He just missed baka's birthday, and in my mind he was supposed to be born on Nikolas's, which didn't happen either.
It was funny how quickly it happened. Then again, I secretly expected a 10-min delivery like my mom had with my sister (after I took my sweet time to leave her belly), but it didn't happen that fast with me and James. Still, he was 4 days overdue and I continued to feel just fine, as if I could go on pregnant for another month. Then, on the 26th, while we were having dinner with Grandma and Grandpa around 8:30pm, I got a stomach ache that was more like one from bad food than from going into labor, and some spotting. When my doctor's office didn't answer the phone, I asked to be taken to the hospital. By the time I got there at 9pm, I realized that I was having contractions 3min apart. While waiting in the triage, I discovered my 'zone' where the contractions were tolerable: I sat on my exercise ball leaning the side of my waist against the bed (I must have accidentally found an acupressure point for relieving pain), and focusing on a single point on the wall and blocking out all noises and all visuals around me. If anyone asked me a question, or someone's phone rang or someone touched me, I'd painfully fall out of my zone. If I had another baby (no, this won't happen!), I'd know exactly what to do and might even do it all the way without epidural--or at least I could offer pregnant ladies some advice instead.
So anyway, I was moved to my private room an hour and a half or two hours later, and after another hour or so there I got my epidural, after which everything became a breeze. I got to see James's head in a mirror as I was pushing and got to touch his head (that looked and felt like a pile of snails bunched together, bumpy and wrinkly!).
By interesting (read, upsetting) choice, the doctor decided to collect my cord blood for donation before he started stitching me up, and so I ended up losing enough blood to faint the first time I got out of bed. Even 2-3 weeks later I had sudden occasional dizziness spells.
James came out and immediately started crying and turning a healthy pink color, scoring a very high apgar score. One big and healthy boy! I couldn't help telling my OBGYN 'I told you so,' as my 9-pounder showed up instead of a 6-pounder that everyone in the OBGYN office predicted.
Before: After:
