Bonafede Ormonts

Baby Ethan Michael Bonafede Ormont

He has arrived!!!!! Born Friday, February 5th at 11:10pm, 21 inches long, 7 lbs 15 oz and all without pain medication!!!!

Thursday I had a acupunture appointment at 2:30pm to help induce contraction, hoping it would work before my scheduled and dreaded induction for Monday night. Thursday night told Joe not to stay up late in case I go into labor, ha ha, not thinking that would happen. 2:30am Friday morning contractions started and were coming anywhere from every 5 to 12 minutes apart and pretty manageable. Labored through those contraction in bed trying to sleep in between. Then at 6am I was up and awake, so I took a shower and ate. Then I decided I wanted beautiful hair, so I blow dried my hair in between contractions, ha! If I knew my hair was going to look like crap at the end of this, I wouldn't have spent the time and would have just rested instead.

So after I beautified myself, I laid down in bed for a nap, and surprisingly my contraction slowed down quite a bit and I almost thought- man, was all this just false labor. I had an acupuncture appointment at 9:30am, so at 8am I called the acupuncturist to see what she thought about me coming in for my session or not, since I did have contractions from 2:30am to about 7am, but that they slowed down considerably. She said yes, to come in b/c another session should get them going again, which is what I wanted. In the mean time Joe had called the midwives to see if I needed to come in for my already sceduled ultrasound and cervical check appointments. They said yes. So at 8:30am we headed to my acupunture appointment and on the way there, my contractions started up again. When I got there they slowed again, I only had one contraction during my acupuncture session with needles all over me and it wasn't painful.

Then we headed to my ultrasound and my contractions were about 10 minutes apart. Everything looked good in the ultrasound, he had good fluid levels and his heart beat and cord blood beat were good. So off to the midwife appointment to see if hopefully I was dilated. Contraction continued, so needless to say I wasn't walking very briskly. When we got to the midwife appointment we waited in the lobby for like 30 minutes and I had a few contractions there. Then the good news, I was 4cm dilated!!!! yay, so happy to hear that. Margaret, the midwife checked to see if the labor tub at Vanderbilt was available and it wasn't, the woman that was in there was only 5 cm dilated. SO Margaret suggested going home to labor and then to call the hospital when my contractions were intense, hoping that by then the labor tub would be available.

So we went home and I labored there for a while. At around 3:30pm I felt like they were getting intense and didn't care if the labor tub was available or not, plus I was dreading the contractions I would have to experience on the car ride over there and wanted to be done. Joe called the midwife at the hospital and still my contractions were only 5-6 minutes apart, so she suggested to Joe that I labor at home in the tub and when they were 3-4 minutes apart to call again and most likely head to the hospital.

Laboring in the tub was okay, but not ideal as we have a small tub so laying in there was awkward, although the warm water did feel good. After about 30 minutes I was done with the tub, my arms were hurting from having to support myself in the tub. So I got out and then continued laboring in the house. Mainly standing up and swaying my hips or sitting on the birth ball and bouncing, but definately did not like being touched during contractions. Around 6:00pm I felt like these contractions were too intense and I didn't not want them to be any more intense for the car ride to the hospital. So Joe called the midwife and told her that we were headed to the hospital because I felt like I wouldn't handle the car ride over with anything more intense. So we left around 6:30pm to Vandy. Arrived at 7pm, slowly walked from the parking garage to the elevators and then to labor and delivery. Had to fill out a form upon arrival, blah. Then when we got to the labor room, I had to be strapped to a heart rate monitor for 20 minute test strip to make sure everything was okay with baby. The 20 minutes seemed like forever, especially since I had 5 or more contractions before they finally came to take it off.

My midwife finally came in to check me and I was dilated to what she called 7-8cm. She asked if I wanted to break my water or labor a bit first. I decided to hold off on the water breakage, since she said if she did it would increase the intensity of my contractions, but should move things quickly. So we went to walk around the hallway, but after having one contraction out there, I wanted back in the room, I felt more comfortable there. Then after walking around the room for a bit I labored in the shower some and that helped. After being in the shower for 30 minutes the midwife came back to check me. I needed to sit on the toilet and ended up doing 2 contractions there and finally was able to get to the bed so I could be checked. I was at 9cm, yay, and she said she was going to break my water, b/c Ethan was right there and everything was going to go quickly after that.

Well after pushing a few times, he wasn't coming because part of my cervix was still caught onto his head. My midwife didn't want me to have a cervical tear, so I had to labor through some more contractions and not push until his head was free. That was so so so hard. I wanted to push but couldn't and the contractions hurt like you know what. Finally the news I had been waiting for, the cervix had gotten out of the way and I could prepare to push. Joe says it took about 20-25 minutues for me to push Ethan out. I on the other hand felt like it was a century. I kept hearing the midwife and labor nurse and Joe tell me oh he's coming, he almost here, I can see him. It just seemed like forever. They said I had to give a good push or they would have to cut an episiotomy, well I didn't want that so I gave one last push and Ethan was here.

They asked if I wanted him on my chest right away, but I was still in so much pain and breathing really hard and fast, so Joe went with Ethan and they measured him and cleaned him, and then Joe held onto him. Unfortunately I had a 2nd degree tear and had to sit through a stitching session, which was also painful, b/c I kept feeling it and they had to keep giving me a shot to numb the area. Anyway, at some point it all was finally over and we were wheeled to the post partum room for rest and recovery.

Thank you God for a safe delivery of baby Ethan and that he is very healthy.