Child Birth Experience

On July 25, 2007 at about 35 weeks pregnant, I woke up at about 10am to use the bathroom when I felt a big rush of water. I realized that my water had broke! The first thing I thought about was my mom telling me the night before to make sure my bags were packed, so I called my mom first. "I think my water broke", I said, my mom so excited about the arrival of her first grandchild yelled , "okay, I'm on my way." About 15 minutes later my mom arrived and we were on our way to the hospital two towns over. My doctor worked out of Meadowlands Hospital and I heard they had a very good staff and the hospital was very clean and family oriented. Luckily, my doctor was at the hospital doing rounds when I arrived. After, being checked by my doctor she told me that I was not fully dilated yet so she was going to do her office hours until 4pm and then come back to deliver. My family aunts, cousins and friends started arriving waiting in the lobby for the delivery. I went to sleep for a few hours but it felt like I had a full nights rest. At about 5pm I started feeling contractions, the tightening of my stomach muscles. I was instructed to breath through it. At this time I thought maybe I should have signed up for those labor and delivery classes but , it was too late now. The pain really wasn't that bad, it was more uncomfortable than painful. By 5:30 I was fully dilated and was being prepped for delivery. I was moved from the general room to a private delivery room. My mom, my aunt the doula , a woman trained to support the laboring woman(Berger, 2010) and dad was present. Cameras were fully charged and ready for my baby boy to enter this world. The contractions was beginning to get stronger but still manageable. I remember squeezing down on the handles of the bed and closing my eyes to get through them. I had completely blocked out everything everybody was saying. The nurse came to my side asking, if I needed anything and I said no. A few minutes later I felt the need to go to the bathroom, of course they refused to let me go so I began pushing. When the doctor looked over, she was shocked that the baby's head was already coming. Four pushes later my son Riley was born at 8:13 pm weighing 7lbs 8ozs and 21 inches long. I remember holing him in my arms and saying " he don't look like me". He had his own team of doctors who immediately took him to get cleaned up and conduct the Apgar scale assessment, a simple rating scale of five vital signs(Berger, 2010) . My support team left me and followed the baby to the nursery. My doctor congratulated me and told me job well done. She never had a first time mother deliver with no medication. Holding my son for the first time, I was so pleased and couldn't have chosen a better team or hospital to have this life changing experience at.

Berger, K.S. (2010) The developing person through childhood.