Corbin's Birth Story

Caution this is a bit graphic.

Corbin’s Birth

Written 1/27/08 (I was due 1/26/08)

This pregnancy was so different from with Jovi, from the beginning to the end. I felt a lot sicker the first 4 months with Corbin than I felt my whole pregnancy with Jovi. I also didn’t gain very much weight till the last two months with Corbin. As I remember, I gained a lot of weight pretty steadily with Jovi. Looking back at pictures I looked bigger with Jovi than I did with Corbin although that probably had to do with how I was carrying him. Now, on to the birth…

I started having noticeable, regular Braxton hicks contractions at the beginning of December, but nothing that hurt. I got through Christmas and after that I was ready for him to be here. I was tired of being big and pregnant and uncomfortable and tired and all those things that the last month of pregnancy is. I had a lot of contractions, some of them fairly uncomfortable, while we were in Corsicana for Paloma’s Quinceanera, but nothing else happened.

On New Years Eve, I thought I might be going into labor because I was having uncomfortable, but not hurting, contractions every 4 minutes, I kept hoping they would start hurting, but they didn’t. We went to the Hamblin’s house and welcomed in the new year with them and some of our other friends. I’m glad we had somewhere to go because I know I would have just been worrying about whether I was in labor or not. I didn’t realize how lucky I was to have my water break before labor started with Jovi. With Jovi I knew when to go to the hospital, with Corbin (who was not named Corbin till a couple of hours after he was born), I kept on wondering if *this* was is.

On Tuesday night, 1/8 I started having contractions that hurt a little, but not a lot. They were coming every 3-4 minutes for over an hour and I thought for sure that *this* was the night, I was just waiting for the contractions to get stronger before I called the midwife. But instead of getting stronger the contractions slowed and eventually stopped all together. Wednesday morning I was so discouraged, I felt I was going to be pregnant forever.

On Thursday, 1/10 I went to the birthing center for my appointment, Juan came with me so he could watch Jovi while the midwife checked me. She said that I was almost 3cm dilated and that I could go into labor anytime and that I should walk a lot (something I had been trying to do even before Christmas) to help the contractions grow stronger. She suggested using my breast pump and then walking afterwards to stimulate contractions and push me into labor. I did that as much as possible on Thursday, Friday and Saturday and while I had lots of contractions and some of them were getting stronger, they weren’t regular. Saturday night I was having irregular contractions when I went to sleep at about 10:00, at about 12:00 they had started hurting enough that I was having trouble sleeping. I got up and paced the house and they got stronger. These were labor contractions like I remembered from Jovi’s birth. I woke Juan up at around 1:00ish and told him I thought this was finally it. I called the midwife, Jean at 2:00 to tell her that my contractions were 4-5minutes apart, she said to wait an hour and call her back. I was sure I was in labor so I called my mom and asked if her and Emma could meet us at our house. The original plan had been that we would drive with Jovi to the birthing center and meet my mom there with someone who would drive Jovi back to my parent’s house, but that afternoon Jovi had gotten a fever and since we had to wait an hour anyway, we thought that having Jovi moved around less would be better. After an hour the contractions were even stronger and coming every three minutes. I called Jean back and she said to come in. My mom and Emma showed up a few minutes later and we left for the birthing center. On the way a police officer pulled my mom over for having one headlight out, but he let her go when she explained that her daughter was in labor in the car ahead of her.

We got to the birthing center about 3:30ish and the birthing room was ready with low lights and candles. I liked laboring while lying across a birthing ball for a while. Jean checked me and the baby periodically and when I was about 7cm dilated she broke my water and the contractions got stronger. I would walk in place while leaning on Juan to get though them. I don’t know how accurate it was, but at the time this labor felt much more painful than Jovi’s labor. At some point I laid down on the bed. I asked for pain medication, but Lynn, the birth attendant put off giving it to me till it was time to push when there wasn’t any point. I honestly don’t remember how long I pushed with Corbin, I was not watching the clock, Juan says it was about an hour with really hard pushing for the last half hour. I do remember it seeming really hard to push his head out and how big he seemed once he came out on 1/13/08 at 6:50am. They wrapped him in a towel and immediately gave him to me. We put the hat I made for him on and I got to hold my new little boy as I pushed out the placenta and Jean sewed me up where I tore along my old episiotomy scar line. Juan cut the cord and we got to cuddle with our new baby. We were amazed at how big he was, 9lbs 12oz and 21in with lots of cute chubby rolls especially since all the midwives had guestimated that he was at least 1lb smaller. Juan and I kept going back and forth on names but finally decided that he looked most like a Corbin. Jean checked him over and said he was great then she went home to rest since it looked like there would be another birth in a few hours. Lynn stayed with us filling out the birth certificate paperwork. My mom went and got us breakfast from Grandys and then went back to our house to take Emma and Jovi home with her. After both me and the baby checked out ok, Lynn said we could stay there and rest or go home to rest since the required two hour of medical observation were up. We decided to go home. I loved being able to rest at home with our new baby rather than having to stay up at the hospital for days. Juan’s mom and Paloma came to see us that afternoon and then everyone but my mom, who was staying with Jovi, came up to see us. My grandma brought us dinner. It was a wonderful day, I was so happy that Corbin Valentin Flores was here.