I saw Mimi's comment. yes =) AJ's real birthday is 9/22/03.
I can't believe that was 4 years ago.
9/22/03 was a Monday
On the day of AJ's birth, I woke up around 4am... peed in the bathroom then sat back down in our green recliner. I stretched with my arms way up high ..then I felt a leak. hmmm... that didn't feel right. I looked down on the recliner.... hmmm.. pee? no. hmmm.. mucus plug? I smelt it.. didn't smell like pee. wasn't sure if my water broke so I called the doc who said come to the hospital so I could get checked and I could get antibiotics since I was group B strep +. I don't remember him saying come to the hospital immediately..you are having that baby now!!
I remember leaving a voicemail message for my boss "I'm not sure if I will make it into work today...I might be having this baby... I'll call you later and let you know."
We get in the car... do we head out to the hospital immediately? nope... gotta return the rented video from blockbuster first. we don't want to pay the late fee. but no rush... no pains yet... until we start heading east toward the hospital.
Must have gotten to the hospital by 5:30 or 6 am. I was admitted....then told to walk around. I was still walking around when the nursing shift changed at 7 am. I asked for pain medication at that time... for which the night nurse was babbling it was change of shift/ have to get an order/will pass the request to the day nurse. No problem... I'm pretty easy going. ...until the pain got worse.
I decided to lay down... I remember turning from side to side to relieve the pain and asking for a cool washcloth on my forehead. epidural now please! not that easy.. they have to put the baby belly monitor and I had to wait for the anesthesiologist. Finally, the anesthesiologist came and asked me to sit on the edge of the bed and curl forward so that my spine was shaped like a C. are you kidding me? I'm huge ...I comply because I want that epidural. 8 am epidural in and no pain. thank you!
but now baby AJ is just chillin in my belly. I slept on and off until around 1 pm. The nurse and obgyn pretty much said let's get this party started.
My mahal still teases me about all the poop that came out. We ate a lot that weekend so what do you expect? My mom asked me, "Oh Bernadette, why didn't you poo before you came to the hospital?" That line still cracks my mahal up.
I remember my mom helping out by counting as I pushed through a contraction... at the same time the nurse was counting ....except they were out of sync. my mom was counting so slow ...1...........2...............3.............4..............5....... etc etc.
Oh gosh...i tried to focus on the nurse's count and look at Joe's face. It didn't take long to push.. the only thing is it's weird to push when you don't have that sensation down there to push because of the epidural. They decreased the epidural and increased the pit but still... The nurse told me to bear down and think that I was having a bowel movement. Joe's mom and my mom took turns in the room so Joe's mom was in the room when AJ made his appearance at 1:57 pm.
AJ was cleaned up and placed on my chest within a couple minutes. Joe and Kuya Bernard literally called everyone they could to announce AJ was born. me: "Let everyone know giving birth is like having a bowel movement!" =)
