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I loved being pregnant. It was nine (actually only seven, as it took me a while to realize I was pregnant) amazing months. I had none of the most common discomforts affecting moms-to-be. Not a single minute of morning sickness, no heartburn or major swelling, not even by the end of the third trimester. The only major complication was a somewhat fastidious gum infection, that developed at week 35 and required me to take antibiotics. The midwives at UCLA labeled my pregnancy as "uneventful"... how I hated this definition! How is it possible to define a pregnancy uneventful, when every single day there are so many and big changes going on inside, as you are growing a new life! But I guess that medical terms do not always make sense to normal people.

I worked very hard during my second and the beginning of the third trimester... maybe harder than I should have had, but I managed to finish a few things I wanted to, so to be able to focus on the baby, once he/she would be born. It was only by the end of June, after coming back from a conference in Boston, that I finally slowed down my pace and started thinking of what was needed for the baby. Giuseppe and I went to childbirth preparation classes, which was great fun. And almost every day, I treated myself with a good and large ice-cream, which was my only pregnancy craving (but to be completely honest, I have always craved ice-cream so I am not sure it really counts!). I can easily say that I now know all the best places for italian ice-cream in the west side!

Two weeks before my due date, my mom arrived in LA to spend three full months with us. It was good that she got here some time before the baby was born, as we managed to get lots of things done. In addition to taking care of the last few baby items, we also managed to do some tourism in LA. We often went for a walk on the beach in Santa Monica, we went to look at the expensive boutiques in Beverly Hills, went to the Getty Museum, went to the LACMA museum to the see King Tut exhibit and we even went to Hollywood to look at the stars on the Walk of Fame. After spending five years in Los Angeles, I had almost entirely forgot that there are some fun touristic attractions even in this city!!...

With all these activities, I found myself at week 39 still wondering what a contraction felt like. I had been reading about these "practice" contractions that supposedly occur throughout the third trimester to get the uterus ready for the real thing, but never felt a single one. This lead me to think that the baby was happy to spend some more days inside my belly and that he/she would be late. Not that I really minded it: I thought it would be good for the baby to have some more time to put some fat on, as at every prenatal appointment I got the remark that I would be having a small baby...

On thursday night August 11th, while we were having dinner, I felt this strange tightening at the top of my uterus, which at the beginning felt like the baby was moving, but was then followed by a cramp in the lower abdomen... that was it: a contraction! The moment I said I felt a contraction, Giuseppe was ready to go to the hospital! I felt some more sporadic contractions that night, but they were very mild and not uncomfortable by any means. So even Giuseppe had to agree that our child would not be born that night. The following night, Friday, contractions started coming again, still mild and without a regular pattern. I managed to sleep and rest through the night, yet feeling the contractions each time they came. When I woke up, contractions tapered off, which made me think that what I was experiencing was just "false" labor and that while it was a good sign that things may start moving along, it did not necessarily imply that the moment was coming right away. Just to be sure, I called our doula Margie and from what I told her she confirmed that it was probably pre-labor, as I did not have any other of the typical signs of real labor.

So we decided we would have the entire weekend in front of us and we went for a walk in Westwood, stopping for lunch at the belgian bakery we like so much. In the afternoon, I also managed to get some deep and refreshing sleep.

As they say it always happens, contractions picked up again at night, as I was getting ready for bed. With Giuseppe we started the fruitless exercise of keeping track of their duration and frequency, but got tired of it soon. They still seemed pretty manageable, so we decided it was time to sleep... which turned out to be less easy than the night before. In my sleepy state, I felt the contractions as longer and more intense than the night before. They started becoming uncomfortable and mildly painful by early morning, requiring me to leave bed and walk around. Still the walking did not make them go away and when Giuseppe woke up, we decided to go to the hospital to have things checked up by the midwife on call. We knew we would not be staying and we did not bring our bag with us. My mom saw us leave with some apprehension.

We got to the hospital at around 11am and they immediately started their routine check-ups. I was hooked to a fetal monitor, which was kind of cool, as it monitored both my contractions and the baby's heart rate. I was found to be 1cm dilated and 50% effaced, which, however small, revealed some progress. At that point, we were ready to go home, but Susan the midwife decided to keep monitoring the baby for some more time, as during one of the strongest contractions the heart rate had gone down, showing possible signs of stress. She also performed an ultrasound, which revealed that the amniotic fluid was ok, but also showed that the baby was looking straight up, meaning he was posterior!... This was not a good news, as I had heard so many horror stories about back-labor, but I decided not to worry too much before hand. In the following two hours during which I was hooked to the monitor everything appeared to be fine, so we were let go to enjoy what was left of a beautiful sunday after being instructed to go back to the hospital the following morning to check the baby again.

In the meantime, my contractions had almost entirely disappeared and I managed to spend a relaxing afternoon at home, reading and sleeping some. After dinner, contractions started coming again every 10 minutes. They were more intense and longer (up to 70 seconds) than the ones I had experienced before, requiring some attention from my side to get through them. With Giuseppe, we started doing some of the breathing and other exercises we were taught during our classes. We also tried some of the pelvic tilts and positions that are recommended to turn a posterior baby. My mom in the mean time looked at us, half amused and half perplexed, probably thinking that at her times no such things were required to have a baby!... All these exercises were fun and helped a lot, at least as a good distracting method.

At around midnight, as my mom and Giuseppe went to bed, I took a warm bath, which was supposed to do wonders for early-labor and to ease contractions. It actually did not: it was nice and relaxing, but contractions still kept coming once every 10 minutes. I still decided to try and get some rest, and went to bed. That was not a good idea: contractions felt stronger while lying down and I kept contracting my legs (with additional discomfort) each time a contraction came. After one hour or so, I could not stay in bed any longer and got up, without waking up Giuseppe. The rest of the night was pretty tough, with long and intense contractions which by early morning were coming every 4-5 minutes. At this point, they were painful and I could not walk through them anymore (or do any other thing I was doing). I was actually glad that we had anyway to go to the hospital in the morning, as I wanted to know whether there was some progress. If not, I remember thinking, how will I ever be able to go through the most intense stage of labor? The thing that kept confusing me was that with a posterior baby, contractions are said to be mostly felt on the back and hardly on the abdomen, whereas I felt all the pain in my abdomen and none on the back.

At around 10 am we were ready to go to the hospital. I was reluctant to take our bags, but Giuseppe decided that we had nothing to loose by taking them with us and put them in the car. My mom saw us leave, this time with even more apprehension than the day before. We decided not to call Margie yet but wait until we had more definite news.

As we got to the hospital I was immediately hooked up to the monitor and at the first contraction, the baby's heart rate slowed down considerably but then recovered fast. This kept happening for the following contractions as well, enough times to make us worry. The interesting part was that for some reasons on the monitor my contractions appeared as almost non existing, despite the efforts of two nurses to readjust my belt. After 30 minutes of monitoring or so, the doctor on call showed up and declared that as the heart rate kept going down at each contraction, the baby needed to be born as soon as possible and that pitocin would be used to speed things up. I was then officially "admitted" to the hospital for labor and delivery and we were moved to an LDR room. We refused to start any intervention before the midwife on call Ann would show up, but in the meantime and despite my protests, I was hooked up to an IV.

It took more or less an hour for Ann to get to the hospital; in this hour or so, the baby's heart rate kept slowing down each time a contraction (which was barely revealed on the monitor) came. Despite of what the monitor said, at this point my contractions were strong, intense and 4 minutes apart and required all my attention to get through them. Ann finally arrived at around 12:20. After checking the baby's condition she sat down next to me and said more or less what the doctor had told us before: there were concerns that the baby could not tolerate a long labor, thus requiring to speed things up. The plan was to start with pitocin to augment labor and check how the baby would handle stronger and more frequent contractions. If this did not result in tangible progress, c-section could become a possibility. In hearing this, I was really saddened and disappointed. This was not at all how I hoped things would go.

But before proceeding, Ann checked me and with her great amazement, she found me 5cm dilated and 100% effaced. This was a good enough progress by itself to postpone any intervention and see how fast things would proceed naturally. I was so relieved... it was fun to see the big surprise in the nurses' faces at the news.. The monitor still had a hard time in tracking my contractions, which made everybody doubt that they were doing anything at all! Of course, I was still bound to stay in bed, because of the need of monitoring the baby, but I did not mind it, as long as they would let things proceed naturally. Giuseppe called Margie, who arrived at around 1:49pm. I think that it was more or less when Margie arrived that I switched from my left to my right side. As soon as I did so, the baby appeared to be doing great with no further signs of stress.

Having Margie was a great help. She guided me through breathing and relaxing each time a contraction came, which at this point was probably every 3 minutes. Our bags were still in our car but I did not want Giuseppe to go; I only allowed him to go out to make a phone call to my mom, to tell here that everything was going fine and that her first grandchild would soon be born.

At 2:33pm Ann checked me again and found me 7cm dilated and that baby's head at 0 station. At this point, things were going on so well and the baby was doing so good that they took me off the monitor and allowed me to walk around. I was not much in the mood of walking (I simply couldn't) but the idea of getting into the shower sounded great. As I got up and took the few steps to get to the shower, I had the weirdest feeling ever: I could feel that the baby had dropped and that all my pelvic bones were stretching to make room for the baby. I spent an hour or so under the warm water; this helped a lot to ease some of the back pain that I had started to feel. As an additional sign that things were really progressing quickly at this point, I started shaking and feeling increasing pressure.

As I got out of the shower at 3:45pm, I was checked again and was at 9cm. The last cm went by very fast. At 4:08 I felt this amazing urge to push. Ann checked me to make sure that I was completely dilated. I only have very blurred memories of the pushing stage. I clearly remember thinking that, as they say in the books, you really know when and how to push: it is such an overwhelming feeling that you simply cannot fight it and just let your body do its job. Contractions were coming only every five minutes, but I needed all this time to recover from the previous contraction. I could perceive that there were lots of preparations going on around me, but I just did not have the energies to follow them. Things proceeded very fast. At 4:24pm, my water broke (with great relief for Giuseppe, it did not end up breaking on our hardwood floor as he was dreading!) and after two more pushes the baby's head crowned. I was allowed to touch it and it was an amazing feeling. It only required one more push and the baby's head was out and immediately after the entire body. It was 4:45pm when Francesco made his entrance into this world with his face looking straight up. He had the umbilical cord not only wrapped around his neck, but also around one shoulder, which explained all the funny behavior of his heart rate. Giuseppe, despite his statements throughout my pregnancy that he would never do it, cut the umbilical cord.

When he was placed on my tummy, he was amazingly alert, looking at me with his big eyes wide open. He nursed a bit and kept looking around, to finally get acquainted with his parents' faces. After an hour or so, he was weighted and measured, washed and swaddled, while we kept looking at him with total wonderment at his beauty and perfection. We were then moved to our room. As Francesco dozed off into sleep after the fatigues of birth, Giuseppe and I had dinner and then Giuseppe went home to pick up my mom, who was eager to finally meet her first grandchild.

Three weeks after his birth (when this story is being written) Francesco is doing great. He has already put on one pound and has a nice round little face and an even rounder little belly. As Judy, our childbirth educator, told us when she heard he was born posterior, he likes to have things done in his way, but he is a mellow and happy child.