Birth Story:
Before I even got pregnant, I knew I wanted to use a midwife. It was all I ever knew. My mom used a midwife for both my sister and myself and it just seemed right for me, too. I wanted someone who would work with me as an individual and not just a numbered patient in the large practice.
I got pregnant with my daughter in the Spring of 2012. I contacted Kathy right away with all the nerves and excitement of becoming a first time mom. Kathy was a wonderful guide through my first pregnancy. She encouraged me to continue working out the way my body was used to, settled my brain as I tried to wrap it around what I could and could not eat (don’t make yourself crazy, ladies), and steered my husband and I through all the decisions we would eventually have to make. Once I got passed the initial nausea, my pregnancy was pretty easy. I even said at seven months that I wished I looked more pregnant. I worked out up until four days before delivering and felt great overall.
I knew early on that I would not be comfortable with a home birth. I wanted to labor as long as possible in the comfort of my own couch and then head to the hospital in time to deliver. On January 15th, 2013, I felt my very first contraction. It felt like a menstrual cramp. I turned to my husband and said, “Soooo, I’m pretty sure I just had a contraction!” My water had not broken yet and the contractions were very far apart, but I called Kathy anyway. She settled my mind, told me to get a good nights’ rest and call her in the morning. So I did just that. I could feel the contractions throughout the night but they were still very manageable and I was able to get some good rest.
In the morning on January 16th, I called Kathy once again just to check in. Eventually my water did break, although, it was more of a trickle than a Hollywood movie waterfall. As the day progressed, we watched a marathon of Harry Potter movies, had lunch and kept track of my contractions on my husband’s phone. By 3:00pm, Kathy called to check in and came over to my house for a check-up. I had just showered and was feeling fine. She estimated that I would not deliver until the next day and suggested I have my favorite dinner and get some rest. She was wrong JMy contractions picked up shortly after Kathy left. By 6:00pm, they were much more intense and frequent. We called Kathy again around 7:30pm to ask her to come over; I was beginning to have very long, intense contractions with no breaks in between. Within thirty minutes, we called Kathy back and asked her to meet us at the hospital.
We got to the hospital between 8:30-9:00pm. The scene was straight out of a movie. My husband raced me through the hallways, my feet and legs straight in the air because he couldn’t figure out how to make the footrests work, as I screamed through my contractions. By the time we got into the room and the nurses checked my vitals, I was asking for an epidural…but it was too late. It was time to push! Within forty-five mins, at 9:43pm on January 16th, 2013, Leila Thuy Nguyen was born. A smallish six pounds four ounce peanut who came into this world into her daddy’s hands wide-eyed, without a peep. After figuring out if she was a girl or a boy (my mom saw the umbilical cord and thought it was a boy!), they placed her on my chest and we just looked at each other, both in awe.
Flash forward exactly a year later when we found out I was pregnant again. This time my pregnancy was not as easy. I was much more uncomfortable and pretty much felt like a beached whale. Watch what you wish for! I did say when I was pregnant with Leila that I wished I looked more pregnant. And boy did I! I wasn’t able to workout as long; I stopped around thirty-five weeks because I was so uncomfortable in the summer heat
My birth plan for my second delivery was the same. I wanted to labor mostly at home and get to the hospital in time for delivery. Because my first labor moved very quickly (once it got moving), we decided I should head to the hospital a bit sooner. Just shy of forty-one weeks, I woke up on the morning of September 8th , 2014 to go to the bathroom and felt my water break. It still wasn’t the full Hollywood gush but it was enough to feel like I was peeing myself. My contractions were slow to follow so my husband I and spent the day doing some errands and going out for lunch. By the time we went to sleep that night, my contractions were becoming regular. We called Kathy around 10:00pm to say they were twenty minutes a part. We decided to get some rest and see how they progressed. Within thirty minutes, my contractions went from twenty minutes apart to ten. We called Kathy again and decided to go to the hospital.
We got to the hospital around 11:00pm and the contractions basically stopped. In hindsight, I probably should have stayed at home longer but who knows what would have happened? My labor pretty much stalled. Around 1:00am, we decided to intervene and try to move the labor along. And it worked. I labored for about four hours when I felt like I couldn’t take it any more. I asked for an epidural again and was once again told it was too late. I pushed for about an hour and, at the ringing of my husband’s 6:00am alarm (yes, it was going off in his pocket), Elijah Son Nguyen was born wailing into his daddy’s hands on September 9th, 2014.
