Welcome, Leslie Samantha!

I’ve only now had a chance to post this. So last Friday, April 12, I was having contractions faster than normal. So I had Luci time my contractions. It was going around 5-7 minutes apart. I originally had a doc appointment with my OB/GYN to check the baby’s status if she was going to be cephalic this time, but I called them to ask if I should go to the hospital now or still keep my appointment.  They said to go ahead and go to the hospital. So, Luci and I dropped off Lauren to our family friend’s house to babysit and off we went to the hospital.

We went to a different hospital  from the hospital where I gave birth to Dani and Lauren. They didn’t have a Labor & Delivery department there anymore, which made me sad, as I wanted all my kids to be born in the same hospital. Ah well. So we went there, and it took us a while to navigate the area as it was a bunch of hospitals in one place. We finally found our way and went to the Labor & Delivery (L&D) area.  The process of me checking in and “suited up” didn’t take too long.

They monitored me for a while, checking the baby’s heartbeat and my contractions. There was a doc that came by and gave me the “fastest sonogram on earth” to check if the baby was cephalic. Sure enough, and thankfully, she was! It took about 5 seconds to check which made me laugh. So they continued with monitoring me and the baby. It took some time, and I was still at 1cm. At this point, my doc had recommended I go home for a while until I feel if my contractions were getting stronger. I had to call the doc’s office to make sure because she wanted to induce me that day anyway, if in case the baby is cephalic. She didn’t realize it was this day she wanted it, so she said to stay. Thank goodness for that, because I didn’t want to go back home. I wanted to have the baby already, hehe.

They gave me some induction medicine and my contractions started getting closer and I went from 1cm to 3cm in 2 hours after that. The contractions were getting a little bit painful at this time, and I asked if they could start my epidural, which they did. I forgot how painful the epidural is when first inserted, but once I felt the medicine go through my legs, it was all good. However, I felt all jelly-like and all relaxed that I couldn’t keep my eyes open. Fortunately, at this time, I went from 3cm to 7cm within an hour or so (so fast!). I could see the contraction monitor go up so high and I didn’t feel a thing. So thankful of the epidural, lol.

After a few more minutes, the nurse had asked me to start pushing. I could actually feel the baby push on her own already. Even though I had the epidural, I still felt the baby, which was good because I wanted to at least feel that part of the delivery. After 3 pushes, the head was starting to poke out. Then the nurse asked me to do a really big-deep-breath-raise-your-legs-up kind of push and they had to stop me quickly because the baby was ready to come out! The doc was called and after her preparations and such, one big final push got Leslie out. It was such a relief to hear her cry and cry, she did! Everyone was so surprised on how she cried (such big lungs) and marveled at her shock of hair. They put her in NICU for observation to check her blood sugar due to my diabetes.  While they did that, I was taken to OR to have my tubal ligation procedure done (I had requested it before delivery). This means Leslie is my last child to bring into the world. It took about 45 minutes to do my procedure and I slept through it all (they told me I was snoring, lol).

So, here is Leslie Samantha. Born April 13, 2013 at 1:08am, weighing 6 lbs. 10.8 oz. with 19 inches in length.  Welcome, Baby Leslie!