MY BIRTH STORY by Paula Perelejo-Fernandez

If you’ve been following me on Instagram, you probably know I’ve been preparing for a normal (vaginal delivery), natural (unmedicated) birth.
As I always say though, I am aware that sometimes, things don’t always happen as planned, though what’s important is that you worked for it and tried your best.
Of all things I did not in any way consider nor expect, it was how my labor started.
This is my story with my firstborn, Pablo.
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 37 weeks – We visited our doctor for our checkup and it was the first time she did an I.E. (internal/vaginal examination) on me. According to her, my cervix was already about 50% effaced and I was about 1-2 cm dilated. I told her I was not sure but there seemed to be a little blood in my underwear the previous night, but I was wearing a black underwear (big mistake! lesson learned: do not wear dark underwear when on your 37th week onwards) so there’s a chance it might be a false alarm. She told me to just observe, asked me if I felt any contractions, told her not yet, but that I would keep an eye on them. Everything looked great so far! When we got home, a series of events happened that led me to thinking I was going to be in labor soon: I had diarrhea all day even though I was eating the same food, I also had irregular contractions for about 2 days, and I would have discharge every once in a while (which I never had throughout my pregnancy prior to this week).
38 weeks – No signs of going into labor. No contractions of any sort. My OB did another I.E. and I was about 2-3 cm dilated. She told me it’s impossible to be dilated without contracting, so maybe I just really wasn’t feeling it. I had a biophysical scan profile (a kind of ultrasound that measures the health of the baby) to make sure the baby was fine, and everything was going as planned. I was happy to reach at least 38 weeks! I wanted to give birth somewhere in between the 39th and 40th week because that would mean full term, but reaching 38 was good enough for me.
39 weeks – Still no signs of labor. No contractions.  ...

READ the full story on Paula's website