Lorenzo is eight weeks old now (what?!) so I really wanted to finish writing out his birth story so that I didn’t forget all the little details! My labor and delivery went nothing how I imagined it would, but it’s our story and I wouldn’t change it for anything (even though if you had asked me in the moment, I’m not sure I would have felt the same haha). It’s a long one, so grab yourself a coffee and get ready to hear how Lorenzo made his entrance into this world!
I’ll preface this by saying that I really enjoyed being pregnant. I looked forward to being pregnant my entire life, and my pregnancy journey with Lorenzo was everything I hoped it would be. I was very lucky to have a healthy + easy pregnancy for the entire nine months, and I am so grateful for that because it allowed me to really enjoy and appreciate that special time of carrying my baby around, just the two of us. Because I had such a smooth and comfortable pregnancy, I was convinced from very early on that I was going to go past my due date, which was June 22. Spoiler alert – that didn’t happen 🙂
Leading up to labor
About 10 days or so before Lorenzo was born, I really started to feel the discomfort that comes along with being nine months pregnant (I had felt great up until this point). My belly also started feeling VERY crowded – to the point where I was uncomfortable, and it seemed like the baby felt cramped inside of me. He was constantly jabbing his elbows and feet out as if he was trying to switch positions to get comfortable, and my previously perfectly round belly had all these lumps and bumps from all the limbs sticking out. I could just tell he was ready to come out, and at that point I realized there was no way I was going to go past my due date like I had thought.
My last doctor’s appointment was on Monday, June 8 for my 38 week check up. I was 1 cm dilated at that point, which meant I was starting to make progress towards going into labor, but my doctor said it could still be a while before anything happened. The rest of the week I just ended up laying around and trying to rest because of how tired and uncomfortable I was feeling.
Going into labor
A few days later on Thursday, June 11, I woke up with some mild contractions. I had had Braxton Hicks contractions off and on throughout my entire third trimester, so this wasn’t anything out of the ordinary and I didn’t think much of it. But I felt even more exhausted than usual, so I ended up taking a nap and not moving from the couch for most of the day. Funny enough, after my nap I turned on the TV and all the Friends episodes where Rachel goes into labor and has her baby happened to be on – I should’ve taken that as a sign 🙂
The contractions continued off and on the rest of the day. Dario was convinced I was going into labor, but I still wasn’t sure. It’s so hard to tell the difference between false labor and actual early labor when it’s your first baby! Around 7 p.m. I decided to start tracking my contractions just to see if there was a pattern. At first they weren’t very consistent, but they progressively got stronger and more frequent. Around 8 p.m. was when I finally gave in and realized I was definitely going into labor!
Since everyone talks about how long first babies take to arrive, I wanted to wait out the early stages of labor at home for as long as possible before heading to the hospital. I figured as long as I wasn’t in unbearable pain, I would rather be comfortable at home than laying in a hospital bed for any longer than I had to. Plus we only live 10 minutes from the hospital, so I wasn’t worried about not being able to get there in time. Dario and I spent the next couple of hours getting some last minute things around the house ready for the baby before we had to leave.
A little after 1 a.m., my contractions went from mild to extremely painful VERY quickly. We immediately hopped in the car at that point and headed for the hospital, and by the time we got there I could barely walk from the car – I had to stop and pause every time a contraction came. We got checked in fairly quickly and I was sent back to a triage room on the labor & delivery floor so the nurses could check me and confirm that I was in fact in labor.
My birth plan
Throughout my pregnancy, I thought about my birth plan and how I wanted my labor and delivery to go. While I went into the whole experience knowing that I would be flexible if anything unexpected were to happen, I still imagined Lorenzo’s birth going a certain way and had some expectations going into it. Of course I planned on delivering in the hospital with my doctor, and had every intention of receiving an epidural to help manage my pain and allow me to enjoy the process of labor (as much as possible, anyway). I pictured Dario and I calmly arriving at the hospital when I went into labor, taking one last bump picture in my room, and recording some videos for our family. Dario had even made plans with my doctor (who also happens to be one of his med school professors) to help deliver the baby, which was going to be SO special. As it turned out, none of those things ended up happening (besides delivering in the hospital – thankfully that did happen).
It just goes to show you that no matter how well you plan your birth ahead of time, you have no way of knowing how it’s going to go until it happens. Not to say you shouldn’t have any sort of plan – you should definitely have a loose outline of how you’d ideally like things to play out. But I think the most important thing going into it is to be flexible and to not have too high of expectations of how you think things will or “should” happen. That way you’re not setting yourself up for disappointment in the event that something unexpected happens. More often than not, I hear women talk about how their births went nothing like they planned – and there’s nothing wrong with that!
Laboring at the hospital
When I got to the triage room at the hospital, a nurse checked me and said I was 4 cm along. I let her know that I had been having contractions for a while at home and was in quite a bit of pain at this point, so I was ready for my epidural as soon as possible. She told us that because of hospital policies and certain protocols that had to be followed, it would be a little while before I received the epidural – probably at least an hour. At this point, I was in full-on active labor and in a lot of pain. I couldn’t imagine waiting a whole hour for an epidural, but I didn’t have a choice. I couldn’t believe how fast my contractions had progressed from mildly uncomfortable to unbearable. Of course I expected there to be pain associated with labor, but I was completely unprepared for how quickly things escalated. Taking photos and any other plans I had were completely out of the question – I could barely breathe through my contractions at this point, let alone do anything else.
I spent the next 3.5 hours laboring in 10/10 pain without any pain medication. My contractions were already back to back at this point, so I had almost no break in between them to catch my breath or get any sort of relief. I found out later how uncommon it was for things to progress that quickly given that it was my first baby – it usually takes several hours of labor to get to this point.
I’m not going to lie – my labor wasn’t an easy experience and not at all how I imagined it going. I think what made it worse was how completely unprepared I was for a natural birth. I had never considered doing it all natural, and I wasn’t prepared with any breathing exercises or coping mechanisms to help me through the intense pain. I assumed I would rely on the epidural to get me through it, so when that wasn’t an option, I didn’t know how to cope and just ended up writhing around in pain, trying my best to breathe and shaking uncontrollably for my entire 3.5 hour labor. Let me just say that after this experience, I have SO much respect for women who CHOOSE to give birth without pain medication! I’m not sharing these details to scare anyone who’s expecting or planning on having a natural birth. I hope that you’ll learn from my experience and go into your own labor more prepared than I was, knowing that anything could happen! Whether or not you’re planning on using pain medication, I definitely recommend researching some different ways to cope with labor pains, like breathing techniques you can use and different positions you can get in to try to find some relief (no one told me about the back and pelvic pain I would experience on top of the contractions!). Be sure to share the coping mechanisms with your husband too (or whoever will be in the delivery room with you) so that he can remind you what to do and help guide you through it. It’s so important to have someone by your side advocating for you during labor!
Poor Dario couldn’t do anything except sit there and watch me in pain. He didn’t leave my side the entire time and did anything he could to try to comfort me, like rubbing my back and reminding me how strong I was. He kept asking the nurses for an update on when my epidural would be ready and when I would officially be admitted (I was still in a triage room at this point and not in an actual labor & delivery room). We still don’t fully know exactly what happened or why our hospital’s epidural process takes so long, but unfortunately it was completely out of our control.
Time to push
Around 4:30 a.m. – three hours into labor – I started feeling an intense urge to push. The nurses checked me again and I had progressed from 4 cm to 7 cm. At this point they finally decided that I was in fact in labor and could be admitted to a delivery room. Once I got to the room, they had me sign the paperwork for an epidural and told me that the anesthesiologist would be there soon to place it – finally! I was SO relieved! As this was happening, my water broke and the urge I felt to push intensified even more. A nurse checked me again, and in the few minutes it took them to transfer me from the triage room to a labor & delivery room, I had somehow dilated to almost 10 cm. Everyone was shocked at how fast things were moving. I knew that being at 10 cm meant the baby was coming SOON, but I asked anyway:
“What about my epidural?”
I distinctly remember the nurse looking away from me, like she didn’t want to make eye contact when she broke the news to me: “There isn’t time.”
Honestly, I was scared. Scared about the pain I would feel, scared about the fact that an on-call doctor who I’d never met would be delivering my baby, and just scared about not knowing what to expect. I feel like that’s something that’s not talked about very often – how scary it can be having a baby for the first time. It’s such a valid emotion, since going through the process of labor and delivery is a lot to handle, both physically and mentally. Fortunately, in that moment I didn’t have much time to think about it. The doctor walked in and barely had time to introduce himself and put on gloves before I started pushing – that baby REALLY wanted to come out!
The process of pushing lasted maybe five minutes. The on-call doctor was amazing – he told me exactly what to do and where to focus my energy, and I popped that baby out in about five pushes! I was so focused on pushing that I didn’t even realize he was out until all of a sudden the doctor placed him on my chest. I always figured I would cry at that moment, but all I could do was just grab him and stare at him – I think I was in shock at how quickly everything had just happened!
Lorenzo Gerardo Marotta was born at 4:56 a.m. on Friday, June 12, weighing 6lbs 1oz and measuring 18 inches long.
The whole experience was such a whirlwind – I remember just staring at him, in complete disbelief that he was actually here. The first things I noticed were his hair (I had thought it looked curly but it ended up just being the way it was matted), and his hands – they were all tiny and wrinkly and adorable. Dario didn’t end up getting to help deliver him because of how fast everything happened, but he said watching him being born was just as special. He was right by my side the entire time cheering me on and advocating for me, and there’s no way I would’ve gotten through it without him! And the best part about having a natural birth was that I felt almost completely normal shortly after.
Newborn bliss
We spent the next couple of hours in newborn bliss. We took turns holding Lorenzo, FaceTimed our families so they could meet him, and I got to feed him for the first time. Both of us were completely exhausted since we hadn’t slept, but we were too obsessed with our perfect boy to care. We just stared and stared at him, and kept pointing out different things we’d notice about him.
I’ll never forget the way I felt those first few hours after he was born. I was in such a state of euphoria, and everything I went through during labor just didn’t matter anymore. At the end of the day, that labor experience brought me Lorenzo, and I would do it over and over again for my sweet boy! His birth story ended up being completely different than how I imagined it would be, but it’s his and I’ll treasure it forever. It’s truly amazing what our bodies can do to bring life into this world, and I feel privileged to have grown a little life inside of me for nine months. And now I get to be a mama to my happy, healthy boy – and for that, I will be forever grateful!
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