The Birth of Victoria Fernanda Part II

After an examination revealed I was almost 6 or 7 cm dilated, one of the nurses asked me which number child this was going to be and when I said my third, her eyes popped open, big as dinner plates.

"This is her third child, we have to get her over to labor and delivery!" she shouted.

Someone finally 'delivered' and brought over a wheelchair, and the nurse raced me down the corridor to a labor and delivery room.

"Take all her stuff," she commanded my husband, 'and meet us there. We're taking a short cut."

Down the corridor we zoomed, through the linen closet and into the delivery room, the glare of what looked like bright headlights bearing down on us.

The pain was more palpable than I'd ever experienced. It felt like a bowling ball pushing down inside of me about to split me in two.

The baby's head was unstoppable now. During the split seconds between contractions the resident doctor determined I'd reached 9 cm of dilation. She called in the covering doctor -- my doctors were unavailable -- one went to a wedding out of town and the other one was not on call this night.

The covering doctor sauntered in, cavalier, like this was no big deal. Yet the urge to push was like a running waterfall.

"Keep breathing in and out," one of the delivery nurses said. "That's the only thing that can help you at this point. And try not to push, you can break your cervix."

Well-meaning advice, but so is like politely trying to ask Niagara Falls to stop flowing.

"How the hell am I supposed to do that when she is COMING OUT RIGHT NOW?" I began screaming on top of my lungs.

The covering doctor examined me again and offhandedly remarked to the others, "No, she's not ready yet, only 7 cm, call me when she's ready." And he walked out of the room.(What was he planning to do, take a stroll and have a tour of the new hospital wing?!)

I felt the baby's head already coming out at this point and at one point the nurse told the resident doctor, "Let's get him back in here.

The covering doctor came back. "Listen," she told him, "the way this lady is talking, that baby is coming out RIGHT NOW."

How many women does it take for a man to GET IT?!

At this point they put me in the stirrups yet again, which felt like such an unnatural position. Gravity and the baby were bearing down, and they wanted me to spread my legs UP?!

He told me in a regular level speaking voice when to push, as if he were commenting on the daily weather forecast. Each time the burning sensation and the pressure of the baby's head was almost unbearable. I screamed on the top of my lungs, "I feel like I'm going to die!"

"You're not going to die," the delivery nurse stated, as matter-of-factly as one might say "Pass the ketchup please."

The covering doctor told me each time he saw the baby's head, so I knew the light at the end of the tunnel was coming soon. I couldn't wait!

That final push to get Victoria out was heaven. What a RELIEF!


She cried and cried, and was poked and prodded, weighed and examined, cleaned and dried. Meanwhile the crew was mopping up the mess so to speak, and hubby Alex was taking pictures and videos.


"Hey, this is a Kodak moment!" said the delivery nurse, posing with Victoria. Everyone was posing and watching the replays in the camera viewfinder.

One more push for the placenta and it was a fait accompli.

I held little Victoria for a while, and looked at her big blue gray eyes, her cute nose and fabulous head of thick black hair. All the pain and drama were a distant memory. I lay back in the hospital bed and relaxed.

After a while Victoria was taken to the nursery to have a bath. I talked to hubby and my parents for a while, then watched the end of a Seinfeld rerun as I waited for a recovery room in the maternity ward. As it turned out, it was a private room. And I was in no hurry to go anywhere.

The Birth of Victoria Fernanda - Part I

So she's finally here...yes, I made it through the labor and delivery of our third child -- Victoria Fernanda. Yippee! (For the record she was born on April 7 at 8:29 p.m., weighing in at 7 lbs 9 oz and measuring 20.5 inches long.)

I have to say it was the most painful but probably the most natural and fastest delivery of all three kids.


It all started when I went to my scheduled doctor's visit on the 7th in the morning for a possible 'natural' induction (stretching of the cervix). The doctor thought that due to my age and the fact that I had a mild case of gestational diabetes, I should get things started earlier than my predicted due date of April 11. My husband and I tried our own form of stretching the cervix in the the, ahem, privacy of our own bedroom, but that didn't yield any productive contractions, though I had plenty of Braxton Hicks false ones! I knew there was a good possiblity that my water could break in the office, so I came prepared with my hospital suitcase.

However, when the doctor took a sonogram of the baby, he said the amount of amniotic fluid looked significantly lower than it did when he examined me earlier that week. To avoid potential risks to the baby, he wanted me to head over to Long Island Jewish Hopsital to get induced.

The induction would be done through the vaginal insertion of either Cervadil or Cytotec. The purpose of doing this would be to begin contractions and ripen the cervix. This could take, the doctors predicted, up to 12 to 24 hours.

After filling out paperwork and waiting two hours for a pre-delivery room, I was seen at about 2 p.m. by a resident doctor, who inserted the Cytotec. My mom was with me the whole time. We both whiled away the time talking, reading and listening to music. She was reading a Sonia Sotoymayor biography and I was listening to itunes on my husband's ipod.


Around 3:30 I started to get regular contractions every 2 to 5 minutes. This went on for a good 3 hours. Overall I would say I was pretty relaxed. During this time period my cervix stayed dilated for about 2 cm.

Around 5:30 the contractions started to get more painful, and the doctors made the choice not to insert another Cytotec pill because I responded immediately to the first dose. I had to resort to exhaling a succession of quick puffs of air (something I learned in a Lamaze class over 7 years ago), and having my husband massage acupressure points on my body on my prompting. It was getting quite uncomfortable, though not unbearable, not yet anyway....

At around 6:30 p.m. I heard a sudden pop and my water began gushing all over the hospital bed mattress. More water continued to flow out. Gush, gush, trickle, trickle. The pain began to increase, and one of the nurses asked if I wanted pain relief yet, such as an epidural, but that would mean they would have to bring me over to labor and delivery. I said I was ok and that I would try the breathing and acupressure for the time being. That didn't last too long -- around 15 minutes.

A resident doctor's examination showed now that I was more than 5 cm dilated. At this point I insisted on an epidural, but they told me I had to wait because there was no delivery room available.

Then it happened. It was around 7:30 and I felt this enormous pressure in my pelvis. The contractions were so strong at this point I could hardly move or talk, but I could curse.

"It hurts like hell! S&*^t! F*&*! Do something!" I screamed to whoever would listen.