Corbin's Birth

by Dana Lynn Philipps (Corby's mom)

My pregnancy was a very good one. In the early months, I had morning sickness very bad. I threw up all the time and in some awkward places. I even lost weight instead of gaining it. Once the sickness subsided, I gained weight rapidly. Only four weeks before my due date, I had gained almost 40 pounds. I was sent for another ultrasound to check if the baby had dropped into position. He had, but the technician told me my due date appeared to be early October instead of the end of the month. The midwife said not to worry because we had based the due date on the last menstrual cycle I had.

The last couple of weeks of my pregnancy were uneventful. I kept reading all these magazines I got from the midwife and my childbirth class. There were different signs of impending labor that they kept mentioning. I didn't feel like I had experienced any of them. In fact, the day before my due date, I had my trigonometry tutor come over and he asked me how I was feeling. I told him I felt fine and I didn't think that I would be delivering anytime soon. I figured that since it was my first birth, it would probably be late anyhow. He left at about ten pm and I went to bed.

Around four o clock in the morning on October 28th, I woke up to go to the bathroom. I went and climbed back into bed exhausted. I rolled on my side and felt a little gush. I figured I had wet the bed. I went back into the bathroom, deciding I had just not finished before. I came back into my bedroom and woke Tachy so I could change the sheets. When I looked at the sheets, I realized it wasn't urine. It hit me that I was beginning labor. I woke the entire house up.

By about eleven in the morning, contractions were coming every fifteen or twenty minutes. I was not in much pain, but I was tired. My mother suggested I try to sleep, but I couldn't because I was too excited. I spent most of the day wandering around the house, hoping that things would speed up. By six pm, the contractions were five minutes apart and I was very tired and uncomfortable. I was still leaking my water. We called the midwife and told her the situation. She told us to go to the hospital for a two hour observation. We got there around 7pm and after a while they got me hooked up to the monitors. The heart rate was strong and the contractions were gaining in intensity too. The nurse said I was only three centimeters dilated. She suggested I go take a warm shower to try and speed things along. I stayed in that shower for most of the two hours. They called me out to check progress around nine pm.

I was still only three centimeters dilated. The contractions were coming every three minutes though and I wanted to be finished with the whole ordeal. I had the option of staying at the hospital or going home. I went home. From ten pm until two in the morning, I was very sick and increasingly pained. I paced around the house, rushing for the bathroom every so often and threw up every thing I had eaten earlier in the day. I told my mother and Tachy that I couldn't stand the pain anymore. I wanted to go back. We hurried to the hospital and this time I got to ride in a wheel chair to the maternity ward.

They got me into a gown and hooked up the monitors again. Heart rate strong and contractions VERY strong. I was nine centimeters dilated, but the bag of water had not completely ruptured. I was getting the urge to push. The midwife arrived at the hospital. The nurses let her know what was happening. She determined that I had a little flap of excess skin over the opening of my cervix that was the problem. She suggested I lay on my side. I did and it made the pain worse. As I started to roll onto my back again, the water broke all over the table. Marla (the midwife) checked again and said that I could start to push as soon as I felt the urge again. I was so tired at that point, that I no longer had any urge. I tried to push anyway and after several times my son's head crowned. I tried to push again, but he didn't move. It felt like someone had a blow torch on my bottom.

Marla worked to stretch my vagina with her fingers and some olive oil. The baby's head stayed there for fifteen minutes. The nurses and the midwife were beginning to get concerned. Marla reluctantly did an episiotomy. I pushed one more time and the head came out. I looked down and saw this huge bluish head. I pushed once more and the rest of him popped out. One of the nurses groaned. Marla said, "He's at least a nine pounder!"

Marla cleaned out his nose and mouth and placed him on my chest. She asked Tachy if he wanted to cut the cord and he almost passed out. She did it instead. The nurse had to press hard on my stomach, with Marla pulling with tongs, to deliver the placenta. I had absolutely no contractions at all by the end. They laughed at how big the placenta was. My mom held the baby by my face while Marla stitched me up. (Tachy still was a little under the weather.) I was allowed to have the baby in the room to nurse for about an hour before they took him to the nursery to be properly cleaned, weighed, measured, and dressed.

Corbin Michael Echevarria was born October 29th, 1994 at 4:31 am after roughly twenty four hours of drug-free labor. He weighed a whopping 9 pounds 14 ounces and was 20.5 inches long. He was the biggest baby at the hospital! I stayed at the hospital until Halloween. I kept the baby in the room with me at all times. It was a wonderful experience and I look forward to one day giving Corbin a little brother or sister.

Copyright 1997
used by permission of author,
Dana Lynn Philipps (Corby's mom)
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If you would like me to include your birth experience on my Childbirth Stories page, please mail me at mykidzmommy@hotmail.com. Let me know if you want your name and/or e-mail address included!

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