Hi little one :)
It's 11:11pm on the night you were born and I'm not tired so I thought I would start your birth story before I forget.
Yesterday, Monday morning, I started losing some of my mucous plug. I didn't tell anyone because it can still be many days until labor actually begins. I felt good all through Monday, just having a few painless Braxton Hicks contractions throughout the day, like usual.
Last night when I went to sleep all was normal, but the two times I got up to go to the bathroom I had a few Braxton Hicks contractions again, but they were still not painful. I went to sleep and when I woke up at 7am with your brother I started noticing that the contractions were getting a tiny bit stronger and they were coming about every 15-20 minutes or so. They were still super irregular though so I didn't think anything of it, just thinking I was warming up. I still didn't tell Daddy or Lela Carmen because I didn't want to worry them in case it was nothing.
After your brother left for school, I had some breakfast and then went upstairs and took a shower. All was well and I straightened my hair, but over that hour, from 8:30-9:30am, the contractions started becoming closer together. They weren't painful, but I had to stop to concentrate on them. I went to a few contraction timer websites and started timing the contractions. They were still irregular, but coming 4-6 minutes apart and lasting 20-65 seconds. The midwives asked that I call when the contractions were 5 minutes apart, lasting for 1 minute, for 1 hour so I knew I wouldn't be calling for a bit.
Downstairs your Lela Carmen was making a lasagna and Daddy was applying for a job so luckily they didn't check on me much or they would have seen what was up. After my hair was done I started packing last minute things in my hospital bag and brought the birthing ball upstairs to sit on through contractions. The contractions were coming every 4-5 minutes now, but still weren't lasting long so I would sit on the birthing ball and hop around or go on hands and knees on the bed while I listened to Coldplay's Paradise on repeat (if you end up liking that song when you get older, you'll know why). I was still feeling good at this point, so I decided to listen to one of my hypnosis birthing cds. That's when things started getting a bit more intense. I couldn't relax as easily through the contractions even with the hypnosis.
Around this time, your brother came home from school. I think I was subconsciously waiting for him to come home before going to the hospital because Daddy kept telling me how traumatic it was for him when Grandma Mayela went to the hospital to have Tio Toti without telling him. I didn't want him to come home and not see me there. Your brother came home and told me about an upcoming pajama party at his school and then asked for a bunch of snacks. I had one contraction when he was telling me about the party and then was about to have another one when he asked me for the snacks so I had to head upstairs.
I finished all my packing and then called Daddy upstairs. I told him if he could bring the stuff to the car because I was having contractions. He looked surprised, but Daddy sprang right into action. He got all the stuff in the car and then I asked him to time my contractions, but at this point they were coming every 4 minutes so I had him call the midwives. When he called, he was told Kala was on call today (my favorite midwife!) and that she would call us back to check in. She didn't call back so Daddy called the midwives again and I asked if I could just head to the hospital. They said that was fine and that they would let the hospital know we were coming.
