The Birth Story (from my perspective)

Mario Anthony Reyes, Jr. was born on July 1, 2007 at 5:51pm weighing in at 6lbs 7.4 ounces, 18.5 inches! It was a very eventful birth (I am sure all moms think so).

The Birth Story:

Around 5:30 that morning, I awoke with an unfamiliar (really it wasn't all that unfamiliar, it was felt like gas) feeling. I called my mom because I knew she would be up and of course she was. I described how I felt and she said (as she had been saying for a long time), "that baby is on his way!" Well I am here to tell you....listen to your mother because she is usually right (I say that now with much more confidence and authority because I have now joined the ranks of motherhoodom! (yes I know I made up a word but when you are a mother, you can do that).

I recalled that my hypnobabies course instructor, Ludia Sarmast (we can talk about Hypnobabies a little later), said to try and sleep off the first few hours of labor. SO I laid it back down. Around 9 am I finally woke up for good. My "contractions" or pressure waves (as I was taught to call them in hypnobabies) felt like menstrual cramps so I figured, this isn't that bad. I decided to follow another piece of advice....to walk. I got Mario (better known to his family as Anthony) up (although he only had 2 hours of sleep-he was up late watching TV-so he says)) and we walked for 45 minutes. The pressure waves didn't stop so I knew that my little one would be joining us soon.

In the meantime, I decided to take a hot bath, wash/blow dry/curl my hair (I knew there would be after-birth pictures!) and to eat some Popeye's! Yes I ate Chicken and no for the Dave Chappelle viewers, there was NOT a little pixie on my shoulder--I ate the chicken of my own volition! Anyway, Mario brought me the wrong chicken initially. I was so upset. I had such a taste to that dark meat spicy...well my hubby said there was no way he was letting down a pregnant women in labor so he went back to Popeye's and got me the chicken I wanted. After dissecting that meal, the pains got "longer. stronger and closer" so we called the doc and headed to the hospital. Things got intense on the way there and I bout cussed Mario out for driving too slow (mind you I begged him initially not to speed because the bumps hurt!). Well by the time we got there, I was 9 cm so I was informed that I was doing it natural!

Now, I had planned to do it natural (but in the back of my mind thought all along that I would break down and get the epidural). Well folks, I didn't have a choice and so I'll just say THINGS GOT ROUGH for about 45 minutes and then I was holding my bundle of joy. :-)