Part I
Part II
Part III

I have heard in the U.S. they won't give you an epidural at 9 cm, but here, they will. And let me tell you, it felt amazing. Later my doctor (who arrived a couple minutes after the epi) told me if I hadn't gotten it I would have had my baby in 30 minutes. Instead, it was a couple of hours. But at the time, I didn't care. It felt so good to rest. I was still feeling the pressure of the surges, just much less intensely. At the beginning, I stopped having surges altogether, but soon they were back and I was pushing.

I was not the only one pushing! In the days prior to labor, the baby never dropped, which I thought was kind of a prerequisite to labor. Now, during each surge, I was bearing down while one or two doctors were pushing down on my belly. I am pretty sure all my organs were rearranged during this process! That, I felt.

Once the baby started crowning, we moved to the delivery room, where the three-person pushing team continued to do its thing. The baby's head was quite large and did not want to come out! My doctor told me she was going to give me an small episiotomy and I was like, "OK, sure!" This was an intervention I hadn't wanted, but at this point I didn't care anymore. And I still don't, honestly. Child had a big head. What can I say, he takes after his mom.



A moment later, the baby was out! It was a huge shock. I mean, I knew there was a baby in there and everything but when I saw him I was like "holy crap!" It was pretty incredible! Fran told me it was a boy, and I got to hold him for awhile before they took him to examine him and clean him up.

Our baby had arrived!