Olivia Grace Marquez: A Birth Story

On Wednesday night, August 13th, I crawled into bed as gracefully as a 39 week pregnant lady can and started feeling sharp, strong contractions, but tried to ignore them since they were few and far apart. After an hour of pacing around the house to help cope with the pain, I decided to wake Hector up to help time the contractions. My contractions were all over the place, some 10-15 minutes apart, others 3-5 minutes apart. I was feeling really discouraged since I was in so much pain, but my contractions weren't close enough together to head to the hospital so I asked Hector for a blessing. Immediately after the blessing I knew baby girl was coming so I quickly put on make up and fixed my hair before we hit the road.

We checked into the hospital just shortly after 1am and a nurse confirmed that I was in labor and dilated 5cm. I was hooked up to an IV and the nurses alerted my doctor and the anesthesiologist. An hour after checking into the hospital I got an epidural and it was the best thing ever. Hector would watch the monitor and tell me when I was having a contraction and I would just smile and say I couldn't feel a thing while munching on ice chips.

Around 5am I heard a funny sound on the monitor, then felt a warm liquid trickling down my legs. I called my nurse and told her I thought my water had broke - she tested it and sure enough it tested positive for amniotic fluid. After being checked a few more times, a new nurse came in and told me it was time to start pushing. I dispensed some more pain medication into my IV just for good measure and then started pushing. I don't know how many times I offered up silent prayers while pushing, asking for strength and that baby girl would arrive healthy. After an exhausting 1.5 hours of pushing, the nurse told me she could see the baby's head and to hold off on pushing until the doctor arrived. Once the doctor arrived he told us we would have a baby in the next 15 minutes and Hector and I just looked at each other in disbelief - this was it.

After my doctor gave me an episiotomy, I pushed a few more times and baby girl entered this world at 9:41am on Thursday 8/14/2014 weighing in at 7 lb 5 oz and 20.5 inches long. It was the strangest/coolest sensation feeling the baby slide out. I had brought a precious human being into this world. They set baby girl on my chest and Hector and I started crying - suddenly all of the hardships of pregnancy were a distant memory. I got to watch Hector cut the umbilical cord then the nurses took her away to be cleaned and measured while I was getting stitched up. After what felt like an eternity, they handed her to me for skin to skin time and it was an amazing moment being able to hold my little girl for the first time. I have never felt so much love in my entire life - for the baby and for Hector - it just doesn't get better than that. We were finally a family of three.