I know it’s been a while since I posted so I’ll go through the events the week leading up to the birth of Joaquin Oliver.
Sunday 2/5 – in the evening I contracted what Jorgito had been suffering from the day before… an awful GI virus. I mean seriously awful. My body went through some crazy cleansing and I couldn’t even hold water down for 12 hours. It caused some contractions but nothing regular.
Monday 2/6 – Jorge stayed home from work to take care of me and Jorgito. I was supposed to have my weekly midwife appointment but I was physically too weak to go in.
Tuesday 2/7 – I went into the midwives with the intention of having my membranes swiped. I was disappointed to discover I was just a fingertip dilated and 70% effaced. So, there was no way to strip my membranes but I did receive a gnarly cervical massage. And although we were 41 weeks 1 day pregnant, everything was fine with both me and baby.
Wednesday 2/8 – I went shopping in the morning and just rested and recover from the virus.
Thursday 2/9 – I had an 8:30 am biophysical profile appointment. They said the baby weighed 9lbs 11oz and I scored 10/10. Everything looked perfect and the baby was measuring just 2 days behind at 41 weeks, 1 day. Then I went to my first acupuncture treatment where Dong-Phuong Nguyen told me that I eat too much starch which has clogged up all of the ligaments that need to release allowing my baby to come out. She prescribed 25 minute walks twice daily followed by an extremely hot 15 minute bath with 2 drops of each frankincense, myrrh and lavender or rosemary. She also said she’d need to do a total of 3 treatments. So I went home, went for a walk, and took my bath.
Friday 2/10 – I went for an early walk & took my bath then went to my second in one week midwife appointment. Darynee told me to take homeopathic cimicifuga and caulophyllum which are black and blue cohosh. So I took the first day’s doses.
Saturday 2/11 – I started my second day of homeopathics which was a 2 hour dosage at 7am then went for my weekly 8:00am chiropractic adjustment followed by my 11:00am acupuncture treatment. The acupuncturist cleared a lot of “blockage” in my sacrum and lower back then told me that for sure after my 3rd and final treatment on Monday morning, I would go into labor. During the treatment I felt Joaquin responding by moving and adjusting the whole time. In the evening we went for a walk then I took my bath and pumped from 7-7:30pm.
Despite all of these efforts, I had zero contractions.
We went to bed at 9:30 Saturday night and much to my surprise I was woken up at 11:30 with a contraction. Then 5 minutes later still lying in bed I had another one. And they continued to come 5 minutes apart. I woke up Jorge and he laid the tarp on the carpet and inflated the tub then went back to bed.
I stayed in bed sleeping in between contractions until 2am when I couldn’t anymore. I got Jorge up and called my mom and sister Natalie over. While waiting for them we started to prepare the bed and fill the tub. My mom, Natalie and Luz my brother’s fiancé all arrived around 3am. Natalie started taking pictures right away of me and the birthing environment we had prepared. By now I was leaning over the side of the bed during contractions with Jorge massaging my back. This was exactly the same position we were in when I labored Jorgito out.
Twenty minutes later Natalie told me that I needed the midwives to come so I called them and they arrived at 4am. They took our vitals and I knew from the sounds that everything was fine with both me and Joaquin. I was very tired though since I’d only slept two hours and they were concerned about me not having enough energy to birth the baby quickly. So they started offering and offering but I didn’t want to eat. I got tired of saying no so I had a few bites of chicken from the chicken soup my mom made. Since 2 am I had been drinking tons and tons of vitalyte.
At this point, I felt like the contractions had slowed down and there was lots of pressure on me to get the baby out. Nobody said anything to pressure me. I just felt everybody’s excitement and anticipation. I had after all made them come over in the middle of the night. Luz and Natalie hadn’t even gone to bed yet! Everybody was waiting around. Natalie and Luz were trying to nap on the couch and my mom was in the family room too I think. I stayed in my room the whole time despite Jorge encouraging me to walk around. Darynee stayed in the room just watching the whole time. I was worried I was wasting everybody’s time and we would be here for many many more hours. Jorge covered up the clocks so I couldn’t see the time.
Even though each contraction felt different from the next it seemed like the same thing happening over and over and things weren’t going anywhere. Some contractions hurt my mid back, others my low back and others were in my hips. I decided maybe I should get in the tub. Darynee said it may help but if after an hour nothing changes then I should get out. So at 5am I got in the tub. It felt like the contractions had stopped. I had a few but I guess the time between them just felt like forever or everything was in slow motion. My feet even started to fall asleep. So I’d change positions and rest sitting down. But when I contraction began I couldn’t handle them in that position and had to try to move during the contraction back to my knees which is a painfully difficult task.
Then they started to get worse and I had to rest my head on the edge of the pool. All of the contractions from then on I was on my knees with my arms hanging over the edge. Through each one, Jorge would come around and massage my back. In between he would give me water or put a cold cloth on my head and arms.
At 5:38 (according to the midwives) I started pushing. I didn’t have a strong urge to push, I just noticed my body grunting a little bit at the end of each contraction and it felt better that way. My mom asked me a couple times if I wanted her to wake up Natalie but I thought I would still be here pushing for a couple hours and wanted her to get her sleep.
Somebody decided to wake her up anyways because she was there when the big one came. It felt like the longest contraction of my life. The pushing urge had gone away but the pain would NOT stop. It felt like it lasted 2 or 3 minutes and I was begging for it to stop. I felt for his head but it was still a little far up. And I had a good long break after that contraction but then another one came. It felt like I would have one really hard long push then a light one and they alternated like this. I felt everything inside of me and was telling everybody else what was going on. The midwives never checked me for dilation. I felt his head come down to what I thought was crowning and almost there. But then it went back up what felt like inches. I thought it would take a couple more to get him back down but I think it just took one more for him to stay down and another one or two to push his head out. It was such a relief to have his head out but also a very weird feeling just waiting there for the next contraction. And it came so we pushed and his body came out. I know I asked is he out because I felt done but they said almost not yet and I thought why not?! Turns out 22.5 inches takes a while to get all the way out. Darynee announced that he was being born in his caul. Then I realized my water had never broken. So at 6:15 Joaquin Oliver Jimenez was finally born after just 6 hours 45 minutes, 37 of them pushing. I turned over from my kneeling position and my baby was passed to me under my leg so I could bring him to my chest. He felt so small. I quickly began having horrible cramping but had to wait for good contractions to deliver the placenta. So there I was in the tub elated holding my baby. I had returned to consciousness and could hear everybody in the room although I couldn’t take my eyes off of my baby boy.
I was so surprised that through all of the moaning and grunting and people in the house Jorgito never woke up. My mom did go wake him up seconds after his baby brother was born and he joined in our celebration. It was the best feeling sitting in the tub holding my baby and looking into his eyes with Jorge and Jorgito looking over my shoulder.
He was finally here, we had done it together.
He didn’t cry loudly or breathe much but the midwives reassured me that it was okay because the cord was still pulsating. They just made me rub his back to help him work out all of the fluid.
I was still uncomfortable and wanting the placenta out. I had completely forgotten that the awful afterbirth pains wouldn’t go away with delivery of the placenta but would last another 4 days. So I passed Joaquin to Jorge and returned to my knees for one final contraction and the placenta was out. When they fished it out they put it in a chucks pad and both the baby and placenta were carried to the bed while I got out and dried off.
When we got in bed Joaquin started nursing right away, within 30 minutes of birth while his cord was still pulsating! I was checked to find there was no tearing! Finally it stopped, Jorge was able to cut it and the midwives proceeded with the newborn exam where we discovered that Joaquin weighed 10 pounds 6 ounces!
Now the Jimenez family is perfectly complete.
Amazing!
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