It’s been over three months since Blas was born, and as I’m stepping out of my newborn bubble and getting back into a routine, I’m feeling ready to finally share my second birth story.

Eventually I’ll share what it’s been like to transition from one kid to two, but for now, let’s start with the birth of my boy Blas :)

Obvious warning: I will be talking about birth, and this includes bodily fluids, and talk of vaginas and vulvas.

THE DAY BEFORE

On Tuesday, December 3rd, I begun my 39th week of pregnancy. I was already feeling like this baby might come any second. My belly was a lot bigger than it was in my first pregnancy and my intuition was telling me he would come “early” (the official due date was December 10th - my mom’s birthday). I woke up that morning and felt tired. I had asked a friend on Monday what the symptoms of being in labor were, cuz I couldn’t remember. She said many things, but two that stood out to me were “lots of discharge” and “runny poop”. WELL. I woke up to runny poop on Tuesday. I kinda brushed it off, but inside thought “what if I’m in labor!?”… then I went to drop off Luna at daycare, and I felt super wet and when another mom asked me how I was feeling, I heard myself say out loud “I think he’s coming soon, I’ve been feeling very wet today”.

Pabs and brother had gifted me a pregnancy massage, and I had booked it for this day. As I went to the massage, I kept thinking “what if labor starts during the massage!?”. The massage was GLORIOUS - I kept waking myself up with the sound of my snoring. At one point during the end, I felt something in my uterus. Was it a contraction? Is it all in my head? I didn’t know. But I left the massage walking on a cloud.

As I drove to do some errands, I listened to a podcast about “how to know you’re in labor” (lol) and then put on a playlist that was titled “Induce Labor 39+ Weeks Pregnant”. Little did I know how soon this baby would actually come.

After spending hours in the car with a huge pregnant belly, I picked up Luna at day care. She wanted to be carried in my arms to the car and I was completely exhausted. I resented Pabs for being at work and not being here with me. Let me back up a little bit.

Some weeks earlier, Pabs had decided he would quit his job. Pabs has been unofficially working for freethemama since June of 2024, and lately at work he was completely distracted with his actual job, doing work for freethemama instead. After a big fight with his boss, he had decided he no longer wanted to be employed, and wanted to give working for himself a try. We have our savings and now was the time. So he tried to quit, but his boss convinced him to stay. But I wasn’t having it - in my mind, he had already quit and he would be here for us postpartum.

I was feeling OVER IT. I couldn’t picture doing all of this alone - mothering a toddler, a baby, and running a company full time. So that afternoon I sat Pabs down and had a long conversation with him, and I basically told him this baby wouldn’t come until he quit his job tomorrow. We agreed this was the next step to take (though frightening) and went to sleep at 12am.

I woke up at 1am with contractions.

PREPPING FOR THE HOSPITAL

I dozed in and out of consciousness for an hour and a half, trying to count the minutes between contractions but too tired to actually do it in my mind. So I eventually grabbed my phone and timed them, and realized they were every 3, 4 minutes. And I thought OH SHIT. I remember during my first birth, they had been every 10, 8 minutes and my midwife had been like “rest, you’ve still got time”… but this time, every 3, 4 minutes!? I realized this baby was coming soon.

And guess who hadn’t packed the hospital bags yet?? :’)
Yep. So I woke Pabs up, and we started packing all the bags.

One for Blas.
One for me during Labor.
One for me post labor.
One for Pabs post labor.
And one for Luna for her stay at her grandma’s.

We called my mom multiple times, freaking out cuz she wasn’t answering. She eventually picked up, and headed our way to pick Luna (and our dog Chela) up. We also called my midwife to let her know we were headed to the hospital, and she agreed it was time.

And I packed all the bags, while surfing through the waves (contractions) every few minutes. My friend Noelle had just given birth to her baby 5 days ago and she had mentioned how glad she was someone had recommended showering before heading to the hospital, and considering the state of my hair, I decided to do the same. GREAT TIP, would highly recommend going into the hospital feeling fresh.

We woke Luna up and said our goodbyes, and headed to the hospital.

We got in the car and I looked at the clock: 3:33 am.

I took it as a sign that everything was working out perfectly :))

I sat in the back, holding on to the front seat, breathing through the contractions. We got there super quick (and I was so grateful the whole way there, cuz if this had been during the day, we would most definitely have been stuck in traffic), and got checked in to the ER.

ACTIVE LABOR

The ER is the worst part of labor, in my opinion. Sitting in a waiting room while obviously in labor, having strangers look at you, staying focused and trying really hard to shut the world out. Then they took us to a room, where they asked us questions that I could barely answer, put me in those horrible hospital clothes and underwear, and then a midwife came in with an attitude. She said “I’m going to examine you now” and I asked if we could wait for my midwife to arrive so she could do it, and we went “No. I’m going to examine you now. Open your legs.” I don’t know if you’ve ever had a vaginal examination (tacto in Spanish) but that shit HURTS like a motherfucker, and this woman was quite aggressive with her hand. 0/10 would not recommend. Anyway, she told me I was 6 cm dilated which confirmed my intuition that this was gonna be a fast birth.

In the middle of my contractions this lady asked Pabs what his profession was, then asked me what mine was. In my head, I was like… “who the fuck cares!? just take me to my room please!?” but in reality I tried explaining I was a coach / astrologer / business woman? Idk what I responded to be honest.

They took Pabs to sign some forms and left me alone. Then a man came with a wheelchair and wheeled me up to my room. I was having stronger and stronger contractions, and tried to go the whole way with my eyes closed, as to not be disturbed. But one contraction was so strong, I had to tell the man to stop. I got off the wheelchair and started swaying and moaning. I looked around and realized I was in the middle of a hallway/bridge that united one building and the next, like 6 stories high? Anyway, if anyone was looking from outside, they definitely saw my butt. Nothing like having a baby to release all your inhibitions haha

I arrived in my room and a nurse came in and asked me if I’d like my epidural now. I kindly told her “I will not be wanting an epidural and would appreciate it if no one else offered me one”.. she was a bit surprised but nodded, dimmed the lights and left me alone. (For context, I had a physiological labor with Luna and I planned on having a similar, drug free labor). A while later my midwife arrived, then Pabs.

I put on my “chill labor” playlist and moved through my contractions. My midwife (a different one from my first birth, cuz I was at a different hospital - but just as lovely!) taught Pabs how to give me massages while I was riding the waves of the contractions. At times, I despaired. I thought to myself “I should have prepared more for this birth, I’m in too much pain”. When the contractions came, I would shout AAAHHHHHHHH and my midwife would come and hum OOOOOMMMMMMM so I would change from a more mental AHH to a more guttural OMM and that really helped.

At one point, I remembered all the preparation I had done for my first birth. As you may recall, I had two running mantras during Luna’s birth:

“I can do anything for a minute”

&

“Every wave brings me closer to my baby”

So I started repeating these affirmations to myself throughout the contractions, and it was so powerful to hear the shift in my voice whenever I’d tap in to that inner knowledge, that I CAN do this. Pabs would help bring me back to the OOOMMM scream and that also helped me a lot.

I would sway throughout the room, and when the waves came, I would put my arms on the bed and bend my knees and breathe through the wave. Then I switched up to putting my knees on a mat on the floor, and resting my arms on a pilates mat. I asked my midwife how we’d know if it was time to push, and she said she’d know from the sound of my voice.

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And so it was. A couple of minutes later (20 according to Pabs), my voice shifted and it was time to push. I heard a frantic gathering of equipment from her and my obgyn (oh yeah he had slipped into the room and said hi at some point in the past hour but had been laying low cuz he knows it’s the midwife who does most of the work and it wasn’t his time yet) and I begun pushing. I had wanted to give birth on all fours, but it wasn’t working. They had been monitoring the baby’s heartbeat, on and off throughout the birth, and after many unsuccessful pushing attempts, they couldn’t hear the heart anymore.

So in a panic, they moved me to the bed. I had wanted to give birth squatting, but in that moment, i couldn’t care less what position my baby was born in, just that he was healthy.

So they put me on my back, legs up, and soon they could hear his heartbeat again. All good. Then I continued pushing, and they eventually gave me a rope to pull from while i pushed, and that helped a bit. But I was getting tired, and I think at some point here they broke my waters? It’s a bit fuzzy. I remember at one point I pushed so hard that I threw up a bit. Real nice.

Eventually I remembered to ask for a mirror (my midwife and I had agreed she would bring one for my labor) and she brought it out. She put it in front of me, I gave some directions so I could see everything clearly, and this was a game changer.

I pushed about 3 more times… and out he came!

At 6:14 am, on December 4th, Blas Fernandez Bonilla Valderrama was born :)

He cried a bit, the doctors came in (it had been just Pabs, my midwife, my doctor and I the whole time) and checked on him quickly, then I pulled him up to my stomach. My placenta came out quickly (thank the lawwwddd cuz last time it took so long), but I was still in a lot of pain. I asked them to please give me whatever drug they I needed to so that I wouldn’t this pain anymore. I didn’t want any drug throughout labor, but now that he was out, I was like DRUG ME NOW. So they put in the needle into my arm and pumped some drugs in (no clue what) but the pain in my vag was huge.

It’s like… during labor I could bear anything, pain had a purpose and I could handle it. But as soon as Blas was out, the pain became unbearable. I felt a stabbing pain in my vulva and my doctor checked, said I didn’t tear, but it was swollen (eventually they put some ice on it, but that only made it worse).

Anyway. I put Blas on my breast and we started breastfeeding. Just like with Luna, it took me a while to connect with the baby. The pain was all I could think about, and now that I knew that the baby was out and safe, I let myself collapse on the bed with my baby on top. Eventually Pabs cut the umbilical chord and they left us alone for “the golden hour”. I was looking forward to spending an hour skin to skin with Blas… but he happened to poop on me like 3 min after birth so my whole belly was covered in meconium. They ended up leaving us alone in the birthing room for 3 hours, because we needed a pediatrician to come do a checkup before they could let us go to the next room. And by this time, I was freezing and in a terrible mood. Oh and my midwife brought me some ice cream to snack on postpartum, which looking back now, was not a very good idea, considering the body needs warming foods postpartum. All I wanted was to be cleaned so I could go to my room and eat something and take a nap.

The pediatrician finally came and weighed Blas:

2.790 kg and 49 cm.

Just 100g and 1cm bigger than Luna. I make small babies!

POSTPARTUM CARE IN THE HOSPITAL

And with that, we were finally free to go to the next room, where we would spend the next 3 days.

As soon as we got into the room, Pabs went to the car to get our hospital bags, and I was left alone with Blas. A nurse came in and said they needed to take Blas for a glycemic check “immediately”. But I couldn’t move from the bed, and Pabs wasn’t here. So I said no. The nurse was insistent, “it had to happen immediately”, but I put my foot down.

You see, during my last post partum experience, I hadn’t really found my voice as a mother, and I obeyed blindly. Luna was born in 2022, during covid, so we weren’t allowed to leave our room during our 4 days there. They took Luna for multiple hours of the day because she had high bilirubin. But I was never able to go see her, because covid.

So this time, I was like hell no. This baby’s not leaving my side unless he goes with his dad. I had been waiting for 3 hours for them to bring me to this room, and as soon as they brought me to the room, they needed to take him IMMEDIATELY? Fuck that.

I stood my ground, Pabs arrived 15 min later and he went with Blas for his check up.

Oh and throughout all the check ups (multiple times a day), there was always something wrong with him. Either his temperature was too low, or his glycemic levels needed improvement. I was like please stop taking this baby away from me, his glycemic levels will improve with breastfeeding, not with you poking his fingers with a needle and taking his blood. I ended up being a bitchy patient but I think this time around, I was just a lot more secure in my mothering instincts and not scared to speak up and say “no”.

That’s not really part of the birth story but I thought it was important to share as well, as it was part of my hospital experience.

Oh. Another thing worth mentioning:

I am pescatarian at the moment.

And the food at the hospital? It’s shit.

For breakfast, they’d give me white bread, with butter, soft cheese, white crackers and jam (pictured here). For snacks and desserts: cakes and some sad looking apples (when there’s an abundance of delicious fruits in December).

I had just finished reading The First Forty Days, and was craving colorful and nutritious meals. Instead, I was greeted with bland, white food. I even spoke to the nutritionist on call and expressed my outrage. I asked for some eggs for breakfast and she said “it wouldn’t be possible”. Like… what? How hard is it to boil an egg?

I was overjoyed to get home and eat some nutritious meals again. And for the next forty days, I had an abundance of help from other mothers and friends, who would come with home cooked meals and would help around the house.

If I ever have more kids, I’d definitely consider a homebirth. I’ve always wanted a homebirth but there have been plenty of fears instilled in me. Now that i’ve had two physiological births without complications, I know for a fact that I CAN do this.

I don’t mind birthing a baby in a hospital. Both of my hospital births have been just fine!! But it’s the post partum hospital experience which I hate. Being fed shitty food and having my baby taken for constant check ups. Having people walk into the room at 6 am to change the trashbag (!?), or to squeeze my boobs and give me lectures on how and when to feed my baby (i’ve done this before thank you). If I sound pissed off and annoyed, it’s because I was, and maybe still am. I have a lot of Aquarius energy and I hate being told what to do, so I really hate the hospital experience lol

FINAL THOUGHTS

Luna ended up coming to meet baby Blas the next day, and has been obsessed with him since that day. Becoming a family of four has been quite an adjustment, but we’re finally getting into a rhythm.

And Blas is the sweetest baby boy. We’re all obsessed with him.

So here we are, at the end of this very long birth story (though it was a very short birth - from 1am to 6am!).

Thank you for reading! I’m glad I finally sat down to write this, as it was starting to get a little foggy, and I had to ask Pabs questions and listen to some voice notes I sent in order to remember some details more clearly.

Sending love your way,

Nati