Lucy Grace Mendoza Birth Story 6.5.11

It was the weekend and you were three days overdue. Your mommy was determined to try every old wives tale out there to bring you into the world earlier , but we all know that babies come when they are ready! It was Saturday, we had already taken a couple mile long walks in the morning and I was now cleaning every last piece of wood work in our house with murphy's oil soap...still nothing. We decided to go swimming and I got the great idea to tread water in the deep end. After about an hour we headed home and I started having braxton hicks contractions every 6 to 10 minutes. I have had these before and didn't get too excited. We waited a few hours and they were still there and consistent but not yet painful. Since I was already dilated to 4cm since our doctors appointment on Thursday and I hadn't had painful contractions to get me that far we decided we should just go get checked out just in case. It was now 7pm and I very calmly let your daddy know I was going to shower get ready and that we needed to go to the hospital. He was trying not to show it..but he was a nervous wreck! He couldn't even eat dinner! We had a nice drive to the hospital video taped it and all. I joked with daddy that I was sad we didn't have the rush of driving fast to get there in time. We checked into triage around 8pm and was hooked up to the monitor for a little over an hour. I was still contracting regularly and still at 4cm. After the nurse spoke with the doctor over the phone (my doctor was not on call) she decided to let us go home and come back if my contractions got stronger and closer together. So we drove home and daddy was finally able to get some dinner. After getting home I decided to bounce on the exercise ball while watching the rest of a finals game. Within the next hour daddy went to sleep and mommy started to finally feel some pain with the contractions still coming every 5 to 8 minutes now. I waited about an hour and woke daddy up this time a bit less calmly exclaimed that we needed to go to the hospital. It was 1am and we got that rush of speeding back to the hospital (which was 25 min away) as I felt so much pressure with each contraction. We got about a mile down the road and your daddy almost turned around because he realized he forgot his watch to time the contractions. This is when I almost killed your daddy :) Just kidding!! I did not so gently scream at him to keep driving!! We checked back into triage and was told I was dilated to 7cm with a bulging bag of water. The nurse said you're not going anywhere! We got admitted and within an hour my water broke on its own and I was at 8cm right after. By around 4:30 I was completely dilated and ready to push..there was just one small problem we had to wait for the doctor! Luckily during the waiting time I was able to stand up in between contractions to go pee as I felt so much pressure from trying not to push you out! The doctor arrived and around 5am I started pushing. You were born at exactly 6am Sunday morning with Daddy and Grandma Meck there to cheer us on. The rest of the family was right outside the door to hear your first cry. Your daddy did such a great job of encouraging me and keeping me calm! My goal was to go all natural and with his help I was able to do it without an epidural! Words can't explain the feelings we felt as they placed you up on my belly. You were finally here and you were perfect in every way!! Welcome to the world Lucy Grace!!