August 24th, 2021
When the month of August came, nesting was constantly on my mind as we began to prepare for our little man to arrive. As I got closer to labor, I prayed and asked the Lord for very specific requests towards giving birth. But a massive disclaimer here, at the end of the day, I knew I had to be very open-handed with all of these requests because all types of births are natural and needed in their own way. However, our sweet son came into this world is exactly how the Lord needed him to come into this world.
So I prayed for:
For an unmedicated birth.
To labor at home with my husband.
That Lucas would come without the need of an induction.
That he would come after a well-rested night.
Around 35-36 weeks, two memorable things happened. I felt the need to nest & rest like never before and Lucas began to drop. With every passing week, I remember feeling heavier and heavier, so much so that about a week prior to his arrival, the bottom of my tummy would touch the surface of where I sat down. It was during this time that I would shower at night and let the warm water hit my aching lower back and rub my belly and just pray for our sweet boy and his arrival.
As we assembled all the furniture and washed all the onesies, I had a deep feeling in my heart that our son would come before his due date. At around 38 weeks (Tuesday, August 17th), I had my first check and I was 2 centimeters dilated and was told my uterus was favorable so Lucas’ early arrival was very probable. I had begun to discuss with my OB some ways we would start to prepare for labor and delivery and decided that at 39 weeks we would try our first membrane sweep.
When scheduling my 39-week appointment, I remember thinking “he’s coming that Monday.” And it just so happened that my 39-week appointment/sweep was scheduled on that Monday, August 23rd. So for that remaining week, we napped a ton and got nurse thank-you baskets ready.
On Monday, August 23rd I had a mid-morning appointment and had my membranes swept. I’ll never forget when my OB said “I hope we can be friends after this” and then said “okaaaAAAY?!” as I felt an immense amount of pressure applied to my cervix. After my membranes were thoroughly swept, there were two takeaways. I was now 3 centimeters dilated and already had a bloody show. So if this sweep didn’t work for some wild reason, the topic of inductions was next and I could go in as soon as Wednesday, August 25th when my OB was on call at the hospital or the following week with a post-due date induction. I called Caio and told him the options available and we decided to wait about 24 hours before making a decision on the induction route.
I went home and logged onto my laptop to start my work day. It was about noon.
After working for about an hour, I noticed that I was feeling a dull cramp and had messaged my supervisor that I was feeling some cramps and wanted to lie down for a bit to see if it was just Braxton Hicks and I needed to lie down. From about 1:30 pm to 4:30 pm, I rotated my day between doing some light work and taking some lie-down breaks. I had texted Caio to fill him in on how I was feeling but told him not to panic since cramping after a sweep was normal. I also downloaded a contractions timer and started to track what felt like small contractions. They were no more than 10-20 seconds long and ranged from every 10 minutes to an hour.
By 4:30 pm, I remember thinking, “just in case this is for real, I better print off our birth plan and submit my HR paperwork to finalize my upcoming maternity leave.” Gosh, I’m so glad I did!
Caio had arrived home a little after 5:30 pm and we had gone about our evening and decided an easy dinner would be good since I was cramping. At 7:30 pm we ate chicken quesadillas with tortilla chips and salsa and I bounced on my exercise ball while we watched big brother. We continued to time these small and inconsistent contractions.
By 8:30 pm, I was feeling some early contractions, and this time they were distinct and timeable. Getting a little longer and lasting about 30 seconds and getting closer at roughly 10-15 minutes apart. Since we had no idea if this was for real or not, I let Caio know that we should call it an early night and try to get some rest.
Well, that lasted about 30 minutes.
By 9:00 pm, contractions were getting real. I was feeling distinct surges and any possibility of rest seemed difficult. Caio had gotten my exercise ball from downstairs so I could lean on it as contractions came and I had told him to look up videos on counterpressure. I knew labor was here and any sort of still movement was not comfortable.
So our upstairs became a walking track. As Caio timed contractions, we walked together through our guest bedroom, into our jack & jill bathroom, then to Lucas’ nursery, and around. Contractions started to get longer, I had to stop to breathe through them, and Caio was applying pressure.
When 10:30 pm rolled around, contractions continued to get closer together reaching the recommended go-to-the-hospital timing, but still had never reached a minute-long contraction or had them consistently every 5 minutes. I didn’t want to go to the hospital prematurely, but also knew that we had to go with some time since I tested positive for GBS and needed an IV for at least 4 hours. We finished up the last-minute hospital bag items, put the car seat in the car, and by 11:30 pm, we made the call to head to the hospital.
We made our way to the hospital and it felt like the longest 20 minutes of my life. As contractions surged, it was like I felt every single imperfection on the road and I moaned to Caio to slow down when contractions came. I shut my eyes as tight as I could and prayed to God that I wasn’t still 3 centimeters.
We arrived at the hospital and as soon as I stood outside the car, a powerful contraction came and I moaned, leaned on the trunk of our Voltzwagon, and tears began to come. A Hispanic woman on the phone outside of the ER saw that I was in labor and immediately ran inside, flagged down a security guard to grab a wheelchair for me asap. We inched toward the entrance and I sat down and through muffled tears said “gracias” to this sweet woman who helped a complete stranger.
We arrived at the ER entrance by midnight and Caio started our paperwork while the staff called labor and delivery. I just remember crying through intense pain, keeping my eyes closed, and gripping the wheelchair as hard as I could. A staff member arrived and he zoomed us through the ER area and up the elevator to labor and delivery. I remember opening my eyes slightly and seeing that all eyes were on this pregnant woman crying in agony.
When we arrived in our room, the nurses arrived and began to ask about my birth plan, contractions, and consent. We had met the OB doctor on call and they had let us know that I was 6 centimeters dilated. (THANK. THE. LORD!) My L&D nurse said, “congratulations, you’re over halfway there!” So I was officially in for the long haul and we were going to meet our son.
From this moment forward, it was all pain management. Taking deep breaths as contractions surged and continued to the most powerful climax of pain I’ve ever felt in my life. Our nurse continued to coach me through pain and Caio kept applying pressure to my back. There were moments when my contractions felt that I could breathe through them but moments when grunting and deep moans were all I could do. Frustrated with the pain, I remember a moment when Caio was trying to cover my exposed behind before applying pressure and I screamed “I don’t care about my butt, push!!”
During this moment, I had reached 7 centimeters but Lucas was not descending so I stayed at 7 centimeters for over an hour. Hips were swayed, my back was pushed and screaming was getting louder. It was just past 3 am and the thoughts of needing some sort of relief were entering my mind as exhaustion began to set in. I started to tell Caio that I think I needed some sort of pain management option but continued to play tug of war with asking for medication because I had no idea how much longer labor would continue. As I wrestled through two more contractions I felt a big gush. My water broke!
I grabbed the remote to call the nurse and immediately cried out, “my water broke!” and not even 5 seconds later did our nurse come in to check me and saw that my water very much broke. I was lifted immediately on the bed, checked, and jumped straight to 10 centimeters. Our nurse said, “you did it, mama!” But all I could think of was that now the pushing had to begin - I’m not even done yet!
By 3:45 am, a swarm of people came and prepared for the entrance of a new life. Blue tarp, tools, and a team of medical staff all crowded me as I began to bear down and push out this little human. I (surprisingly) agreed to have a mirror to push and I was guided in pushing as a little boy made his way into this world.
At 4:13 am, Lucas Anderson Pinto was added to our family.
Tears and loud cries came out of me as I thought, “what in the world just happened!” I couldn’t believe our son’s entrance. I couldn’t believe how the Lord answered my specific prayer. I couldn’t believe that he was here. I couldn't wait to go to bed. I couldn’t believe that I was a mom.
From that moment forward, we soaked it in. We snuggled our sweet boy as mama was sewn up and just stared at him soaking in his unique little features. His body FULL of hair, his nose looks just like dad’s, and his little hands and feet.
We were elated and exhausted and not much has changed since then, but our sweet boy is here bringing light into our world.
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