, but she pointed out that if I needed to be at the hospital immediately, they would have sent me straight there and not let me go home. John and I talked and we chose to spend some time with Zaccai, take showers, pick up dinner, then go to the hospital.
When we were checking in 3 hours later, my doctor on-call called me asking if I was still going in to labor and delivery. 😅 They had me check-in without filling out paperwork because their protocol is to treat people in my case like an emergency. It was getting real!
Once we got to our L&D room, the nurse told me to undress, put on a hospital gown, and we’d start the induction. It felt so sudden! My doula planned to come to the hospital whenever I wanted her to, so I called her ASAP. She reminded me that I could say no to anything because it’s my body and my birth.
The nurse checked my blood sugar because I had gestational diabetes and thought it would be high since I had a Philly cheesesteak right before. It was great at 98!
At 5:45pm, I was put on pitocin. The nurse did a cervical check. I was at 3cm dilated, soft, 70% effaced, and -2 station. I asked the nurse if I would be a good candidate for a foley bulb and she said no since it only gets you to 5cm dilated and I was almost there. At 6:05, she upped the pitocin to 4 and my doula arrived at 6:10. Baby had some heart rate decelerations. I drank tea while John filled out the hospital forms. I got another nurse at their shift change and at 7:10, she put the pitocin up to 6. I wasn’t feeling anything.
At 7:40, my doctor did a vaginal exam and I was still at 3cm dilated. My doctor said she could break my water, but I asked to wait and see if the pitocin would make my water break. At 7:50, I changed positions to lie on my side with the peanut ball between my legs and the pitocin was put up to 8. At 8:15, it was upped to 10 and my doula had me take arnica.
At 8:45, pitocin was put up to 12 and I started to feel a little pain in my legs. I began to feel nervous since my labor pains with Zaccai were only in my outer thighs. My doula said pregnancies and births are never the same, so she would be surprised if I had the same leg labor pains. At 8:53, the pitocin was put up to 12.
I had a glucose check at 9:25 and my blood sugar was at 90. I switched sides, the nurse upped the pitocin to 14, and I for sure was having leg cramping, but wasn’t sure if I could feel any contractions. At 9:50, I switched sides again and my doula massaged my legs with arnica oil. The nurse upped the pitocin to 16 at 10:05. They were going to check on me at 11:30.
My doula talked to us about whether I wanted to get some movement in like bounce on the yoga ball or get some rest because I may be pushing soon. John and I decided we should all try to get some sleep. My doula went down to take a nap in her car and let us rest. I really started feeling a burning sensation in both of my legs and tried to call my doula to talk about getting the epidural. When we discussed my birth plan, all I had in mind was that if I were to go into spontaneous labor, I wanted to try to go unmedicated, but if I got induced, I wanted the epidural. She said I can say anything I want during labor, but she’ll only know that I actually want to get the epidural if we use our code word “blueberry.” At this point, I knew the leg cramping was going to be my labor pains and would get increasingly worse. I also knew that none of the nurses or my doctor on Oahu at Kapiolani had ever seen anyone have leg labor pains and everything they came up with to help me manage the pain didn’t work. When my doula didn’t answer her phone, I texted her the blueberry emoji at 11:18. She called me back and said that she wanted me to be confident in whatever decision I made and she would support me either way. I told my nurse I wanted the epidural.
The anesthesiologist had to put in the epidural twice and it was terrible. I’m glad John got to be there this time since he had to leave the room at Kapiolani. After the epidural was put in at the right placement it was 1:00am. The epidural helped relieve the leg cramps and I was finally able to rest a little.
My doctor did a vaginal exam and I was 8cm dilated at 2:03. She asked if she could break my water now. I didn’t feel any gushing or anything when my water broke. Right after, she said I’d have to start pushing. I called my doula and told her “The baby is coming!”
My doctor was very direct in instructing me to “PUSH!” Every time I pushed, she put her pointer and middle fingers in my vagina and pushed down in a V. Even with the epidural, I was able to feel uncomfortable pressure from her fingers. After several pushes while lying on my back with my doctor and nurse intensely saying to “PUSH!”, I asked when I could change positions because it was easier for me during my first birth to push while lying on my side. My doctor said to keep pushing while on my back because I wasn’t even pushing for that long yet.
My doula came back in time for when I was pushing and at this point reminded me that the baby needed to travel down the birth canal, go through my pelvic bone, and turn their head. She also said that my first push in the series of three was the strongest, so to hold on to that. That explanation and encouragement gave me determination for my next push and my baby was born at 2:35am! John announced, “It’s a boy!” with a laugh because we all thought he was going to be a girl.
I pushed 6-9 times for 18 minutes! John cut the umbilical cord. I held my baby as my doctor was tugging on the umbilical cord still connected to my placenta. She said the placenta was stuck at the top of my uterus and stuck her arm in my vagina all the way up to her elbow to manually scrape the placenta from my uterus to get it out. She pushed down on my belly and lots of blood and clots came out.
The nurse asked if I wanted John to do skin-to-skin instead while this was happening, but I didn’t want to let go of my baby. I got stitches for a minor internal tear.
He was born with cheesy yellow vernix, so the doctor recommended to not delay bathing since some of it was gunky and in his eye. They cleaned him off and did all the tests, vitamin K, and Hep B shot.
Everything was normal and the three of us were transferred to our Mother & Baby room.
It was so nice to have Zaccai and Apo be the first to meet Azariah in the hospital. Zaccai sang his little brother the Happy Birthday song. <3
Lolo, Lola, Mama Letty, Gma, Gpa, Ikit, Uncle Chris, and Auntie Kiana came to meet him too. And brought me flowers, pancakes, mango bread, sushi, and coconut water!
We are a happy ‘ohana of four!
And I’m forever grateful for my doula.
