And Now, Four Boys Later

So many times this week I've tried to sit here to tell you the birth story of Espino boy #4... but we all know newborns have that 6th sense. The one where you try to do ANYTHING, they are magically hungrier than ever! Then you have to feed them, then you have to move on to something else... Blogging with four babies may be harder than I once thought. Our newest little Espino is already a week old and his little presence has just lit up our world! I've been asked so many times to share our birth story, so... here I am to do just that!

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 6, 2018

I'm 39w5d. I wake up feeling pretty good, I'm able to get hair and make up done, but during the process, do have a few painful contractions here and there. I'd been experiencing prodromal labor since 35 weeks and figured this is nothing new. Obviously I was a little more cautious the closer my due date drew in, but basically was feeling like baby wasn't coming out any time soon. I was able to get dressed in a nice outfit, gather the boys and go take a pic with them. I am feeling a lot of contractions happening during this little time period, but some hurt, some don't, and they aren't consistent at all.

I decide to get the boys some lunch and had a really hard contraction while ordering. I'm still not convinced at this point that it's the real deal lol. My parent's come by to drop off a refrigerator that they wanted to gift us, and while they are here, had another few bad contractions, and now, I can't talk through them. My mom is like, "Do you want to go get checked?" And I decline because they are still so few and far between. They leave, and then, contractions just stop. DANG IT!!!!

I decide that I should do some prenatal yoga to calm myself (and hopefully bring back those contractions) but... NOTHING. They stopped through dinner and after my husband got home from work around 9PM. Then, shortly after, I start to notice them again, however, they aren't as painful as there were throughout the day, BUT they were more consistent for sure. I decided to start timing them. I'd get a big long one and then 2 minutes later get a small short one, then 7 minutes later get a big long one again. Very confusing. Well, around 10:30PM, they stop again, and we decide it's just time to go to bed and see what happens.

All of a sudden, I wake up around 11PM to water gushing out of me like crazy, all I could get out was "It's happening! It's happening!" Anthony woke up and was sleepily like, "What??" I explained that my water broke and he was like, "Are you sure??" as he turned on his light. And I rolled over and said, "What do you think?!" And he was like, "YUP!" So, we calmly called our parents to let them know and get our boys taken care of. We got last minute toiletries, etc., in my hospital bag. I was cool, calm and collected, and wasn't contracting at all... well that I could feel anyways, because I was still gushing water every few minutes.

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 7, 2018

We got to the hospital, and I was wheeled down to the L&D department and was taken into the triage. I still wasn't feeling any contractions, so I was able to talk and laugh and think about how exciting it was that baby would be here soon! My nurse was our long time family friend - I used to babysit her babies when I was a teenager, she was our wedding coordinator, etc! How fun!! BUT, when she checked me, I was only 1cm, -3 Station and about 65-75% Effaced... and wasn't really contracting. After determining that my water did indeed rupture and getting a room ready for me, they admitted me and it was baby time... kinda.

They called the on-call Dr., Dr. Trujillo (my Dr., Dr. Huss had already explained to me that he wasn't going to be available during the weekend, so be a couch potato lol), but I was completely fine with it, because I had my last 2 boys with Dr. Trujillo, so it's not like he was a total complete stranger. PLUS at one of my appointments, Dr. Trujillo saw me and said, "Hey, maybe Dr. Huss won't be there and I can deliver the baby!" I think that was an omen hahaha! The Dr. told the nurses to wait 4 hours to see if any progression began on its own and if it didn't then we needed to start on some Pitocin.

Well, 4 hours passes and NOTHING changes!! Well, I did dilate to about 4cm, but baby was still high and I was only contracting lightly, but consistently. I told the nurse that before we started on the Pitocin, I wanted to go ahead and get an epidural. I've never gotten one before, only because I always asked for one too late. I just wanted this to be the best birthing experience ever, since it would be my last.

The anesthesiologist came in and after some discussion about other options and me still choosing the epidural, began administering it. I was excited, but really nervous to get one. It wasn't so bad, there were a couple of times where it was uncomfortable, but tolerable. But as soon as he put in the medication... I had a weird reaction to it and my heart rate got close to 200 and my blood pressure plummeted! I started seeing stars and they laid me down so I didn't faint. Then, I started shaking uncontrollably. Definitely had a big panic attack along with that. They gave me another medicine to bring my blood pressure up. They said my shaking was actually from having 2 bags of room temp fluid shoved into me quickly. After a few moments, I was still freaking out from panicking, but the staff did an amazing job at talking me down and assuring me that my vitals were stabilizing and I was going to be just fine. The nurse gave me super duper warm and thick blankets and my shaking began to subside.

Well, after this ordeal, contractions stopped COMPLETELY! And they could no longer administer the Pitocin because they needed the medicine to elevate my blood pressure to get out of my system first! So it was just a waiting game until it was all out. FINALLY we were able to start it up, and contractions began to come... except I was super comfortable because of the epidural! I was able to talk and rest as needed, but definitely couldn't move my legs - which was SO weird! I quickly progressed and in fewer than 3 hours, I was saying that I kind of felt like my body was bearing down and trying to push. So they checked me and said that I was all the way dilated, but the baby was still high up and with every contraction, try to imagine pushing him out and getting lower. I did have to administer one more gush of epidural medicine because I felt it starting to hurt. Just a few minutes later, the Dr. checked me and said I should try to push. So we did. Half way through pushing, everyone could see the baby's head and were talking about how much hair he had, and I looked up and my husband was tearing up, and I started tearing up. 1 more contraction and 2 pushes later... BABY EASTON WAS HERE! Transition and pushing with an epidural was WAY better than without one - 100%. BTW. So glad I ended up getting one early.

Easton Sawyer Espino was born at 12:50PM on Sunday, October 7th (39w6d) weighing 7lbs 13oz and was 20.75" long!

He was my biggest baby of the bunch (which makes sense because he was my latest to come out), but still seems SOOOOO tiny! We were in love INSTANTLY!

I cannot say enough about the staff and birthing facility at Lompoc Valley Medical Center. Every single person that came in to help me was friendly, gentle, caring and kind. I know they got very busy on my second day there, but they kept their cool and were beyond helpful. Anytime they came in to check on me or the baby, they asked if I needed anything. I felt very cared for the whole entire time.

I loved that at the LVMC L&D was more like a birthing center experience than being at a normal hospital. You get your own private suite with a bathroom (complete with bidet // ohhh you fancy) and you were in that room from start to finish. You get there, labor there, deliver there and recover there. The baby also never leaves you except for when they do a couple of tests such as hearing, etc. I highly recommend it to anyone who's going to have a baby locally - instead of going all the way to Santa Maria or even Santa Barbara.

Here are some photos I took of my suite (just because I was so impressed with everything!)

Birthing Suite at Lompoc Valley Medical Center. Bed for Mama and Baby!

The couch extends into a bed for Dad.

TV has many channels to choose from, and I'm pretty sure you can connect other media (such as video game consoles or DVD players etc.)

The A/V station next to the outlet has a headphone jack, HDMI port and A/V cable plugins. Since I have an iPhone 7, I don't have a regular headphone port in my phone, but if I had the correct cable, I could have plugged in music and listened to it on the overhead speakers. I did that last time (when I had Rhett) and I listened to spa music to relax me during delivery.

My friend let me use her diffuser to diffuse these calming oils during labor. So many nurses came in and said it smelled so good in my room! I unfortunately had to wear oxygen the whole time so I didn't get to benefit from diffusing my oils.